Grant Lee writes:
> As it happens I've done quite a bit of research into both Aboriginal
> history
> and contemporary Aboriginal politics. The problem with conceiving these
> issues as "cultural" is the problem that others on this list have already
> pointed to: "culture" cannot be defined in a way that is agreed or
> intelligible to/by everyone.
I don't see at all why that's a problem. I can define it, have done here and elsewhere, for the purposes of a particular discussion -- just because you define something as negotiable and variable doesn't mean it's not defined.
> More controversially, I guess, I would define
> it in a negative way, however, to say that nothing which is a "relation of
> production" is ever "cultural" _in_origin_. As I've said before, everyone
> from peasants to merchant bankers to pods of dolphins is involved in
> particular relations of production.
I'm going to skip this because while I don't get it, I don't think I need to in order to respond to the rest.
> And I would say that the "economically
> underprivileged" fact of life of contemporary Australian Aborigines is
> _essentially_ economic.
And I think "essentially" is both entirely the wrong word here and the core of the problem I have with what I think you're saying. Economics is not just cultural at the level of its scholarly or academic appearance. As Marx made clear, and other people have extended that insight, the economic is wound around and about all the parts of your life that you don't think of as being economic -- with, if you like, what is often thought of as "cultural". One way of responding to this is to dismiss the cultural as not important because "really" determined by the economic. But I don't think that works, either analytically or practically. Another way to respond to it is to see what we call "economic" as continuous with the "cultural" and deal with it as it works -- as a huge an untidy interactive field where the two are not at all easy to pull apart, not because the cultural is neatly derivative and unimportant, but because its importance lies in how we negotiate with the systems which name and determine us (or fail to), including the economic.
I mean this as a reply to the rest of your post too. Sorry I'm not really doing it line by line justice -- but I'm kind of behind with things and trying to catch up.
Catherine (far too hot, aargh)
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