Tuesday, April 12, 2011
ICA #10 Group Work (must be posted by 12pm on Friday, 4/15)
One member from your group must type up your responses and post them to blogspot no later than 12pm Fri. 4/15. Please include a header that says ICA #10 from Group # (whatever) and who your author is, then list the codenames of your group members.
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ICA number 10, Group 2, Molefi Kete Asante, Blessing-Barney-Orchid,
ReplyDelete1. What is afrology?
The afrocentric study of African concepts, issues, and behaviors. It includes research on African themes in the Americas and the West Indies, as well as the African continent. Most of the relevant research involves the systemic exploration of relationships, social codes, cultural and commercial customs, and oral traditions and proverbs, although interpretation of communicative behaviors, as expressed in discourse, spoken or written, and techniques found in jazz studies and urban street-vernacular signifying, is also included.
2. What are the three fundamental existential postures? Descibe the differences for these postures for Europeans and Africans?
The three fundamental existential postures that one takes in respect to the human condition are feeling, knowing, and acting. For Africans these postures are considered to be interrelated and studying an object is best done when these components are not separate. However, for Europeans, these components are separates into different complexes called affective, which is like or dislike of an object; cognitive which is perception of an object; and conative which is the behavior regarding an object.
3. What is an orature? How does this affect discourse?
Orature is the word used to refer to the sum total of oral tradition, which includes dance, music and speech. Because of the emphasis on oral tradition and creative storytelling, public discourse is able to produce compulsive relationships and invoke the inner needs of audiences because of the inherent power of image. And power is derived from the experience of the “orality” and spirituality of the presentation.
4. What is the difference between the way Europeans and Afrocans see things?
Unlike the Euro-American, the African seeks the totality of an experience, concept, or system. Traditional African society looked for unity of the whole rather than specifics of the whole. They also emphasized synthesis more than analysis. Thus, African society experienced more community stability because viewing things as a whole was more productive than viewing specific things in detail.
5. What is the Afrocan speaker? What are the characteristics of the Afrocan speaker?
One who seeks the totality of an experience, concept, or system. One who looks for unity of the whole rather than specifics of the whole and emphasizes synthesis, rather than analysis. The Afrocan speaker has the power to fascinate and generate creative energy. They mean to be a poet, not a lecturer. The Afrocan speaker is capable of producing powerful images and seeks to appeal to the principal myths in our society.
ICA # 10 Group 6 Handlez3, Quailman, sinbad3, cabrini
ReplyDeleteGloria Anzaldua “The New Mestiza”
1. How does the “history” of the borderland affect the “biography” of the “new Mestiza”?
The history of the borderland has been fraught with strife and struggle between the mostly White colonizers, the Indians and, later, the Mexicans. The new mestiza is a race that came about to describe descendents of the Indians and Spanish colonists. With the wars, movement of the border, and multiple groups trying to conquer the land, the history has affected the descendents of that area through their personal heritage.The 'new mestiza' are considered unwelcome intruders in what was their own land. History has made it so that they are no longer welcome in their own home.
2. What is the standpoint Anzaldua advocates?
Anzaldua’s standpoint is that of a Chicana, tejana, feminist lesbian. This standpoint allows her to articulate the destruction of historical racism, as well as contemporary homophobia and sexism, which exists within white society as well as her own culture. To deal with this, Anzaldua advocates a place in which she is still identifies with her cultural background, but chooses to subscribe to beliefs that reflect her identities. Although she defends her Chicana heritage to anyone non-Chicana, she has not felt supported due to her sexual orientation and she is less than proud of the way women are treated and expected to behave in her culture.
ICA #10
ReplyDeleteQuestion #1
James S. Coleman
Rabon
JJBO
niaps
A nation-state is a group of people part based on ethnicity and the other part more modern and corporately defined. Group members are seen as people, not positions, and they independently come together with a common purpose in mind. Multinational corporations are composed of people who hold positions and are agents of the corporation. Their main goal is to maximize an objective function such as profit or size. Thus, a nation state may be deemed as more of a social contract bonding people together based off ethics, religion, and culture while a multinational corporation is a movement, like capitalism, that spreads to varying countries ignoring the idea of “people” and replacing it with a strategic success making agenda.
These two notions come into conflict because in gaining a multinational corporation a country loses its nation-state foundations. Although it may not be the intent of corporations to spread certain norms in which they originated, values and ideas are exchanged or created. National sovereignty is a vital component to some nations so when movements such as McDonaldization occur we see major conflicts such as the ones going on in the Middle East. The amalgamation of these ideas also brings to conflict the idea of a collective democracy versus individuality. We cannot deny the fact that immigration is increasing and people are blending cultures, but this becomes an issue as to who is causing this and is it wanted. Are we as individuals choosing to see “white as beautiful” or is it the collective consensus that is telling us to change our norms and outlooks in a different multinational corporation based way?
The idea of the demand for a new social science creates also a demand for knowledge and ideas that will assist in the understanding and execution of social transformation while confronting the problems it creates. It must also consist of both applied research as well as theory, which “must cross the traditional bounds of the disciplines within which knowledge is ordered” (p. 510).
ICA 10; Question 7; MishaCat/FLSHEAIR
ReplyDelete1) What theory does Chodorow look to to explain why women mother? What parts of this theory does she agree with? What parts does she disagree with?
Psychoanalytic theory. She states that it “provides us with a theory of social reproduction that explains major features of personality development and the development of psychic structure, and the differential development of gender personality in particular.” She seems to agree that, speaking in general, personality is the result of how a child “appropriates, internalizes, and organizes early experiences in their family”.
However, she follows this by explaining that psychoanalytic theory lacks a reasonable theory of the reproduction of mothering in particular. She then criticizes the field for assuming that motherhood is somehow an innate social inevitability, suggesting that little real effort had been put forth to determine why women, in particular, mother.
To remedy this, she returns to the psychoanalytic account of male and female development. Her solution is to reinterpret this theory, though from this point it’s not entirely clear how much of her writing lies in the original interpretation and how much is her reinterpretation. Regardless, her suggestion is that, “as a result of having been parented by a woman, women are more likely than men to seek to be mothers, that is, to relocate themselves in a primary mother-child relationship, to get gratification from the mothering relationship, and to have psychological and relational capacities for mothering.”
2) How does Chodorow reinterpret this theory to explain why women mother?
She seems to be suggesting that, while boys are treated as an “opposite” by their mother and tend to disassociate from mothering, girls’ experience with mothering is “continuous” in the sense that they’re never forced to develop out of a “preoedipal” state and are capable of retaining the same kinds of relationships as their mothers—thus, women’s mothering is an extension of their own experiences.
3) What does Chodorow believe to be the effects of the reproduction of women mothering?
Chodorow believes that the effects of the reproduction of women
mothering is that as a result
of women's compliance to their traditional domestic roles,they
physically, psychologically and emotionally
reproduce themselves on a daily basis to be mothers. Therefore,
contributing to the endless cycle of their
assigned gender roles and social position in society. In addition,
because women themselves are brought up
by women who are mother they are subconsciously taught their roles
and ultimately brought up with the idea
that it is their duty to mother.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteICA #10
ReplyDeleteQuestion #1
James S. Coleman
Odnalro, Xkcdqtbh, lyragirl
1. What are the differences between nation-states and multinational corporations?
Nation-states and multinational corporations are both types of organization. Nation-state are frequently organized by a constitution (social contract with a common purpose among individuals).The constitutional and primordial basis (ethnic, religious, or cultural) are in opposition, creating tension in a nation-state.The multinational corporation does not have this tension, as the corporation has but a single purpose or basis of organization. Nation-states are composed of people; multinational corporations are composed of positions (roles) and people are merely occupants of positions. The purpose of nation states is to take responsibility and claim authority over people; the purpose of multinational corporations is to create a product for market and typically seek to maximize some characteristic of themselves. Nation-states carve up the world exclusively; multinational corporations do not. Furthermore, nation-states have legitimate coercive power; multinational corporations do not.
2.Where and why are they in conflict?
Nation-states and multinational corporations do not conflict in a physical place. Their conflict occurs in humanity’s organization (i.e. the mosaic of human societies as a whole). They conflict over what forms humanity should be organized into; it is a conflict for dominance of form. They conflict because they are two different forms of organization that exist within and around one another, and each intrudes upon the power and authority of the other. Corporations move people and goods for economic gain. Nations wish to maintain their economic inequalities between nations while maintaining territorial sovereignty by setting up barriers to movement. People control nation decisions by voicing their preferences (i.e. elections). They control actions of multinational corporations by exiting (i.e. customers go to another supplier). So it’s a conflict of voice and exit, as well as a conflict between them in that Nation-states are a democracy while multinational corporations are markets with them being very different in their systems of rights. For democratic voices, rights are collectively held. For individual exit, rights of control are individually held. It all boils down to collective control vs. individual control.
3.What are the characteristics of the “new social science”?
The new social science must deal with a new social organization: one where so called “primordial forms” with social capital have been lost and the purposive forms have dominated. This new social science must concern itself with seizing the opportunities that come with the rise of corporation and also learning to cope with the problems associated with the loss of social capital. This new social science should also design “solutions” which assume that national legislatures have lost power to affect social organization. It must consist of applied research and theory. Theory must cross traditional bounds as there are changes in social disciplines because societies transformation has changed the linkages among institutional areas. There is a need for something new.
ICA #10
ReplyDeleteGroup #2- The Afrocentric Idea -Molefi Kete Asante (questions 1-2)
Gardina, Taboo, Dantes
1. What is Afrology?
Afrology is known as a philosophy of social structures of Africa. It originated in Africa and is known as a way to identify oneself into a social form. The original term for Afrology is “Afrocentricity”. This includes research on that have taken place in the African continent, African themes in the Americas, and the West Indies. This research involves relationships, social codes, cultural and commercial customs, and oral traditions and proverbs. There are 3 fundamental existential postures that include feeling, knowing, and acting. Afrology recognizes these 3 fundamental existential postures as interrelated. They are not to stand individually. The feeling is associated with a person’s feelings. The knowing is how an object is perceived; and, the proverbs are a person’s behavioral tendencies regarding an object. The study of an object of idea is best executed in Afrology when are three of these aspects are interconnected.
2. What are the three fundamental existential postures? Describe the differences for these postures for Europeans and Africans?
The three existential postures in regards to the human condition (of Afrology) are feeling, knowing, and acting. For Europeans these are termed affective, cognitive, and conative. The main difference between the Afrocentric and Eurocentric views on these postures are how they are in regards to the application of all of three of them. As Asante stated, “Afrology recognizes these three stances as interrelated, not separate”. To understand and interact with an object or idea more comprehensively, one must apply their feelings, perceptions, and actions cohesively rather than on a separate basis.
ICA #10
ReplyDeleteGroup #2- The Afrocentric Idea -Molefi Kete Asante (questions 3-5)
Gardina, Taboo, Dantes
3. What is an orature? How does this affect discourse?
Orature- the phenomenon used to describe the sum total of oral traditions, which includes vocality, drumming, storytelling, praise singing, and naming. This gives way to more vocal-expressive modality and shows that Africans in America maintained an expressive sense that manifested itself as life force in dance, music, and speech. The way Africans see things and express stories completely changes the way they discourse and interact. Also, traditional African public discourse is given to concrete images that are capable of producing compulsive relationships and invoking inner needs of audiences because of the inherent power of images. Power is derived from “orality” and spirituality of the presentation.
4. What is the difference between the way Europeans and Africans see things?
Africans seek that totality of an experience, concept or system. That means that Africans see speech as something that is meant to be alive and moving in all of its aspects so that separation of the members becomes impossible, because the creative production is “an experience” or a happening occurring within and outside the speaker’s soul. Traditional African society looked for unity of the whole rather than specifics of the whole; such a concentration, which also emphasized synthesis more than analysis, contributed to community stability because considerations in the whole were more productive than considerations to details. African speakers are like poets, not like lecturers (Europeans).
5. What is the African speaker? What are the characteristics of the African speaker?
The African Speaker is one who continues the tradition of telling the African history though the oral tradition. They have the ability to captivate and enthrall the audience through their moving speeches. Again relating to the three existential postures, they speak of experiences as a whole, “they focus on the totality of an experience rather than specifics”. They are considered “poets, not lecturers.” They do their best to link their stories to those of America based off the Eurocentric pressure they have faced for so long, because in order to persevere, they must engage the audience by any means. And through history, the African speaker has become an expert at doing just that.
ICA #10 – Group #4 – Gaytan Chakayorty Spiyak
ReplyDeleteBebop
Captain
Lehs2106
1.What would be the content of subaltern studies?
-The content of subaltern studies is rethinking Indian colonial historiography from the perspective of the discontinuous chain of peasant insurgencies during the colonial occupation because as it were, the historiography of Indian nationalism has for a long time been dominated by elitism-colonialist elitism and bourgeois-nationalist elitism.
2.Why ask can the subaltern speak?
-In seeking to learn to speak (rather than listen to or speak for) the historically muted subject to the subaltern woman, the postcolonial intellectual systematically “unlearns” female privilege. This systematic unlearning involves learning to critique postcolonial discourse with the best tools it can provide and not simply substituting the lost figure of the colonized. Thus, to question the unquestioned muting of the subaltern woman even within the anti-imperialist project of subaltern studies is not to ‘produce difference by differing’ or to ‘appeal…to a sexual identity defined as essential and privilege experiences associated with that identity. She’s saying that in order for academics to understand the ‘subalternan’, they have to do more than ask about their experiences, they must also listen to how they feel.
3.What is the relationship of western feminism to third world women?
-The feminism preached in first world countries talks about how if you are poor, black and female, you will be hit by oppression from three different angles. However, in the third world color becomes irrelevant and suddenly you are simply an impoverished woman. In first world countries such as the US and Europe, feminists can be heard and everyone knows they exist. In third world countries the subaltern women remain mute and and it is not easy to hear the opinions or consciousness of these women.
on time
ReplyDeleteCA #10
Group 9
Cupcake, Tebow404, Snickers
Nancy Hartsock "Foucault on Power: A Theory for Women?"
1. What does she mean when she says that issues of difference that divide men from women can also unite them? Examples?
She says that issues that divide men from women can, essentially, highlight those that unite, such as race and culture. I believe what she is saying is that, for example, though black men and black women are different, they can unite under the identity of being black. Another example of this could be culturally how people can come from many different backgrounds but essentially, there are always still a few unifying characteristics, customs, or habits.
2. What are the five epistemologies that need to be understood to create a theory for women? What are the critical steps?
1) We (women) need to engage in the historical, political, and theoretical process of constituting ourselves as subjects as well as objects of history; we can make history and be the objects of those who have made history. We need not do away with subjectivity, but instead we need to be both the objects and subjects of history, politics, and theory. Women too have the right to make history, not just be the "objects" of those who already have made history. We need to understand that women can be subjects and makers of history. Show that women's perspective could be a primary perspective and not just subjugated knowledge.
2) We must do our work on an epistemological base that indicates knowledge is possible, not just conversation or discourse on power relations. We must understand how power works, not just discuss it. We need to have a basic understanding of systemic knowledge about our world and ourselves. If we want to create a world that communicates our own ideas and images, we need to better understand how it works.
3) We need a theory of power that recognizes that our practical daily activity contains and understanding of the world. We must “read out” the epistemologies in our various practices. Material life sets limits on the understanding of social relations. There needs to be a theory of power that expresses women's view of the world.
4) Our understanding of power needs to recognize the difficulty of creating alternatives. Oppressed groups must struggle for achievement and not dismiss the oppressors as simply false or misguided.
5) As an engaged vision, the understanding of the oppressed exposes the relations among people as inhuman and thus contains a call to political action. Women must be actively engaged in changing power relations. Exposure of inhumanity leads to political action. Hence, when women are oppressed they are called to be active participants for change. A theory on women should call to action to change inequalities.
The Critical Steps:
First we should use what we know about our own lives to critique current culture. Secondly, we should create alternatives.
ICA# 10 Group #8
ReplyDeleteSN: MAYTWOONE, Yosemite
1. What does Judith Butler say about performing our roles in society?
Butler does not like the idea of separating her identity as lesbian
from the rest of her identity, because it becomes something that does
not entirely define who she is. Similar to Baudrillard, it becomes a
sign or symbol, something that is a production - this is her main
point,
that our roles in society are all productions that cannot be taken out
of context of each other. She talks about it being paradoxical of the
"I": I is not wholly represented by her being lesbian, that only
describes that particular role that she performs. Because of this, our
roles are oppressive: we are expected to perform to this role, rather
than express ourselves as a manifestation of the trait; behaviors
outside of this performance make people wonder. The whole concept of
"coming out" illustrates this: what are LGBTQ individuals coming out
of,
and what are they entering in to? They identified as LGBTQ before,
aren't they still? What's new now? The expectations of everyone, as
well
as the uncertainty because they are no longer socially identified as
being part of the group they just left, or came "out" of.
She also touches on the idea that roles are not these binary things
(in/out, etc.), but along some sort of continuum. How are sexual
identities constructed/what makes someone LGBTQ? She mentions act,
fantasy and orifice among others to show how difficult this can be.
Because of this, our roles, although we make them to be concrete (i.e.
there is LGBTQ, heterosexual, black, white, etc.), often times these
things are rather blurry. What she suggests, then, is that the notion
of roles are used not to define what we are, but what we are not - she
says "excluded is the future uses of the sign." And because this
describes not who we are, but who we are not, it hints at the "shadow
of
the real," which Butler says is a false reality: the reality is that
heterosexual identities are composed of imitations that pretend to be
the transcendental heterosexual. All in all, this is Butler's point:
that the roles we perform are all imitations: imitations of what we
believe to be some transcendental, universal ideal role, when in
"reality," these roles are constructed and there is no universal ideal.
2. How does Esther Newton describe drag?
Esther Newton describes drag as being another gender, when gender is
simply an act or role that we assume. Newton states that drag "enacts
the very structure of impersonation by which gender is assumed," and
acts as a challenge to the notion that gender is exclusively assigned
by
sex - that masculinity comes with being male, and femininity comes with
being female - because it is not the act of acquiring and wearing other
genders, but creating itself, as according to Newton, there is no
proper
gender. In this way, drag is itself a gender, a role that individuals
identify with: nothing too crazy, because as she puts it, it is simply
another mundane way in which genders are appropriated, theatricalized,
worn and done. We wear things that we define as masculine or feminin,
we
act in ways that are, etc. Drag is no different.
ICA# 10 Group #8
ReplyDeletecontinued
SN: MAYTWOONE, Yosemite
3. What is performativity?
Performativity, according to Butler is the way in which we perform our
roles/identities, that they are not something universal, but that they,
as she puts it, "constitute as an effect the very subject [they] appear
to express." In other words, performativity is simply the idea that the
acts that we make in our roles define what our roles are; our roles
have
the capacity to define themselves because they are not actually real
but
something that is created and emergent from the ways in which we
perform
and adapt roles.
. Why is heterosexuality at risk according to Butler?
Butler states that heterosexuality is at risk because it is always
repeating itself and elaborating upon itself. Because all heterosexual
traits and personalities are uniform, there is only room for the thought
of straight sex in the mind of a heterosexual individual. This forces
the heterosexual identities and norms into homosexual culture. It is the
repetition of these traits which give heterosexuality power, and at the
same time will be its downfall.
Bobo group #7
ReplyDelete2. Chodorow reinterprets the Psychoanalysis theory to incorporate a theory of the reproduction of mothering. She accounts that
because women mother, experiences are different for boys and girls, especially the pre-oedipal relationship. For boys and girls the relationship with the mother pushes them to develop "extra-familial heterosexual relationships". Sons seek to form a gender personality that could be considered opposite from the mother while daughters make the assumption that it is the natural duty of women to mother since they identify with the mother. Therefore since this identification with the mother exist the process to motherhood is continuous for girls. Chodorow concludes that "Women mother daughters who, when they become mothers, mother."
A few notes from Kristin:
ReplyDeleteThe group says:
"The 'new mestiza' are considered unwelcome intruders in what was their own land. History has made it so that they are no longer welcome in their own home."
This is correct, and Anzadula uses it as a metaphor for other ways in which our identities are such that we feel like we "do not fit"