by the way, before I forget, reading colorlines yesterday, there was a shit load of stuff going on in Oakland. ISTM, that this would be a great experience, to get out there and see what young people are doing today. They just had demos at the schools in Oakland.
when Davis talks about differences that make a difference, she's not talking about the individual, but about systems of injustice and inequality.
She begins that section saying that what will be important to understand throughout her discussion is the concept of individualism, that it is dangerous. Provincialism, in this context, was not brought up as a good thing. Diversity in its weak form provincializes our relationship to the world. Transcribed, TTBOMA, below:
<quote>If we embrace weak notions of diversity it is a concept that promotes a hidden individualization of problems and solution sthat ought to be collective. It is a concept that can leave structures of inequlity and injustice intact. And what I think is immensely important, a weak diversity is a concept that provincializes our relationship to the world. </quote>
Here's a good example of how that works in practice, from Elizabeth Spellman's review of Martha Nussbaum's recent books on feminism. Spellman points out that, in a way, Nussbaum engages in a weird kind of provincialism. The women she speaks about, as wonderfully portrayed and sympathetically listened toas they are, never have a voice in Nussbaums work. And Nussbaum slips out of the picture. The description of third world women is thick; the description of the authors life, her perspectives, *her* godamaned differences, her race, her class, her occupation, etc. slips from view. It is thinly desscribed, if at all. The focus on *them*, the Other, takes the heat of any discussion off Nussbaum who remains in the center -- without characteristics, without race, without gender, without class, without occupation -- without in the sense that the reader is never invited to speculate, along with the Othered observers -- what the fuck is your world about, sister?
That's provincialism in Davis's meaning. In spite of this globalized world, in spite of all these "different" people around -- different from *YOU* -- the focus is on how *they* are different. They become multi-colored bangles to slap on your wrist to demonstrate how many different kinds of people you associate with. Which, magically, ends up putting *YOU* right back in the center of it all. The others are silenced, have no opinion, except as pertains to what some authorial and authorized voices thinks is worthy of telling. She doesn't get scrutinized or listened to with sympathy by the Others.
Here's Spellman explaining how Nussbaum accomplishes this, and it's precisely what Davis means by weak diversity as provincialism:
There is no doubt about the sincerity of Nussbaum’s passion, .... Maria Lugones has argued that ‘travelling’ to the world of others should include finding out how they see you, what they see in and around you. Translating this into Nussbaum’s language, it would seem that you have not responded to the capabilities of others if you ignore or exclude consideration of how they see you. Philosophers at conventions may not be interested in what hotel housekeepers have to say about them (and should not go around importuning workers to provide such commentary),
(sweet mother mary of god, thank you for that sister!)
but housekeepers may at least sometimes pause to think about and remark on what they see in the midst of all that carousing, cajoling and conceptualising. Imagine, then, that at such a convention there is a high-powered session devoted to the presentation and discussion of a splendid, passionate and painstakingly worked out theory about the effects of gender inequality and economic status on the condition of women in the service industry. Hotel housekeepers might well have been interviewed in connection with such a theory (indeed, in Boston, the source of that remark about the drinking and mating habits of philosophers, a hotel chain tried to force housekeepers – all of them women – to clean bathrooms on their knees, on the grounds that when they work standing up they don’t do a good enough job). The theorists may have taken great care to emphasise the extent of the women’s agency despite the hardships they are forced to endure. But will we, at such a session or outside it, learn about what the women being studied think about all this – not simply what they think about the theories in which they figure (they, and Nussbaum’s subjects, may well agree with them),
**** but what they think about the theorists, their struggles, their hopes, their disciplinary tics? ***** Will there be room for something like the verbal snapshot provided by the hotel maids’ assessment of the predilections and preoccupations of philosophers – an image of the theorists which is not under their control, which locates their theorising (and their behaviour in the venues in which it takes place) in the context of cultural and professional practices regulating what they can and cannot say or do? Are the theorists prepared to be thickly perceived, moving with and against the insistent rhythms of their own local customs and rules? Are they ready to be ripened into objects of their subjects’ sympathetic understanding?</quote>
--- I read nussbaum last year and, yes, wanted to throw the book across the wall every time i saw the picture of the frail impoverished indian woman on the cover. fucking asshole publishers/
transcribed (shag)
The word diversity has colonized so much of what we were once able to talk with much greater specificity. All we have to do now is evoke diversity and what does diversity mean? I guess it means this would be a diverse audience because of all the different kinds of people. Well, actually, I don't know that this is a diverse audience. Because it has a certain kind of visual effect? (laughter from the audience because, earlier, she'd remarked on how "diverse" the audience had seemed. It was way ahead of the other campuses. But that was because people were visiting from some place a little more 'colorful' And she riffed on that for awhile)
Diversity as its used is precisely about that visual effect. It does not necessarily tell us. And I'm not an opponent of diversity. I'm an advocate of a strong concept of diversity. You can have differences that truly make a difference. You can also have difference that don’t' make a difference. These are differences that allows the machine to keep functioning in the same old way. And sometimes it can function even more efficiently and effectively. I mean George Bush is so proud of the fact that his secretary of state is a black woman. (And I would tell some stories about that but... Uh... (audience laughs)
If we embrace weak notions of diversity it is a concept that promotes a hidden individualization of problems and solution sthat ought to be collective. It is a concept that can leave structures of inequlity and injustice intact. And what I think is immensely important, a weak diversity is a concept that provincializes our relationship to the world.
We live in an era that is called globalization, right? There is suppose to be this instantaneously global transmission of knowledge, the products that we purchase for our daily are produced and distributed on the global market. We wear the sweat of global workers, specially young girls and women. We wear their sweat on our bodies. We consume a disportionate amount of the world's energy. And therefore, we live as if the rest of the world were simply there for the purpose of serving and confirming as what is represented as our way of life.
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-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)