Outside – the reading of a feminist anthology

Iris Marion Young once wrote concerning oppressed social groups entry into the labor market, the political arena and into the business world that “the assimilation always demands that the oppressed shall join the game when the rules already have been set and the game have been going on for a long time” (freely cited from memory). I think her choice of words is very illustrative. The social institutions our society rests upon (the family, parliaments, the corporation, etc.) were instituted long before we who now support them were born. To exercise ones political rights in Sweden, for example, demands in principle that one adapt to the written and unwritten rules that have emerged over a long period of time – you might say that one is assimilated into a specific cultural community.

Back in School

Today is my first day back in school. I will take courses in gender studies this semester. It’s my way to spent a semester before my masters program starts next fall. I choose between communication studies at JMK in Stockholm University and gender studies at the same University. Since the most interesting courses at JMK was planned for the fall semester (research method) i decided to choose gender studies instead. Hopefully the courses and literature will provide me with inspiration as to what I will focus my research on the next two years. It feels great to be back!

Leaving Haad Yao

I am now on my last days at Haad Yao Beach in Koh Phangan. The sea is calm and the sun is coming up over the mountains; I will miss this place.

It’s been a while since my last post. Not only the writing but also the reading have been kind of random the last couple of weeks. I am well into my reading of Bourdieu; I will probably be able to finish it before I go home. Concerning the writing, I have started to make some changes. Instead of writing long summaries of the texts I read I will write what I would like to call “analytical keys.” That is, I will make one sentence accounts, paragraph by paragraph, of the context of the texts I read. This decision was inspired by my reading of Berkeley’s Principles of human knowledge, the translator had made such a key placed in the beginning of each chapter; I found them to be very helpful. I haven’t decided yet if I am going to post these keys in my files section on the blog; the posts will be reserved for shorter comments, of that I’m sure.

Concerning Bourdieu, his field theory

A vacation during my readcation

I am now back at Haad Yao on Koh Phangan after two weeks on Phuket. It feels like coming home. This place must be the softest place on the earth – if you make your money with western salaries that is. This means that I will be starting posting again sometime after the New Year. The two weeks on Phuket, and this week on Haad Yao, have been used to spend time with my family. I have done a little bit of reading though. Berkeley’s A treatise on human knowledge and Three dialogues were very interesting, they really helped me in developing my own epistemological outlook. Bourdieu’s Distinction is also finished now; his work has really made an impact on me. My curiosity was really drawn to him after I read Formations of Class and Gender: Becoming Respectable (1997) by Beverley Skeggs; if possible, I am even more impressed after reading Distinction. A thorough post concerning his work will be posted the first week after new years. The next couple of days will be spent on the beach chilling out; I will get some reading in simultaneously, the book I am working on is The practice of logic by Bourdieu.

Mistaking the effect for the cause

In writing about the mistakes we should avoid when applying general rules to particulars, Berkeley writes:

We should propose ourselves nobler views, such as to recreate and exalt the mind, with a prospect of the beauty, order, extent, and variety of natural things: hence, by proper inferences, to enlarge our notions of the grandeur, wisdom, and beneficence of the Creator: and lastly, to make the several parts of the Creation, so far as in us lies, subservient to the ends they were designed for, and the sustentation and comfort of ourselves and fellow-creatures. (My emphasis, 72)

The context of this quote is not what matters. Berkeley gives us an example of a way of thinking that we still depend upon. That is to say, we confuse the effects we can observe with the phenomena wich causes them. We have replaced God with natural science. The common-sense notion is, for an example, that the way we organize society in respect to how our bodies look like serves a biological function. For men the statue of David serves as the epitome of masculine beauty. He is young, muscular (but not inflated), his body is hairless and he has a perfectly balanced Arian face.

David, Michelangelo - Florence Italy (1504)

This statue would probably be more accurate in its description of the biblical David if it was modeled after a scrawny Semitic boy. The reason why I see replicas of this body type on the beaches of Koh Phangan Thailand every day is explained by means of biological causes – men’s want to attract women. This is without doubt true. But no one stops to ask why this particular body type? Does it really serve a function in modern western society, other than to predicate on (and reproduce) the myths of the perfect sexual relationship that pop-culture and advertising imposes on us? One sees the effect – the shape of the body – and jumps to the explanation of its function while skipping the cause part of the reasoning. This reasoning is decidedly scientific, while the actual cause is political.

So strong is our belief in natural science, and its specific methods, that we, as a society, don’t accept sociological, psychological, cultural or political explanations as being as valid as scientific ones. Even though results after thousand after thousand research years are being presented, social scientific and humanistic knowledge are being disavowed. If they be critical, the results are being framed as illegitimate, as products of speculation. Only social sciences that confuses the effects with the causes, specifically economics, are being accepted as being legitimate.  Indeed, we have replaced God with a set of rules which only produce valid explanations in the realm of soul-less objects. This is, in my opinion, a problem at the core of the political challenges the social sciences and humanities has to face.

Berkeley, G: A Treatise Concerning Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues, Oxford university press (2009 [1996])

How Market Logic came to be an Orginizing Principle in Contemporary South Korean Society

When you bring the library to the beach some unexpected things are bound to happen: your expensive ink pen doesn’t work as you’re used to since the ink flows all over the paper; the glue that holds the pages in place in your paperback textbooks loses its properties leaving you with, not a book, but a bouquet of scattered papers – the beach is a messy workplace indeed. But sometimes the most incredible thing happens; you meet and talk with amazingly interesting people. One of these encounters was with two world travelers and teachers of Canadian origin named Heather and Matt. This post is an account of Matt’s excellent essay on the meeting between modern market based western culture and Korean culture. In what follows I will first present Matt’s main argument, then follows some suggestions for further research.

Competition in The Swedish School System…

If there is one issue that makes my blood pump faster through my veins it is competition in public services. Three Swedish scientists’ comments on the PISA-2009 report on a website dedicated to political debate. They find that the free choice that Swedish students (their parents really) is given regarding which school to attend during their high school years have had a stratifying effect. This is not very surprising. But there is more to this story. The report also suggests that the good students, in the good schools have been maintaining their level of knowledge during this stratifying phase. Indeed, their results have not increased. On the other side of the academic spectrum results have decreased.

Reading Distinction

Sometimes you come upon something unexpected by chance. While writing my final paper in History (kandidatuppsats, C-uppsats), a study concerning how gender was constructed in the Swedish “new left” during the sixties and seventies I had one of those experiences. Parallel to your empirical work you read a lot to put your own study into context and to give it a theoretical framework. During this extensive reading I came across Beverley Skeggs’ Formation of class and gender: Becoming respectable.

Visiting Butler, an offhand introduction to performativity

In her second great book on gender, Bodies that matter, Judith Butler revisits the concepts of sex, the body, sexuality and gender, and she introduces color or race as a category needed to address. Even though this Book in many respects is just as fascinating as Gender Trouble, I will not spend a lot of time making a summary of the complete text. I will instead present Butlers reworking of the concept of performativity and some of the most interesting ideas in this book. I intend, also, when this presentation is done, present a short criticism directed towards some explicit points in her argumentation. I recommend you read For first time visitors before you read this post .

Språk/change

På min ”readcation” i Thailand har jag stött på en begränsning jag inte är helt nöjd med. Det har visat sig att jag i mer avancerade konversationer med engelsktalande resenärer, främst amerikaner och kanadensare, inte kan använda min engelska vokabulär fullt ut. Jag har beskrivit fenomenet som att jag har två engelska språk, ett passivt och ett operationellt. Vad jag menar med det är att jag har ett relativt gott ordförråd i mitt passiva läge. Det innebär att jag inte har större problem än de flesta engelsktalande människor när det gäller att läsa en text på engelska. När det väl är dags för mig att förklara ett koncept eller bara att formulera egna meningar är det inte längre lika lätt. Jag har därför decided to write this journal in the English language from now on. It will help me to expand what I would like to call my operational vocabulary. From being able to utilize approximately thirty percent of my passive reading vocabulary I hope to raise that portion quite a lot. Another consideration I have had to make is the fact that I sooner or later will have to start writing my school papers in English. A head start can’t hurt.

So… To any prospective English language speaking readers…  Jouir!