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post colonial musings redux
Am writing up some research findings for a journal article. Knowledge commodification, most often in the form of journal articles, is de rigeur. I used to love writing, now we have a decidedly mixed relationship.
My work is, in a broad sense, about social justice and knowledge dissemination. I’m intrigued by how communities on the margins of society--specifically (but not only) queers, injection drug users, mental health consumers/persons with mental illness--navigate between what mainstream society sez is normal/right/good/moral etc, and what they know to be true from their own, local experience. So power and power relations figure rather prominently. Nominally my work is post-structural and informed by the later works of Michel Foucault (the gayest non-gay man since Rock “sucks cock” Hudson), but the material implications of things--real people’s real lives--also have to be addressed. Not enough theorizing in our lives, but what we have is too often so distant from reality. You hear that Judith Butler? (Moi-même, je préfere Edith Butler, la reigne acadienne).
But I digress....
So I come home from work, having succesfully distracted myself from the focus writing and editing requires of me--thank you Sarah McLachlan, B-Sides & Other Rarities--and begin to putter around the flat. Which leads me to the kettle and the tea bags. And I start to think about tea, how fab it is, but how enmeshed it is in that pestilence upon humanity, the colonial project.
And then I figure, either go there or don’t go there.
I didn’t go there. *slurp*
;)
Slan
My work is, in a broad sense, about social justice and knowledge dissemination. I’m intrigued by how communities on the margins of society--specifically (but not only) queers, injection drug users, mental health consumers/persons with mental illness--navigate between what mainstream society sez is normal/right/good/moral etc, and what they know to be true from their own, local experience. So power and power relations figure rather prominently. Nominally my work is post-structural and informed by the later works of Michel Foucault (the gayest non-gay man since Rock “sucks cock” Hudson), but the material implications of things--real people’s real lives--also have to be addressed. Not enough theorizing in our lives, but what we have is too often so distant from reality. You hear that Judith Butler? (Moi-même, je préfere Edith Butler, la reigne acadienne).
But I digress....
So I come home from work, having succesfully distracted myself from the focus writing and editing requires of me--thank you Sarah McLachlan, B-Sides & Other Rarities--and begin to putter around the flat. Which leads me to the kettle and the tea bags. And I start to think about tea, how fab it is, but how enmeshed it is in that pestilence upon humanity, the colonial project.
And then I figure, either go there or don’t go there.
I didn’t go there. *slurp*
;)
Slan
no subject
I hate to quibble with an interesting post, but wouldn't Richard Simmons - the exercise guru - fit somewhere in here?
Foucault
So you're wrong on that part. Nyah nyah! :D
and yeah, mainstream ain't nearly as monolithic as it'd like it to be....but so long as some consciously choose to "pass" as mainstream, never challenging or addressing homophobia and heterocentrism, I'll continue to discuss queer and mainstream as different experiences...which is not to say the demarcation is always clear. Or even particularly salient.
But don't worry about the Hoovers, for us homos sometimes any old hoover will do...