Speaking Out.

This constitutes a redrafted form of a piece of writing I had considered worthless. That I had considered it worthless speaks of the very oppressive systems which limit our ability to speak of ourselves within an intersectional framework. Our selves are of no worth within an academic framework which seeks to silence us and to take upon itself the model of the 'correct' way to theorise.

Speaking out is an act of rebellion.

Why read theory when we are hungry: Reading with and through bell hooks and Hélène Cixous.

This is a narrative of my first exposures to critical theory. This is not a narrative confined to academic settings. This is a narrative which is set on trains, in the waiting rooms of Gender Identity Clinics and in dark corners of public houses which constituted some of the few places where I and those like me where told explicitly that we where safe. This is a narrative of theory as liberation, as the measuring out of my (and other’s) confinement and the search for a way out.

In ‘Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom’ bell hooks[1] states that ‘I came to theory because I was hurting-the pain within me was so intense that I could not go on living. I came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend-to grasp what was happening around and within me. Most importantly I wanted to make the hurt go away. I saw in theory then a location of healing.’ (Hooks 1994, 59) I was desperate, I was hurting and I came to theory and found a way to understand the forms of violence that surrounded me. I found in theory a way to become the subject of my own analysis.[2] Theory allowed me to move beyond the condition of ‘living under the sign of the ‘unliveable’ (Butler 1993, xiii) and to create a space in which I could be, in which I could live.

‘The pain within me was so intense that I could not go on living.’

Theory gave me the tools to fashion an identity which stood in opposition to that forced on me as a Genderqueer person, an identity enforced by medical gatekeepers who withheld treatment for those who were not deemed to be performing their gender properly. Butler allowed me to understand that gender is an ontology without a core, an ontology sustained through its performance, a series of ‘fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means.’ (Butler 1990, 185) I was being asked to enact and enforce a boundary which constituted me as other, as non-subject. Butler gave me a way to form an identity which forsook ‘a sense of ‘the normal’ (Butler 1990, 189) to ask ‘what kind of gender performance will enact and reveal the performativity of gender itself’ (Butler 1990, 189) and to enact my own subversive performance of gender.

For people living with oppression theory becomes not an abstract tool but a way to ‘name our pain and to theorise from that location.’ (hooks 1994) To read in hooks of a woman who found release in theory and to tell hooks that before this point ‘there has been so much hurt in me’ (hooks 1994, 73) is to see myself finding a model for not only the pain but the radical possibilities that had been formulating within myself.

To reiterate: theory gave me the tools which allowed me to understand that I was living within a system of oppression and the tools to critique these systems, to escape their control and to form a stable sense of self which sits in opposition to them. Theory gave me life.

There is a tension in the examination of my own relationship to theory. This tension arises when moving from a discussion of self to a discussion of others. A critical understanding which frees me but not others fails to fulfil the ‘radical requirement’ (Freire 2017, 24) Freire identifies as a central component to liberation, the need for the systems that create oppression to be overthrown.[3] This is something I have tried to do in my life, the real lesson of critical theory, and something that I knew before I read Freire. As bell hooks states: ‘When our lived experience of theorizing is fundamentally linked to processes of self-recovery, of collective liberation, no gap exists between theory and practice’ (hooks 1994, 61) the separation of theory and praxis only exists if we see theory as a discrete process which comes into being by the process of naming and learning[4] (hooks 1994, 61/62) but, as Cixous makes plain ‘We are in the burning bush. We are born in the burning bush…We are nailed fast by events.’ (Cixous 2005, xvi) To exist within systems of oppression is to be ensnared with or without recourse to theory. Theory is not a practice which occurs within academia and which academics must somehow find a way to translate into action out with the academy, it is a process and a way of being which liberates us as both individuals and as a collective. It is a process and a way of being which allows us to see that we are constructed and to call to those who would oppress us and demand that they acknowledge ‘the seams and sutures in yourself.’ (Stryker 2011, 86)

[1] In both the body of the text of this chapter and in my references I have chosen to respect the form bell hooks asks for her name to be written. I feel that there is a degree to which I must apologise for being a white academic using her writing without reference to the community she specifically addresses. This would be compounded by misrepresenting her identity.

[2] ‘This exclusionary matrix by which subjects are formed thus requires the simultaneous production of a domain of abject beings, those who are not yet ‘subjects’ but who form the constructive outside to the domain of the subject.’ (Butler 1993, xiii)

[3] I am reminded of an act of radical liberation pedagogy. I was unemployed and applied for a temporary loan while waiting on benefits, knowing I would spend hours in this process I took a copy of ‘Gender Trouble’ with me to read again. While waiting with a group of women one asked what I was reading and when I told her she asked what it was about. I explained Butler’s theories, and this sparked a truly radical conversation which resulted in several of them women vowing to change how they brought up their children in response to Butler’s work. Theory is a tool of the oppressed to achieve liberation and that ‘any theory that cannot be shared in everyday conversation cannot be used to educate the public (hooks 1994, 64)

[4] Of importance here is hooks’ observation that the act of naming is a privileged act which ‘may obscure what is really taking place’ and can be said to constitute part of the structure of white supremacy. (hooks 1994, 62-63)

References:

Butler, J. (1993) Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex.’ New York and London; Routledge Classics.

Butler, J. (1990) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York and London; Routledge Classics.

Cixous, H. (1994)Preface: On Stigmatexts by Hélène Cixous, in Cixous, H. (1994)Stigmata Translated from the French by Eric Prenowitz. London and New York: Routledge Classics.

Freire, P. (2017) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated from the Portuguese by M. B. Ramos. UK: Penguin Modern Classics.

hooks, b. (1994) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York and London; Routledge.

Stryker, S. (2011) My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage. Kvinder, Køn & Forskning Nr 3(4), pp. 83-96

'Oh God, do I Have to Travel?'

I promised more on my experience of the Sonic Rebellions conference in Brighton so here we go...

'Oh god, do I have to travel?'

I hate traveling. In her TED talk Hannah Gadsby speaks about how, as a neuro-divergent person, things which terrify others leave her untouched but that otherwise day-to-day things fill her with terror. Most things that are boring fill me with terror: going to work, meeting someone for coffee, speaking to friends and on and on. My sister told me recently that as a child I went through life frightened of everything, I still do but curiously not when these things are what others would find terrifying but I had to travel.

I don't travel well. I was panicking on the bus to Haymarket Station, I was panicking on the platform waiting on the train to London. I panicked on the train then when I got into London I panicked afresh, not sure I knew how to get from King's Cross to Victoria (for those who have not done this journey a million times you hop on the Underground for a few stops.) When I got to Victoria I panicked while waiting on the train to Brighton. I stood on the concourse muttering to myself and stroking the handle of my umbrella. When the platform was called with two minutes to spare I ran across the station trying not to scream.

I don't travel well.

When I Stand Up Everything is Easy.

I presented on the second day of the conference. The only thing that bothered me was that I may have forgotten my presentation so I buried my USB drive deep in my jacket pocket beneath my phone and triple checked that I had copied it correctly onto the desktop before sitting down to hear Markus Hetheier's talk on the Manchester DIY Electronic Scene.

It came my turn to stand and address a packed room and suddenly everything was easy. That's the odd thing, waiting on a connection in Victoria Station is terrifying, delivering a theoretically complex presentation to a room of upwards of thirty people is easy.

So What?

I wanted to take the time to talk about my experience of being an autistic scholar attending a conference so far from the things that ground me and help me cope with the daily pressures of an neurotypical world.

Notes on Autoethnography Part 2: How to go About this Business

'

There is no solution. One can only decide, cut, sever, and everything is bad. There is no exit nor entrance. We are in the burning bush. We where born in the burning bush.' (Cixous 1998, xv1)

We begin where we began yesterday but going deeper, 'taking the red staircase, down to the bottom of ourselves.' (Cixous 1993, 3)

The purpose of this blog post, now we have defined some of our terms, is to examine how they will be applied and what will be studied.

Finding what will be examined and what will not.

In her discussion on 'How to find Research Topics' Heewon Chang discusses the work of Kim Foster who examined her experiences of her Mother's mental illness. She shares a list of questions that Foster used to promote introspection and some of these are relevant to my own ethnographic study, particularly the following: 'How Does your life experience shape the theory that will frame your method? What 'cultural baggage' do you bring to the research encounter?... How will your identity place limitations on your research?' (Foster, McAllister, & O'Brien, 2)

In the margins of this I have written: 'Here I can ask about my relationship to a tradition - be that the Jazz cannon, the avant guard or the directly political - activism'

'1. My own position as a white person engaging in a practice born from the work of black people.'

'2. As an improviser from outside a Musical or Free Improvising tradition, as an activist who is seeking to use improvisation as praxis.'

This led to me (I am modelling a story of my own researches here, what Chang calls 'descriptive-realistic writing') (Chang 2008, 136)(1) to ask what I wanted to study, what would form the basis of my autoethnographic endeavours. The dominant themes that emerged where that I need to think of my own relationship to the tensions between the Jazz cannon and the practice of Free Improvisation (Bailey 1992) but, even more importantly, I have to recognise that my work is overtly political. If I do not engage with the political in my work and instead focus on the sense impressions and associations that come to mind during my playing then I betray the purpose of my improvisations, I leave my praxis half formed.

The main focus of my self reflection, my 'data gathering' will be how self is constructed through the interactions of oppressive systems operating within society. I will focus on the hierarchal nature of performance, on the problem of labour and my position (regardless of my wish to be otherwise) as the 'mill owner' to borrow my supervisor's phrase.

My Autoethnography will be critical. Not in there sense that it will critically examine the stories I tell (and I am reminded of Jeanette Monaco warning us regarding the constructed nature of memory) (Monaco, 2010) but that I will be 'telling stories about theory and theorising through the autoethnographic stories we [I] tell.' (MacKinlay 2019, 194) My study will be critical in nature and will be performed through a critical lens.

Self and Subjectivity: the Burning Bush and the Red Staircase.

The key to developing the form my autoethnography will take for these improvisations came from reading Cixous' discussion of her childhood realisation of the impossibility of providing a resolution to the issues autoethnography gives rise to, the 'inexorability' of any tidy and clean solution (to borrow her own word.) Her statement that 'one can only decide, cut, sever, and everything is bad' (Cixous 1998, xv1) provides a way to begin to move away from positivist positions that can threaten to overwhelm our autoethnography, away from data gathering and objectivity. To recognise this is to recognise that we are present within the process of forming our ethnographic stories and 'the ways in which locations of identity and emotional registers inform research choices and processes.' (Monaco 2010, 102) This is not to deny the value of Objectivity but to recognise, as Cixous reminds us, that 'subjectivity is the wealth we have in common.' (Cixous 1994, 18)

Equally important to the formulation of my approach was Cixous' essay 'Bathsheba or the Interior Bible.' (Cixous 1993) In this essay Cixous discusses 'Bathsheba Bathing' and 'The Slaughtered Ox' by Rembrandt and constructs the metaphor of a journey into self/ flesh. She compares Van Gogh's argument that 'we must get inside the country' with Rembrandt's painting of Bathsheba's interior life, 'the interior Bible' as she phrases it: 'And to get inside the interior Bible? One must take the stairs, and plunge into the flesh. Down to the farthest Country...Taking the red staircase, down to the bottom of ourselves, under the earth's crust.' (Cixous 1993, 6-7)

This profound sense of flesh as country, flesh as metaphor is echoed in another piece by Cixous where she discusses the ways in which that which is personal and local is a part of and inseparable from the global by speaking of 'private drama' as war within the self and states that 'I and the world are never separate.' (Cixous 1994, 16)

Within the process of autoethnography is the person, the body, the 'embodied auto ethnographer' (MacKinley 2019, 60) and that which effects the self both as a constructed embodiment of societal/ oppressive forces and the body in which that self negotiates the act of being are subject to and vital to autoethnography.

References.

Bailey, D. (1992)Improvisation: it's Nature and Practice in Music. UK: De Capo Press.

Chang, H. (2008) Autoethnography as Method. London and New York: Routedge

Cixous, H. (1993)Bathsheba or the Interior Bible, in Cixous, H. (1994)Stigmata Translated from the French by Catherine A.F. MacGillivray. London and New York: Routledge Classics

Cixous, H. (1994)Preface, in S. Sellers (ed) The Hélène Cixous Reader. New York: Routledge

Cixous, H. (1994)Preface: On Stigmatexts by Hélène Cixous, in Cixous, H. (1994)Stigmata Translated from the French by Eric Prenowitz. London and New York: Routledge Classics

MacKinley, E. (2019) Critical Writing For Embodied Approaches: Autoethnography, Feminism and Decoloniality. Cham: Palgrave MacMillan.

Monaco, J. (2010)'Memory Work, Autoethnography and the construction of a fan-ethnography.' Participations: Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 7(1) pp. 102-146