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).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)