This is a warning that this will be a very bizzare post. This is a warning because most of you are not used to reading the ramblings of this partially sane graduate student. Poor, old Gallagher, on the other hand, has become used to my antics and idiosyncracies.
As I read Canagarajah, I feel very weird. That might be a weird thing to say in a post that is supposed to "think through ideas," but if Canagarajah is all about the position from which a writer is coming from and the materiality of publishing, this is the materiality of me. I feel weird reading him. Not in a I'm-a-bad-person-because-I'm-the-man kind of way, and not in a awkward-guilt kind of way. I feel as if I see similarities in how Canagarajah thinks about issues with how I do at times. And I'm not sure this post will make any sense, but Charlie's post has made me start considering different ways in which we talk about the same phenomena, how these metaphors or frameworks impact the values we place on it, and how they affect the assignment of agency and blame. Perhaps I should be more specific.
Charlie: "As I read this, I was struck with how I have always sub-consciously viewed conventional standards in writing to be apolitical; applied indiscriminately to everyone partaking in a particular intellectual exercise, the entire group is subjected to the same restraints."
James's Mind: "How curious... Maybe its the ornery, paranoid Marxist in me, but I always viewed conventional standards as a tool of those in power used to maintain their power. As class divisions deepened in England and America, there was an explosion of books about etiquette. While the elites signified their power and maintained a distance from the lower classes through certain social and linguistic conventions - Emily Post and Amy Vanderbilt's guides both encouraged the use of the term 'serviette' instead of 'napkin' when in certain milieus - the lower classes hoped that by learning them they could pass and gain social mobility and standing. The serviette is Western academic conventions."
Charlie: "Going a step further, I would argue that this illusion of increased access has effectively cemented the elite, exclusive nature of Western journals."
James's Mind: "Wow... Creepy... I just thought that. Get out of my head."
(a moment passes)
James's Mind: "But wait... I feel like that discription seems to put a lot of agency into the hands of Western journals. Or elites. Even in the case of serviettes, I can't help but wonder about how the processes and conventions operate on those with power as well. Just like the coercive law of competition in capitalism (even if the capitalists want to play nice with workers, they can't because they won't maintain enough competitive edge to remain part of the capitalist class.)" [My mind does have asides in it's internal dialogues]
This left me pondering for a while. Here I had the beginnings of three ways of looking at conventions and processes. (1) As neutral and blanket applied. Much like aestheticism in art. (2) As politically invested perspectives that "constitute discourse" and perform "ideological functions" (83). More specifically with a the-man-is-keeping-us-down vibe (go revolutionary mythologies!). And (3) as a process and system of knowledge production that was constructed to vet knowledge, but is biased because of its historically situated construction (one undoubtedly that was originally biased against people who were not elite). That perspective though does not necessarily lend to finding fault with the people. Which is perhaps why Canagarajah focuses on conventions and journals.
This third perspective got me thinking about distributed cognition - especially since Canagarajah calls the conventions "a way of thinking" (83). From what I can remember about distributed cognition, it can be categorized in several ways: (1) cognitive processes can be spread across people and/or animals, (2) cognitive processes may be spread between the internal and external (brain structures and the environment), and (3) cognitive processes occur throughout time in such a way that the products of earlier events change the nature of similar events. Conventions and publishing processes could be thought about historically through this framework. They were originally how knowledge was vetted by an elite group of people. This how became externalized and institutionalized in procedures and journals. This "way of thinking" - literally embodied in the submission process - is biased, especially against those who it was opposed to at the time of its creation (e.g. women and their battle against the blind review process in the 90s). The old biases in the process affect the nature of similar situations, like the encounter of scholars from different cultural contexts that the original process did not anticipate, even if the scholars running the process are liberal minded people who don't assume a scholar from China is "inferior" because his/her writing doesn't match convention. The result is the same because part of the thinking structure is the same. The processes themselves literally filter and value the knowledge without human agency. To a degree.
I feel like option 1 for interpreting the situation is... well... naive. Which isn't bad unless one has been afforded a view or experience of the system that should challenge that perspective. But it seems to support the kind of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality. Or the idea of a free market in which intellectual ideas compete on the basis of their merits alone and the best ideas win and the best ideas lose and there is nothing else but good common sense and the mystical hand of the market guiding us. By treating conventions as an equal playing field, this approach focuses solely on mental concepts and eliminates the material constraints that form social relations. It puts the blame on those struggling against material constraints. I feel like option 2 is a bit reductive - even though it is always my gut reaction. It so heavily focuses on social relations (and perhaps the myths of revolution) that it overlooks how the processes impact everyone involved. It tends to put the blame on those who have power or success in the system, regardless of their situation. I feel like option three... I'm not sure. It seems to have the most balanced approach to me. But at the same time, the emphasis on the system risks removing agency or blame from the people do have some control over how the system is run. Yet, at the same time, it's focus on the processes seems to lend itself to reforms that are more likely to be implemented because it isn't blaming the people with control over the system (as much as my gut reaction does anyway). It does allow leeway for not all in power to be prejudiced, but it also argues that prejudice still exists - as part of the system, and as a result of the system in the minds of those who use it.
I'm not happy with any of them though. I'm not sure what to do with this.
No comments:
Post a Comment