Iswari Pandey’s chapter “Researching (With) the Postnational “Other”” reflects his interest and investment in transnational, global as well as literacy issues and concern with research ethics and methodologies. As a self-reflexive ethnographer, Pandey explores “the limits and possibilities of researching digital literacy practices through the lens of a postnational perspective” (107). Building on the theoretical framework of postnationality and postnational literacy practices occasioned by the transnational move of people, capital and cultures or phenomena of globalization, he further explores and illustrates the complexities-excitement and challenges- involved in researching with postnational subjects and their digital literacy practices.
As does he in his own digital literacy narrative elsewhere, he tracks ideological underpinnings in digital literacy practices of postnational subjects here too and also attests to what Cynthia Selfe and Richard Selfe have characterized digital spaces as being, apart from sites for literacy practices, also “sites where different forms of oppression are reproduced: sexism, racism, colonialism, and homophobia” (qtd in Pandey 113). He finds digital space/s highly contested as are they fraught with competing set of ideologies vying for manipulation and exploitation of the postnational subjects.
Though Pandey’s major aim here is to explore gamers’ literacy development in a cultural context, his self-reflexivity towards the end is very revealing and insightful. Spotlighting his research experience with the postnational subjects, the moments of conflicts of objectives and interests between him and his research participants despite their supposed common ground and his misreading of hybridized cultural and linguistic signs produced in them (postnational subjects) by the postnational condition/s, he confesses that researching postnational participants in digital environments is fraught with risks and challenges. Such stakes and challenges lie among others in attracting research participants, understanding and interpreting their responses and representing them in the final research product. He gains a lot of insights from this research experience such as the need of creating reciprocal and collaborative research relationships between the researcher and his/her researcher participants; being more aware of the possibility of conflicts of interests and objectives between and among them despite the shared identity; defining explicitly one’s location as a researcher and understanding the participant-researcher relationship based on a clear understanding and interrogation of location, which, he deems, are instrumental to “ethical inquiry in digital writing research” (124). Similarly, he realizes that the issues of inequity, positionality or cultural/national situatedness of the researcher and research participants are equally important to understand the postnational “Other” better. Thus, for him, constant interrogation and understanding of the location/positionality of the researcher is the most prominent ethical issue while researching the postnational “Other”.
I mostly agree with Pandey’s reflections on digital writing research. Since this chapter is based on his experience as an ethnographer, his ideas and reflections are/should be to a great extent true save the potentiality of spatio-temporal variations. Though I myself align with Pandey’s stand on (post)nationality/nationalism, there are number of ways to complicate his key concept: (post)nationalism. For the purpose of debate/discussion, and since I am reading them all for my final project, I am deliberately putting Pandey and Eileen Schell/ Wendy Hesford face to face. While doing that I am not implying that Schell and Hesford are the advocates of nationalism. Not in kind, but I see between them a difference of degree in their beliefs in nationalism/postnationalism.
I am talking about Wendy S. Hesford and Eileen E. Schell’s introduction to special issue of College English on feminist rhetorics and transnationalism where they argue that the discipline of rhetoric and composition, US-centric and built around the narratives of nation, nationalism, and citizenship, would
benefit from a more critical engagement with its use of transgeographical concepts (displacement, transculuration, translocality), transnational constructs such as Paul Gilroy’s “Black Atlantic” (Sandars 812), and transnational ethnic configurations (African, African-American, West Indian people; Chicano, Puerto Rican, and Latino/Latin American people; Native American and indigenous people; Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander people), and consideration of the epistemological and historical ties between disciplinary formations and U.S. imperialism. (463)
If I rightly discerned, Hesford and Schell’s call in this special issue is for expanding and opening the discipline’s hitherto closed borders to transnational phenomena and experiences, insights and knowledge systems and discourses thereby extending/expanding the range and scope of “Composition Studies…constructed, indeed disciplined, as a sovereign state” (464) and particularly the feminist rhetorics. Their move is towards incorporating in the curriculum of U.S-based composition programs the ideas and contents about “how composition instruction is taught and engaged across the globe” (464).
My initial impression is that Schell and Hesford stand opposed to Pandey in their views on nation states and their subjects. Pandey terms nations postnations and their subjects postnational/transnational throughout his essay. For him every individual no matter where and how s/he is, is already transnational/postnational given the context of the demise of nation-states as distinct political and cultural unit. Schell and Hesford, however, reject this kind of characterization of nations and their subjects as: “[A]lthough some scholars claim that we live in a psotnationalist state, we align ourselves with those who account for the global reach of nationlist discourses and, more specifically, the power of U.S. policy, media, and military” (463). It may be because Pandey and Schell/Hesford stand in different discourse locations. But questions still linger: what is the role of discourse locations or ideological baggages in research? Do they affect the research methods/methodologies, analytical approaches and outcomes?
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
CCR 691 Annotation: Horner, Bruce and John Trimbur. “English Only and U.S. College Composition.”
Horner, Bruce and John Trimbur. “English Only and U.S. College Composition.” College Composition and Communication 53.4 (2002): 594-630.
Summary:
Bruce Horner and John Trimbur trace the pedagogical and cultural developments that have led to the conception of English writing in the United States as a unidirectional and monolingual acquisition of literate competence. While these assumptions have been motivated by the modernist ideology of "one language/one nation," the authors envision that postmodern globalization may require us to develop in our students a multilingual and polyliterate orientation to writing. They outline the shifts in curriculum, policy, and research that will promote such a broadened pedagogical orientation in the future.”
Some striking quotes:
“We argue that a tacit language policy of unidirectional English monolingualism has shaped the historical formation of U.S. writing instruction and continues to influence its theory and practice in shadowy, largely unexamined ways” (594-5)
“As we have argued, this tacit language policy weighs heavily on our work studying and teaching writing. This largely unexamined language policy has made it difficult to see that U.S. college composition, from its
formation to the present day, operates for the most part within national borders…The task…is to develop an internationalist perspective capable of understanding the study and teaching of written English in relation to other languages and to the dynamics of globalization”(623-4).
Summary:
Bruce Horner and John Trimbur trace the pedagogical and cultural developments that have led to the conception of English writing in the United States as a unidirectional and monolingual acquisition of literate competence. While these assumptions have been motivated by the modernist ideology of "one language/one nation," the authors envision that postmodern globalization may require us to develop in our students a multilingual and polyliterate orientation to writing. They outline the shifts in curriculum, policy, and research that will promote such a broadened pedagogical orientation in the future.”
Some striking quotes:
“We argue that a tacit language policy of unidirectional English monolingualism has shaped the historical formation of U.S. writing instruction and continues to influence its theory and practice in shadowy, largely unexamined ways” (594-5)
“As we have argued, this tacit language policy weighs heavily on our work studying and teaching writing. This largely unexamined language policy has made it difficult to see that U.S. college composition, from its
formation to the present day, operates for the most part within national borders…The task…is to develop an internationalist perspective capable of understanding the study and teaching of written English in relation to other languages and to the dynamics of globalization”(623-4).
CCR 691: Annotation: Canagarajah: Geopolitics of Academic Writing
Geopolitics of Academic Writing is A. Suresh Canagarajah’s ambitious work, where he critiques the western academic journals’ insularity to non-western scholars, knowledge and/or scholarship. The non-western scholars are usually rejected on grounds of deviant discourse conventions such as awkward constructions or personal style. Canagarajah connects this gesture of western journals and publications to larger issues like west’s hegemony over and domination of east in knowledge construction, production and distribution as well as long-standing economic, social, cultural or political inequalities between the “center” west and “periphery” east. His critique of western publishing conventions, gate keeping practices and tendency to marginalize the “periphery” scholars and their knowledge/scholarship is grounded on his own experience as a Third-world scholar (at U of Jaffna, Sri Lanka) struggling to get published and recognized from the “center”. Now, a canon in ESL, Linguistics and Rhet. Comp. in US (“center”), Canagarajah, here, meticulously recounts how he managed to negotiate differing discourse conventions of his own (periphery) and the west (center) and get access into western media and thus get published from the “center”. In the text, he encourages his fellow scholars from “periphery” to implement similar coping strategies (negotiation) to get access to knowledge making process in the “center” partly because of his conviction that "it is a necessary evil that periphery scholars should use center publications even to resist their domination" (Canagarajah 12).
Canagarajah views the academic journals (primarily at the “center”) as “contact zones” in the era of globalization, where different discourse conventions from both “center” and “periphery” encounter and grapple with one another. But he is dismayed to find that unlike in other “contact zones,” grapple at the academic “contact zones” is far from fair as publishers in center have intervened and gate kept by imposing discourse conventions blind to periphery differences. He tracks a lot of economic, political and other vested interests behind the “center’s” imposing arbitrary publishing requirements and discriminatory practices of excluding, disciplining, appropriating or exploiting periphery scholarship. He then quickly links all these practices with center’s academic imperialism or domination and deems some kind of actions urgent or interactions, at the least, between scholars in the “center” and “periphery” to take stock of the existing situation. Such an interaction could be mutually beneficial. He claims that periphery scholars can benefit largely from critical engagement with center knowledge and center too can not be representative or inclusive of the global knowledge without insights or critiques from the periphery.
In a nutshell, as Canagarajah himself puts it, his argument in this book is:
academic writing holds a central place in the process of constructing, disseminating, and legitimating knowledge; however, for discursive and material reasons, Third World scholars experience exclusion from academic publishing and communication; therefore the knowledge of Third World communities is marginalized or appropriated by the West, while knowledge of Western communities is legitimated and reproduced; and as part of this process, academic writing/publishing plays a role in the material and ideological hegemony of the West. (6)
This being the overarching argument, the text, however, is divided into eight chapters. In the first chapter “Contextualizing Academic Writing,” Canagarajah prepares the context for his inquiry by highlighting center-periphery inequality of research articles and connecting it with center’s hegemony or domination over periphery knowledge and scholarship. In the second, “Communities of Knowledge Construction,” he analyses the discourse communities in the center and periphery through historical-materialist framework and maintains that “knowledge… [is] interested and, therefore, ideological" (57). He finds conflicting discourses and disciplines or discourse communities in the center too but negotiated for the purpose of benefit, power and influence. In the third chapter, “Conventions in Knowledge Construction,” he explores how knowledge is constructed in the center by enacting academic gate keeping conventions which are politically and economically motivated. In short, chapter two and three “introduce the theoretical constructs that help conduct the inquiry” (Canagarajah 4). Canagrajah discusses the differences in textual conventions in the writings of center and periphery scholars in chapter four, “Textual Conventions in Conflict”. As opposed to general tendency of associating center-periphery disparity in conventions and styles of writing with cultural or linguistic differences, he analyses the differences along the lines of material disparities. With material, he also couples ideological underpinning behind adopting certain kind of rhetorical convention or style as, for instance, in the center’s case, says Canagarajah, “there are profound ideological implications in adopting a rhetoric that is detached, neutral, and uninvolved" (153).
Similarly, in chapter five, “Publishing Requirements and Material Constraints,” Canagrajah “explores the publishing conventions established by center editorial circles and the ways in which periphery scholars attempt to meet such requirements in the context of limited resources” (4). Recounting and based on his own experience as a periphery scholar hard faced with poverty and material constraints and yet struggling to meet the publishing requirements set by the center, he infers that western publishing requirements choke the periphery scholars and their scholarship as majority of them lack enough material resources to meet the publishing requirements. Chapter six, “Literacy Practices and Academic Culture,” presents the political economy of literacy in periphery. As an insider, Canagarajah here presents the academic culture of periphery scholars shedding light on how it functions as the cause and consequence of their exclusion from the mainstream publications at the center. Chapter seven, “Poverty and Power in Knowledge Production,” deals with the center-periphery inequalities as is reflected in publishing practices and knowledge construction. This chapter also demonstrates how production inequality translates into power inequality between the center and periphery. Finally, in chapter eight, “Reform, Resistance, Reconstruction,” Canagarajah declares his goal in writing this volume. He maintains that his attempt is to” deconstruct the bases of “excellence” in published scholarship and knowledge construction. This is an argument for changing the relationships in the publication networks so that we can reconstruct knowledge- and presumably conduct international relations-in more egalitarian and enriching terms” (305). He therefore calls for some visible changes in publishing world and practices in order to "democratize participation" (276) of scholars from both the center and periphery. This, according to him, can be ascertained by forging a relationship between the center and periphery academic communities, “based on respect for the local knowledge of each community,” which “would serve to democratize academic communication and knowledge production” (4) as well as by accommodating multiple modes of literacy and textual practices.
Though his ambitious attempt to deconstruct the existing academic and publishing conditions and create “relatively more democratic fora of scholarly interaction,” (305) or “reconstitute discourses and structures in progressively more inclusive, ethical, and democratic terms,” (30) is far from realistic, his suggestions for periphery scholars to use coping strategies to get access into mainstream academic journals and thereby knowledge construction process are worth emulating. He suggests them to choose hybrid textuality as he does in this book: “[t]he periodic narrative sections, the self-reflective commentary, and the unabashed personal voice are interspersed with documented detached analysis to achieve hybrid textuality in this book” (Canagarajah 30). Similarly significant is his call on periphery scholars to continue interrogating knowledge produced by the center and proposal for the mainstream journals to democratize the scholarly participation if they wish to go global. He, in connection with center’s desirable gesture, says,” reforming publishing conventions to accommodate the work of periphery academics might well function as a humble beginning toward democratic processes in knowledge production and, by extension, geopolitical relations” (305). Thus, his call for some degree of compromise or negotiation from both the parties in question is timely and is much needed gesture to reduce, even if not to end, the existing disparities between them. One more thing that is of paramount importance is his speculation that “[T]hrough such processes of mediation, negotiation, and even argument, center and periphery scholars may establish mutually enriching scholarly discourses and more ethical knowledge-construction practices” (31).
Canagarajah views the academic journals (primarily at the “center”) as “contact zones” in the era of globalization, where different discourse conventions from both “center” and “periphery” encounter and grapple with one another. But he is dismayed to find that unlike in other “contact zones,” grapple at the academic “contact zones” is far from fair as publishers in center have intervened and gate kept by imposing discourse conventions blind to periphery differences. He tracks a lot of economic, political and other vested interests behind the “center’s” imposing arbitrary publishing requirements and discriminatory practices of excluding, disciplining, appropriating or exploiting periphery scholarship. He then quickly links all these practices with center’s academic imperialism or domination and deems some kind of actions urgent or interactions, at the least, between scholars in the “center” and “periphery” to take stock of the existing situation. Such an interaction could be mutually beneficial. He claims that periphery scholars can benefit largely from critical engagement with center knowledge and center too can not be representative or inclusive of the global knowledge without insights or critiques from the periphery.
In a nutshell, as Canagarajah himself puts it, his argument in this book is:
academic writing holds a central place in the process of constructing, disseminating, and legitimating knowledge; however, for discursive and material reasons, Third World scholars experience exclusion from academic publishing and communication; therefore the knowledge of Third World communities is marginalized or appropriated by the West, while knowledge of Western communities is legitimated and reproduced; and as part of this process, academic writing/publishing plays a role in the material and ideological hegemony of the West. (6)
This being the overarching argument, the text, however, is divided into eight chapters. In the first chapter “Contextualizing Academic Writing,” Canagarajah prepares the context for his inquiry by highlighting center-periphery inequality of research articles and connecting it with center’s hegemony or domination over periphery knowledge and scholarship. In the second, “Communities of Knowledge Construction,” he analyses the discourse communities in the center and periphery through historical-materialist framework and maintains that “knowledge… [is] interested and, therefore, ideological" (57). He finds conflicting discourses and disciplines or discourse communities in the center too but negotiated for the purpose of benefit, power and influence. In the third chapter, “Conventions in Knowledge Construction,” he explores how knowledge is constructed in the center by enacting academic gate keeping conventions which are politically and economically motivated. In short, chapter two and three “introduce the theoretical constructs that help conduct the inquiry” (Canagarajah 4). Canagrajah discusses the differences in textual conventions in the writings of center and periphery scholars in chapter four, “Textual Conventions in Conflict”. As opposed to general tendency of associating center-periphery disparity in conventions and styles of writing with cultural or linguistic differences, he analyses the differences along the lines of material disparities. With material, he also couples ideological underpinning behind adopting certain kind of rhetorical convention or style as, for instance, in the center’s case, says Canagarajah, “there are profound ideological implications in adopting a rhetoric that is detached, neutral, and uninvolved" (153).
Similarly, in chapter five, “Publishing Requirements and Material Constraints,” Canagrajah “explores the publishing conventions established by center editorial circles and the ways in which periphery scholars attempt to meet such requirements in the context of limited resources” (4). Recounting and based on his own experience as a periphery scholar hard faced with poverty and material constraints and yet struggling to meet the publishing requirements set by the center, he infers that western publishing requirements choke the periphery scholars and their scholarship as majority of them lack enough material resources to meet the publishing requirements. Chapter six, “Literacy Practices and Academic Culture,” presents the political economy of literacy in periphery. As an insider, Canagarajah here presents the academic culture of periphery scholars shedding light on how it functions as the cause and consequence of their exclusion from the mainstream publications at the center. Chapter seven, “Poverty and Power in Knowledge Production,” deals with the center-periphery inequalities as is reflected in publishing practices and knowledge construction. This chapter also demonstrates how production inequality translates into power inequality between the center and periphery. Finally, in chapter eight, “Reform, Resistance, Reconstruction,” Canagarajah declares his goal in writing this volume. He maintains that his attempt is to” deconstruct the bases of “excellence” in published scholarship and knowledge construction. This is an argument for changing the relationships in the publication networks so that we can reconstruct knowledge- and presumably conduct international relations-in more egalitarian and enriching terms” (305). He therefore calls for some visible changes in publishing world and practices in order to "democratize participation" (276) of scholars from both the center and periphery. This, according to him, can be ascertained by forging a relationship between the center and periphery academic communities, “based on respect for the local knowledge of each community,” which “would serve to democratize academic communication and knowledge production” (4) as well as by accommodating multiple modes of literacy and textual practices.
Though his ambitious attempt to deconstruct the existing academic and publishing conditions and create “relatively more democratic fora of scholarly interaction,” (305) or “reconstitute discourses and structures in progressively more inclusive, ethical, and democratic terms,” (30) is far from realistic, his suggestions for periphery scholars to use coping strategies to get access into mainstream academic journals and thereby knowledge construction process are worth emulating. He suggests them to choose hybrid textuality as he does in this book: “[t]he periodic narrative sections, the self-reflective commentary, and the unabashed personal voice are interspersed with documented detached analysis to achieve hybrid textuality in this book” (Canagarajah 30). Similarly significant is his call on periphery scholars to continue interrogating knowledge produced by the center and proposal for the mainstream journals to democratize the scholarly participation if they wish to go global. He, in connection with center’s desirable gesture, says,” reforming publishing conventions to accommodate the work of periphery academics might well function as a humble beginning toward democratic processes in knowledge production and, by extension, geopolitical relations” (305). Thus, his call for some degree of compromise or negotiation from both the parties in question is timely and is much needed gesture to reduce, even if not to end, the existing disparities between them. One more thing that is of paramount importance is his speculation that “[T]hrough such processes of mediation, negotiation, and even argument, center and periphery scholars may establish mutually enriching scholarly discourses and more ethical knowledge-construction practices” (31).
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Shirley Logan: “Private Learners: Self-Education in Rhetoric”
Shirley Logan: “Private Learners: Self-Education in Rhetoric”
In the second chapter of Liberating Language, Logan examines closely five private learners of “some form of self-education” (29)—Charlotte Forten Grimke, Frances Anne Rollin Whipper, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Mary Virginia Montgomery, and Charles W. Chestnut—who “spent a good deal of time on self-improvement, especially in reading, writing, speaking, and critiquing the rhetorical performances of others, and who all recorded various aspects of their private learning in diaries” (30). Through archival research and rhetorical analysis of their published diary entries and unpublished manuscripts, she presents diary keeping as a site of rhetorical acts and claims that diary-keeping also serves rhetorical education. In addition to regarding their diary keeping as literacy practices for self-education/improvement, she further argues that their diaries “provide additional insight into the complex intellectual lives of blacks in the mid-and late nineteenth century” (32). According to her, these diarists turned to different available resources from self-help manuals to local libraries; attended public speeches and meetings and undertook various literate/literacy activities from writing letters to biographies to newspaper articles in order to self-educate. The driving force behind their pursuit was their quest for respectability, independence, racial equality, rhetorical/oratorical skills, and/or “race improvement through self-improvement” (55).
Her archival and analytical work being worth emulating and her treatment of diary-keeping as a site of rhetorical action/education being innovative, I can however see few problematic issues in this chapter.
First, she makes big claims based on just five diarists though she confesses that “these five diarists are not representative of the majority of nineteenth-century African Americans” (31). When she knows that these cases neither represent majority of nineteenth century diarists/diaries nor AA people, how could or on what ground could she draw so many generalizations?
Next, her use of the term self-education seems equally problematic. None of the diarists she discusses is solely self-educated. In contrast, all of them have different degree of formal schooling/academic training. Since nowhere does she discuss these diarists’ academic courses and course components, it is really hard to determine what rhetorical/literate skills they learned from school/training and what from “self-study/ies”. It is apparent from the text that these diarists’ learning/education is occurring simultaneously at the formal and informal settings. For instance, “[m]ost of… (Grimke’s) rhetorical work took place in her writing and in her classrooms” (39). Similarly, Rollin collaborated with Richard Greener, a Harvard scholar. Rollin also “had an impressive array of associates reading and critiquing her work” (41). Almost similar is Chestnut’s case. “His own self-education project supplied much of his education, but he also had the benefit of sound training at the postbellum Howard school” (49). Moreover, she herself at one point says: “Even though they functioned singly as individuals pursuing various kinds of knowledge, these pursuits inevitably led them to external audiences and collective engagements” (56). That is why, I am hesitating to call their pursuits self-education. I would rather be content to call their endeavors something like self-initiated learning. In fact, they don’t educate themselves rather their learning is facilitated by a number of factors—internal and external—their strong motivation, their exposure to a number of rhetorical acts like public speech, public reading, writing as well as their own involvement into various rhetorical situations/actions. Once into interactions/discussions, it is actually difficult to say for sure who teaches whom and when. And it is not necessary that teaching happens only in the formal settings. At times we learn from mentors, peers and even juniors unconsciously. Even being influenced or moved or shaped by people, ideas and actions unaware is possible.
In the second chapter of Liberating Language, Logan examines closely five private learners of “some form of self-education” (29)—Charlotte Forten Grimke, Frances Anne Rollin Whipper, Ida B. Wells Barnett, Mary Virginia Montgomery, and Charles W. Chestnut—who “spent a good deal of time on self-improvement, especially in reading, writing, speaking, and critiquing the rhetorical performances of others, and who all recorded various aspects of their private learning in diaries” (30). Through archival research and rhetorical analysis of their published diary entries and unpublished manuscripts, she presents diary keeping as a site of rhetorical acts and claims that diary-keeping also serves rhetorical education. In addition to regarding their diary keeping as literacy practices for self-education/improvement, she further argues that their diaries “provide additional insight into the complex intellectual lives of blacks in the mid-and late nineteenth century” (32). According to her, these diarists turned to different available resources from self-help manuals to local libraries; attended public speeches and meetings and undertook various literate/literacy activities from writing letters to biographies to newspaper articles in order to self-educate. The driving force behind their pursuit was their quest for respectability, independence, racial equality, rhetorical/oratorical skills, and/or “race improvement through self-improvement” (55).
Her archival and analytical work being worth emulating and her treatment of diary-keeping as a site of rhetorical action/education being innovative, I can however see few problematic issues in this chapter.
First, she makes big claims based on just five diarists though she confesses that “these five diarists are not representative of the majority of nineteenth-century African Americans” (31). When she knows that these cases neither represent majority of nineteenth century diarists/diaries nor AA people, how could or on what ground could she draw so many generalizations?
Next, her use of the term self-education seems equally problematic. None of the diarists she discusses is solely self-educated. In contrast, all of them have different degree of formal schooling/academic training. Since nowhere does she discuss these diarists’ academic courses and course components, it is really hard to determine what rhetorical/literate skills they learned from school/training and what from “self-study/ies”. It is apparent from the text that these diarists’ learning/education is occurring simultaneously at the formal and informal settings. For instance, “[m]ost of… (Grimke’s) rhetorical work took place in her writing and in her classrooms” (39). Similarly, Rollin collaborated with Richard Greener, a Harvard scholar. Rollin also “had an impressive array of associates reading and critiquing her work” (41). Almost similar is Chestnut’s case. “His own self-education project supplied much of his education, but he also had the benefit of sound training at the postbellum Howard school” (49). Moreover, she herself at one point says: “Even though they functioned singly as individuals pursuing various kinds of knowledge, these pursuits inevitably led them to external audiences and collective engagements” (56). That is why, I am hesitating to call their pursuits self-education. I would rather be content to call their endeavors something like self-initiated learning. In fact, they don’t educate themselves rather their learning is facilitated by a number of factors—internal and external—their strong motivation, their exposure to a number of rhetorical acts like public speech, public reading, writing as well as their own involvement into various rhetorical situations/actions. Once into interactions/discussions, it is actually difficult to say for sure who teaches whom and when. And it is not necessary that teaching happens only in the formal settings. At times we learn from mentors, peers and even juniors unconsciously. Even being influenced or moved or shaped by people, ideas and actions unaware is possible.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Ethical Dilemmas in Feminist Research
Ethical Dilemmas in Feminist Research: The Politics of Location, Interpretation and Publication
In chapter 2 of her book Ethical Dilemmas in Feminist Research: The Politics of Location, Interpretation and Publication, Gesa E. Kirsch examines the moments and instances of ethical dilemmas in researcher-participants relations and offers some suggestions to resolve or reduce them. She discusses the complexities and stakes involved in the interpretation and representation of research data (primarily the interview responses) in chapter 3.
Some such dilemmas that arise as a result of treating research participants as collaborators/co-researchers are:
The feminist research methodology encourages researchers to maintain a close relation with research participants but at the same time also demands critical scrutiny of participants’ interviews. Sometimes, researcher’s offering of critique and reflection might turn the existing intimacy and collaboration into “disappointment, alienation, and exploitation of participants” (26).
Ethical dilemma also arises when the participants reveal confidential information but do not want the researchers to publicize it. It could be hard for the researchers to decide whether to respect the participants’ request or break the trust and be loyal to the research project by covering the crucial information thus disclosed.
At times, researchers might realize that the participants are not being honest and providing correct information. Dilemma in such cases is whether to stick to participants’ views or act otherwise.
The feeling of being manipulated or exploited might come to researchers as well when they are dealing with the participants from culturally/economically privileged positions. In such a situation, the researcher might not feel the obligation of treating the participants ethically, rather might want to critique them.
Similar dilemma plagues researchers when they find the participants engaged in some problematic behaviors.
Kirsch also brings forth strategies to come to terms with such ethical dilemmas. First in order is to develop realistic and perhaps limited expectations about collaborating with participants while designing qualitative research (36). Readiness on both participants and researchers’ ends to critical feedback; granting participants the right to co-interpretation; simultaneous presentation of participants’ interpretation’; researcher bearing the responsibility of interpretation could be other ways of handling dilemmas. Yet another could be renegotiating the consent of participants in case the research focus or direction changes.
In chapter 3, Kirsch mostly discusses the interpretive conflicts between the researcher and participants which “range from disagreements between researchers and participants about the meaning of research data, such as interview, narratives and observations, to conflict in values and ideology” (45). She elaborates on the complexity involved in making participants the co-interpreters of research data.
Since the participants and researchers come up with different interpretive frameworks while analyzing data, the resulting conflict could have serious consequences. Deciding whose interpretation is valid could be tougher. Representation through researchers’ interpretations alone could be misrepresentation and their empowering intentions could have silencing effects on the participants.
Kirsch sees no way but negotiation, dialogue and granting participants the space in research report to reduce dilemmas or conflicts. But I have some questions and concerns with her recommendation too.
Regarding the suggestion to put participants’ interpretation side by side with researchers’, or produce “multi-vocal” research reports, my concern is that not all research participants would be capable of interpreting their experiences/stories or information. Depending on who the participants and where they are from, at times their interpretations might appear politically naïve and even ignorant. Putting their interpretation side by side with researchers’ could have ironic effect.
Kirsch is constantly emphasizing on researchers’ ethical obligations to participants, research communities, institutions and/or other stakeholders. But my sense is that at times, researchers confront hostilities or threats. My take is that researchers should choose to encounter whatever comes on the way be it hostility or threat. Some of the sensational researchers have been threatened or shot dead for their disclosure of all wrongdoings of oppressive institutions like military or totalitarian government.
In chapter 2 of her book Ethical Dilemmas in Feminist Research: The Politics of Location, Interpretation and Publication, Gesa E. Kirsch examines the moments and instances of ethical dilemmas in researcher-participants relations and offers some suggestions to resolve or reduce them. She discusses the complexities and stakes involved in the interpretation and representation of research data (primarily the interview responses) in chapter 3.
Some such dilemmas that arise as a result of treating research participants as collaborators/co-researchers are:
The feminist research methodology encourages researchers to maintain a close relation with research participants but at the same time also demands critical scrutiny of participants’ interviews. Sometimes, researcher’s offering of critique and reflection might turn the existing intimacy and collaboration into “disappointment, alienation, and exploitation of participants” (26).
Ethical dilemma also arises when the participants reveal confidential information but do not want the researchers to publicize it. It could be hard for the researchers to decide whether to respect the participants’ request or break the trust and be loyal to the research project by covering the crucial information thus disclosed.
At times, researchers might realize that the participants are not being honest and providing correct information. Dilemma in such cases is whether to stick to participants’ views or act otherwise.
The feeling of being manipulated or exploited might come to researchers as well when they are dealing with the participants from culturally/economically privileged positions. In such a situation, the researcher might not feel the obligation of treating the participants ethically, rather might want to critique them.
Similar dilemma plagues researchers when they find the participants engaged in some problematic behaviors.
Kirsch also brings forth strategies to come to terms with such ethical dilemmas. First in order is to develop realistic and perhaps limited expectations about collaborating with participants while designing qualitative research (36). Readiness on both participants and researchers’ ends to critical feedback; granting participants the right to co-interpretation; simultaneous presentation of participants’ interpretation’; researcher bearing the responsibility of interpretation could be other ways of handling dilemmas. Yet another could be renegotiating the consent of participants in case the research focus or direction changes.
In chapter 3, Kirsch mostly discusses the interpretive conflicts between the researcher and participants which “range from disagreements between researchers and participants about the meaning of research data, such as interview, narratives and observations, to conflict in values and ideology” (45). She elaborates on the complexity involved in making participants the co-interpreters of research data.
Since the participants and researchers come up with different interpretive frameworks while analyzing data, the resulting conflict could have serious consequences. Deciding whose interpretation is valid could be tougher. Representation through researchers’ interpretations alone could be misrepresentation and their empowering intentions could have silencing effects on the participants.
Kirsch sees no way but negotiation, dialogue and granting participants the space in research report to reduce dilemmas or conflicts. But I have some questions and concerns with her recommendation too.
Regarding the suggestion to put participants’ interpretation side by side with researchers’, or produce “multi-vocal” research reports, my concern is that not all research participants would be capable of interpreting their experiences/stories or information. Depending on who the participants and where they are from, at times their interpretations might appear politically naïve and even ignorant. Putting their interpretation side by side with researchers’ could have ironic effect.
Kirsch is constantly emphasizing on researchers’ ethical obligations to participants, research communities, institutions and/or other stakeholders. But my sense is that at times, researchers confront hostilities or threats. My take is that researchers should choose to encounter whatever comes on the way be it hostility or threat. Some of the sensational researchers have been threatened or shot dead for their disclosure of all wrongdoings of oppressive institutions like military or totalitarian government.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
The Means of Production: Literacy and Stratification at the Twenty-First Century
Santosh Khadka
The Means of Production: Literacy and Stratification at the Twenty-First Century
-Deborah Brandt
As Brandt mentions, she “explore[s] the issues of access, proficiency and reward of literacy learning” in relation to larger historical and socio-economic conditions in this particular chapter. To that end, she begins the chapter with the general observation that there is a correlation between socio-economic status of individuals and their literacy achievements by which she means to say that literacy and material/political privilege are very closely connected. She then argues that individuals from relatively well-off families have access to resources/means to gain literacy more easily and quickly compared to many other less fortunate folks. Thus, the inequitable distribution of resources/means of production and power across people, families, regions and nations, she implies, is the reason why different individuals gain different types and degrees of literacy/ies which, in turn, help/s to maintain the status quo of social, economic and literacy inequities.
Interestingly, Brandt discusses literacy in this chapter in very materialistic terms. She regards literacy in post-capitalist and information age as labor power, an input, output, a tool, an instrument and means of production, a raw material as well as energy supply of the Information Age. By doing so, she however undermines the fact that there are at least few people in the world who think that literacy is its end.
Brandt backs up her view that class stratification and literacy are closely connected as are resources of an individual’s literacy achievement and nation’s economic system with the findings from two case studies. Her first case study recounts the digital literacy narrative of a male, white American guy named Raymond Branch who hails from a relatively well-off family while the second one presents the Spanish language learning experience of a female, Mexican American lady, Dora Lopez from economically not so-sound family. Through these studies, she shows that because of their differential socio-economic/material conditions, their access to and achievement of types and degrees of literacy varied making a great difference in what they could or not achieve in job market. Raymond had access to computer technology resources at an elite school and its rich surrounding by virtue of his father being a professor. He reaped the full advantage of those available resources and developed expertise in computer programming which he could easily cash in the market. But Dora could not be in the same position because her father was migrant worker and her socio-economic situation did not let her get into a better school and gain a saleable literacy skill. With Raymond and Dora’s literacy narratives, Brandt maintains that inequitable distribution of resources across individuals, families and regions is the root cause of literacy differentials between/among them which, in turn, is responsible for continuing the existing racial, class and sexual and regional disparities /differences.
I agree with Brandt’s argument but with few reservations. Firstly, I have reservation with her methodology which is the kind of reservation people usually have with qualitative research methods. It occurs to me that just two samples/cases might not be enough to make so many generalizations about the relationship between material forces at work and literacy achievement. Granted, the argument and interpretive leaps could be made based on those cases but the question arises whether or not the cases are representative or reflective of the complexity of the issue at hand. For instance, in Dora’s case, it might not be the material forces but flaw in her individual preference/choice of Spanish language literacy over many others which could sell in the market like Branch’s computer programming that she did not succeed economically. As such nowhere does Dora say with Brandt that she regrets her choice or she thinks that she failed.
Secondly, Brandt’s take that Branch’s access to material resources made possible by his father’s education and employment is the sole cause of his success as a computer programmer/professional could also be mistaken in that it discounts Branch’s individual motivation/interest, his diligence and labor or, in short, his agency. Similarly, Brandt’s accusation on Lopez’s socio-economic status as solely responsible factor for her relatively less success as economical agent or instrument could also be flawed. This line of argument again shuts the possibility of an individual transcending or overcoming the economic barriers/hurdles.
But I agree with what she states in the later part of the essay that “access to computers and control over them is unequally distributed in the same ways that traditional literacy has been unequally distributed: by income, race, region and occupation”. While I agree with geo-political disparity in access to technology, I still can’t deny the possibility of an individual crossing the so-called digital divide. Similarly, I challenge the idea that access alone guarantees the success. It could well be the case that many with access do not master the machine while many without access manage to get and gain mastery. This is the case with countries like India which despite its late/difficult access to information technology has already managed to be one of the leading countries in that sector.
The Means of Production: Literacy and Stratification at the Twenty-First Century
-Deborah Brandt
As Brandt mentions, she “explore[s] the issues of access, proficiency and reward of literacy learning” in relation to larger historical and socio-economic conditions in this particular chapter. To that end, she begins the chapter with the general observation that there is a correlation between socio-economic status of individuals and their literacy achievements by which she means to say that literacy and material/political privilege are very closely connected. She then argues that individuals from relatively well-off families have access to resources/means to gain literacy more easily and quickly compared to many other less fortunate folks. Thus, the inequitable distribution of resources/means of production and power across people, families, regions and nations, she implies, is the reason why different individuals gain different types and degrees of literacy/ies which, in turn, help/s to maintain the status quo of social, economic and literacy inequities.
Interestingly, Brandt discusses literacy in this chapter in very materialistic terms. She regards literacy in post-capitalist and information age as labor power, an input, output, a tool, an instrument and means of production, a raw material as well as energy supply of the Information Age. By doing so, she however undermines the fact that there are at least few people in the world who think that literacy is its end.
Brandt backs up her view that class stratification and literacy are closely connected as are resources of an individual’s literacy achievement and nation’s economic system with the findings from two case studies. Her first case study recounts the digital literacy narrative of a male, white American guy named Raymond Branch who hails from a relatively well-off family while the second one presents the Spanish language learning experience of a female, Mexican American lady, Dora Lopez from economically not so-sound family. Through these studies, she shows that because of their differential socio-economic/material conditions, their access to and achievement of types and degrees of literacy varied making a great difference in what they could or not achieve in job market. Raymond had access to computer technology resources at an elite school and its rich surrounding by virtue of his father being a professor. He reaped the full advantage of those available resources and developed expertise in computer programming which he could easily cash in the market. But Dora could not be in the same position because her father was migrant worker and her socio-economic situation did not let her get into a better school and gain a saleable literacy skill. With Raymond and Dora’s literacy narratives, Brandt maintains that inequitable distribution of resources across individuals, families and regions is the root cause of literacy differentials between/among them which, in turn, is responsible for continuing the existing racial, class and sexual and regional disparities /differences.
I agree with Brandt’s argument but with few reservations. Firstly, I have reservation with her methodology which is the kind of reservation people usually have with qualitative research methods. It occurs to me that just two samples/cases might not be enough to make so many generalizations about the relationship between material forces at work and literacy achievement. Granted, the argument and interpretive leaps could be made based on those cases but the question arises whether or not the cases are representative or reflective of the complexity of the issue at hand. For instance, in Dora’s case, it might not be the material forces but flaw in her individual preference/choice of Spanish language literacy over many others which could sell in the market like Branch’s computer programming that she did not succeed economically. As such nowhere does Dora say with Brandt that she regrets her choice or she thinks that she failed.
Secondly, Brandt’s take that Branch’s access to material resources made possible by his father’s education and employment is the sole cause of his success as a computer programmer/professional could also be mistaken in that it discounts Branch’s individual motivation/interest, his diligence and labor or, in short, his agency. Similarly, Brandt’s accusation on Lopez’s socio-economic status as solely responsible factor for her relatively less success as economical agent or instrument could also be flawed. This line of argument again shuts the possibility of an individual transcending or overcoming the economic barriers/hurdles.
But I agree with what she states in the later part of the essay that “access to computers and control over them is unequally distributed in the same ways that traditional literacy has been unequally distributed: by income, race, region and occupation”. While I agree with geo-political disparity in access to technology, I still can’t deny the possibility of an individual crossing the so-called digital divide. Similarly, I challenge the idea that access alone guarantees the success. It could well be the case that many with access do not master the machine while many without access manage to get and gain mastery. This is the case with countries like India which despite its late/difficult access to information technology has already managed to be one of the leading countries in that sector.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Annotation CCR 611 Feb 11
Mastuda, Paul Kei. “Composition Studies and ESL Writing: A Disciplinary Division of Labor.” CCC 50.4 (1999): 699-721.
Summary: Mastuda examines how the division between composition studies and Teaching of English as Second Language emerged specifically over the period of 1941 to 1966 due to the professionalization of TESL just when composition studies was also undergoing a revision of its own disciplinary identity that, according to him, inadvertently contributed to the creation of the disciplinary division of labor influencing the institutional practices in composition programs across the nation even today. Towards the end, he points out the need of some form of interdisciplinary collaboration between the Composition Studies and TESL to address the issue of writing in ESL since it falls under the ken of both the disciplines.
Most Valuable Citation: Allen, Bloomfield, Connor, Kaplan, Zamel.
Area Cluster: 107 Institutional and Professional
Methodology: Literature Review,
Provocative Quotes:
“Before the Michigan ELI (English Language Institute) was established in 1941, it was commonly believed that anyone whose native language was English was qualified to teach English to nonnative speakers-much as some thought any literate person could teach writing” (703).
“The creation of a professional organization (TESOL) that devoted itself entirely to ESL issues and the decline of interest in those issues among composition specialists led to the separation of writing issues into first-language and second-language components. The disciplinary division of labor was thus institutionalized” (713).
“…second-language writing should be seen as an integral part of both composition studies and second-language studies, and specialists in both professions should try to transform their institutional practices in ways that reflect the needs and characteristics of second-language writers in their own institutional contexts” (715).
Tags: Allen, Bloomfield, Connor, Kaplan, Zamel, TESL, professionalization, disciplinary identity, ESL Writing, interdisciplinary relationship, Disciplinary Division of Labor
Daniell, Beth. “Narratives of Literacy: Connecting Composition to Culture.” College Composition and Communication 50 (1999): 393-410.
Summary: Beth contends that various narratives of literacy-grand narratives, ethnographic, little narratives-over the years have influenced and continue to shape the images we in composition studies have of who we are, what we do, and how we do it. Using Lyotard as a terministic screen to examine these narratives she brings to light a number of issues: the conflicted politics of composition studies over the last two or three decades, the relationship of theory and ideology, the ethical questions of research, the problematics of separating the spiritual from academic study. And she finally maintains that literacy is a term that now "illuminates the ways that individual acts of writing are connected to larger cultural, historical, and social and political systems" (408).
Methodology: Archival, Bibliographic
Most Valuable Citation: Havelock, Ong, Berlin, Freire, Lyotard
Area Cluster: 112 Community, Civic & Public
Provocative quotes:
“Indeed the move in composition studies away from the individualistic and cognitive perspectives of the seventies and early eighties toward the social theories and political consciousness that prevail today was encouraged, pushed along, impelled by competing narratives of literacy. These days, literacy- the term and concept-connects composition, with its emphasis on students and classrooms, to the social, political, economic, historical, and cultural” (393).
“To see reading and writing as social practice mediated and regulated by institutions instead of as a free-standing, individual mental operation supplied composition with a different lens to use in looking at our students, their texts, and our own work. The idea that writing and writing instruction were deeply connected with power became, with Berlin's histories, a mainstream idea” (399).
“The problem with grand narratives is the unfortunate human tendency to overgeneralize from them: The Freire narrative has been used to support a discourse that sometimes seems to assume that all our students are oppressed” (400).
“Freire has shown that a "banking" pedagogy can support oppressive structures elsewhere in society and that literacy and literacy learning can be liberatory in some situations. But we have learned from experience that neither Freire's methods nor his critique will automatically bring critical consciousness to North America” (401).
“literacy is multiple, contextual, and ideological” (403).
Taken as a whole, the little narratives argue as well that the relationship between literacy and oppression or freedom is rarely as simple as we have thought” (403).
“…literacy, including instruction in writing, is woven into a society's structures of power” (405).
“As the little narratives make clear, literacy can oppress or resist or liberate, and the best of these studies present the simultaneity of these ideological contradictions” (406)
Tags: Havelock, Ong, Berlin, Freire, Lyotard, little narratives, grand narratives, oppression, literacy, liberatory, orality
Willians, Bronwyn T. “Speak for Yourself? Power and Hybridity in the Cross-Cultural Classroom.” College Composition and Communication 54.4 (2003):586-609.
Summary: “In this article I use the lens of postcolonial theory to reflect on my uses of a varied series of writing pedagogies in cross-cultural classrooms at an international college. Such reflection helps reveal how relations of power between teacher and students and underlying ideological assumptions about knowledge and discourse often resulted in hybrid responses of mimicry, frustration, incomprehension, and resistance. A pedagogy constructed against the backdrop of postcolonial theory might provide both students and their teacher in such a cross-cultural setting with a more complex and useful way of understanding issues of power, discourse, identity, and the role of writing” (586).
Research Methodology: sampling, interviews
Most Valuable Citation: Bhabha, Appadurai, Spivak, Pratt, Newkirk
Area Cluster: 103 Theory
Provocative Quotes:
“Though the pursuit of writing as a fundamental part of the liberal education was the goal of the course, the underlying ideological assumptions about knowledge and discourse often led to mutual frustration, resistance, incomprehension, and aporia” (587).
“To teach in a cross-cultural classroom with such terms as originality and analysis as an unexamined foundation perpetuates a disruptive epistemic violence for the students trying to come to terms with these unstated assumptions of power and the dominant culture” (589).
“Any writing about experiences that the student in a cross-cultural classroom might do is necessarily done in ways that serve the interpolation of that student into the dominant culture no less than the overt assimilation attempted through the current-traditional assignments” (594).
“For postcolonial students in a Western classroom, this presence of the Other in the dominant culture as "somewhere between the too visible and the not visible enough," (Bhabha, "Culture's" 56, author's emphasis) is a site of ambivalence and resistance to the attempts of the dominant culture's inscription and control” (603).
“Rather than either trying to assimilate students into the dominant culture's discourse or helping them seek an ahistorical, apolitical synthesis from cultural differences, we should instead engage with them in an exploration of the cultural conflicts and power struggles often hidden in a cross-cultural writing classroom” (607).
Tags: Bhabha, Appadurai, Spivak, Pratt, Newkirk , Postcolonial, Hybridity, Resistance, mimicry, assimilation, dominant discourse, gaze, contact zone, multicultural, ideology, power, fractals
Horner, Bruce and John Trimbur. “English Only and U.S. College Composition.” College Composition and Communication 53.4 (2002): 594-630.
Summary:
Bruce Horner and John Trimbur trace the pedagogical and cultural developments that have led to the conception of English writing in the United States as a unidirectional and monolingual acquisition of literate competence. While these assumptions have been motivated by the modernist ideology of "one language/one nation," the authors envision that postmodern globalization may require us to develop in our students a multilingual and polyliterate orientation to writing. They outline the shifts in curriculum, policy, and research that will promote such a broadened pedagogical orientation in the future.”
Most Valuable Citation: Canagarajah, Crawford, Lu, Kachru, Zamel
Area Cluster: 108 Language
Provocative Quotes:
“We argue that a tacit language policy of unidirectional English monolingualism has shaped the historical formation of U.S. writing instruction and continues to influence its theory and practice in shadowy, largely unexamined ways” (594-5)
“As we have argued, this tacit language policy weighs heavily on our work studying and teaching writing. This largely unexamined language policy has made it difficult to see that U.S. college composition, from its
formation to the present day, operates for the most part within national borders…The task…is to develop an internationalist perspective capable of understanding the study and teaching of written English in relation to other languages and to the dynamics of globalization”(623-4).
Tags: Canagarajah, Crawford, Lu, Kachru, Zame, English Only, Global English, Monolingualism, Internationalist perspective, bilingualism, language policy, multilingualism, nationhood, ESL
Summary: Mastuda examines how the division between composition studies and Teaching of English as Second Language emerged specifically over the period of 1941 to 1966 due to the professionalization of TESL just when composition studies was also undergoing a revision of its own disciplinary identity that, according to him, inadvertently contributed to the creation of the disciplinary division of labor influencing the institutional practices in composition programs across the nation even today. Towards the end, he points out the need of some form of interdisciplinary collaboration between the Composition Studies and TESL to address the issue of writing in ESL since it falls under the ken of both the disciplines.
Most Valuable Citation: Allen, Bloomfield, Connor, Kaplan, Zamel.
Area Cluster: 107 Institutional and Professional
Methodology: Literature Review,
Provocative Quotes:
“Before the Michigan ELI (English Language Institute) was established in 1941, it was commonly believed that anyone whose native language was English was qualified to teach English to nonnative speakers-much as some thought any literate person could teach writing” (703).
“The creation of a professional organization (TESOL) that devoted itself entirely to ESL issues and the decline of interest in those issues among composition specialists led to the separation of writing issues into first-language and second-language components. The disciplinary division of labor was thus institutionalized” (713).
“…second-language writing should be seen as an integral part of both composition studies and second-language studies, and specialists in both professions should try to transform their institutional practices in ways that reflect the needs and characteristics of second-language writers in their own institutional contexts” (715).
Tags: Allen, Bloomfield, Connor, Kaplan, Zamel, TESL, professionalization, disciplinary identity, ESL Writing, interdisciplinary relationship, Disciplinary Division of Labor
Daniell, Beth. “Narratives of Literacy: Connecting Composition to Culture.” College Composition and Communication 50 (1999): 393-410.
Summary: Beth contends that various narratives of literacy-grand narratives, ethnographic, little narratives-over the years have influenced and continue to shape the images we in composition studies have of who we are, what we do, and how we do it. Using Lyotard as a terministic screen to examine these narratives she brings to light a number of issues: the conflicted politics of composition studies over the last two or three decades, the relationship of theory and ideology, the ethical questions of research, the problematics of separating the spiritual from academic study. And she finally maintains that literacy is a term that now "illuminates the ways that individual acts of writing are connected to larger cultural, historical, and social and political systems" (408).
Methodology: Archival, Bibliographic
Most Valuable Citation: Havelock, Ong, Berlin, Freire, Lyotard
Area Cluster: 112 Community, Civic & Public
Provocative quotes:
“Indeed the move in composition studies away from the individualistic and cognitive perspectives of the seventies and early eighties toward the social theories and political consciousness that prevail today was encouraged, pushed along, impelled by competing narratives of literacy. These days, literacy- the term and concept-connects composition, with its emphasis on students and classrooms, to the social, political, economic, historical, and cultural” (393).
“To see reading and writing as social practice mediated and regulated by institutions instead of as a free-standing, individual mental operation supplied composition with a different lens to use in looking at our students, their texts, and our own work. The idea that writing and writing instruction were deeply connected with power became, with Berlin's histories, a mainstream idea” (399).
“The problem with grand narratives is the unfortunate human tendency to overgeneralize from them: The Freire narrative has been used to support a discourse that sometimes seems to assume that all our students are oppressed” (400).
“Freire has shown that a "banking" pedagogy can support oppressive structures elsewhere in society and that literacy and literacy learning can be liberatory in some situations. But we have learned from experience that neither Freire's methods nor his critique will automatically bring critical consciousness to North America” (401).
“literacy is multiple, contextual, and ideological” (403).
Taken as a whole, the little narratives argue as well that the relationship between literacy and oppression or freedom is rarely as simple as we have thought” (403).
“…literacy, including instruction in writing, is woven into a society's structures of power” (405).
“As the little narratives make clear, literacy can oppress or resist or liberate, and the best of these studies present the simultaneity of these ideological contradictions” (406)
Tags: Havelock, Ong, Berlin, Freire, Lyotard, little narratives, grand narratives, oppression, literacy, liberatory, orality
Willians, Bronwyn T. “Speak for Yourself? Power and Hybridity in the Cross-Cultural Classroom.” College Composition and Communication 54.4 (2003):586-609.
Summary: “In this article I use the lens of postcolonial theory to reflect on my uses of a varied series of writing pedagogies in cross-cultural classrooms at an international college. Such reflection helps reveal how relations of power between teacher and students and underlying ideological assumptions about knowledge and discourse often resulted in hybrid responses of mimicry, frustration, incomprehension, and resistance. A pedagogy constructed against the backdrop of postcolonial theory might provide both students and their teacher in such a cross-cultural setting with a more complex and useful way of understanding issues of power, discourse, identity, and the role of writing” (586).
Research Methodology: sampling, interviews
Most Valuable Citation: Bhabha, Appadurai, Spivak, Pratt, Newkirk
Area Cluster: 103 Theory
Provocative Quotes:
“Though the pursuit of writing as a fundamental part of the liberal education was the goal of the course, the underlying ideological assumptions about knowledge and discourse often led to mutual frustration, resistance, incomprehension, and aporia” (587).
“To teach in a cross-cultural classroom with such terms as originality and analysis as an unexamined foundation perpetuates a disruptive epistemic violence for the students trying to come to terms with these unstated assumptions of power and the dominant culture” (589).
“Any writing about experiences that the student in a cross-cultural classroom might do is necessarily done in ways that serve the interpolation of that student into the dominant culture no less than the overt assimilation attempted through the current-traditional assignments” (594).
“For postcolonial students in a Western classroom, this presence of the Other in the dominant culture as "somewhere between the too visible and the not visible enough," (Bhabha, "Culture's" 56, author's emphasis) is a site of ambivalence and resistance to the attempts of the dominant culture's inscription and control” (603).
“Rather than either trying to assimilate students into the dominant culture's discourse or helping them seek an ahistorical, apolitical synthesis from cultural differences, we should instead engage with them in an exploration of the cultural conflicts and power struggles often hidden in a cross-cultural writing classroom” (607).
Tags: Bhabha, Appadurai, Spivak, Pratt, Newkirk , Postcolonial, Hybridity, Resistance, mimicry, assimilation, dominant discourse, gaze, contact zone, multicultural, ideology, power, fractals
Horner, Bruce and John Trimbur. “English Only and U.S. College Composition.” College Composition and Communication 53.4 (2002): 594-630.
Summary:
Bruce Horner and John Trimbur trace the pedagogical and cultural developments that have led to the conception of English writing in the United States as a unidirectional and monolingual acquisition of literate competence. While these assumptions have been motivated by the modernist ideology of "one language/one nation," the authors envision that postmodern globalization may require us to develop in our students a multilingual and polyliterate orientation to writing. They outline the shifts in curriculum, policy, and research that will promote such a broadened pedagogical orientation in the future.”
Most Valuable Citation: Canagarajah, Crawford, Lu, Kachru, Zamel
Area Cluster: 108 Language
Provocative Quotes:
“We argue that a tacit language policy of unidirectional English monolingualism has shaped the historical formation of U.S. writing instruction and continues to influence its theory and practice in shadowy, largely unexamined ways” (594-5)
“As we have argued, this tacit language policy weighs heavily on our work studying and teaching writing. This largely unexamined language policy has made it difficult to see that U.S. college composition, from its
formation to the present day, operates for the most part within national borders…The task…is to develop an internationalist perspective capable of understanding the study and teaching of written English in relation to other languages and to the dynamics of globalization”(623-4).
Tags: Canagarajah, Crawford, Lu, Kachru, Zame, English Only, Global English, Monolingualism, Internationalist perspective, bilingualism, language policy, multilingualism, nationhood, ESL
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