tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post6549191792668436411..comments2024-03-29T07:14:55.029+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: Privilege Checking and ReflexivityPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-2893085824512536432013-06-06T20:35:23.507+01:002013-06-06T20:35:23.507+01:00What's that? That legibility means the death o...What's that? That legibility means the death of philosophy? ;)Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-83266986905370065722013-06-06T15:31:36.706+01:002013-06-06T15:31:36.706+01:00Thank you Phils, get it now. It's also basical...Thank you Phils, get it now. It's also basically what Heidegger was on about too, isn't it...<br /><br />Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-16977643448857391772013-06-06T10:46:30.128+01:002013-06-06T10:46:30.128+01:00That's exactly what happened to me Salman in t...That's exactly what happened to me Salman in the opening above. As a cis-gendered white bloke with a commitment to socialism, apparently the very act of expressing solidarity with comrades involved in trans rights is worthy of privilege-checking.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-42183606096336314422013-06-06T10:44:21.470+01:002013-06-06T10:44:21.470+01:00Phil, privilege-checking can be a debate closer, e...Phil, privilege-checking can be a debate closer, especially for keyboard radicals who like to revel in oppression points. But its impulse comes from the same place Bourdieu's comes from: recognising how bias stems from material circumstances and interests, and how that subsequently conditions outlooks and opinions.<br /><br />There is an order of magnitude difference in how that is applied on Twitter and in Bourdieu's work, of course.<br /><br />And it is Bourdieusian :)Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-24537342679192429562013-06-06T10:39:24.742+01:002013-06-06T10:39:24.742+01:00Yes Speedy, it is about circumstances of birth. Bu...Yes Speedy, it is about circumstances of birth. But so much more than that as well. Bourdieu's mapping of social space suggests anyone of us are enmeshed in any number of social fields at a particular point in time, whether we are conscious of it or not. These in turn condition our outlook, our decisions, and our subsequent trajectories through social space.<br /><br />For instance, as I was doing my PhD I wrote reflexively about my research. Why? Because I was a political person, a Trotskyist (of sorts), and (then) a member of the Socialist Party. My topic was the radicalisation and commitment processes experienced by fellow Trots in the SP and SWP. Clearly, the potential existed for my thesis to be shaped by the stakes I had in far left politics. In fact, it could not otherwise be so. The way around that was to acknowledge those stakes openly, recognise the rivalries between the two organisations, the potential for something to be passed over or unduly focused on, and so on. And also be open about the fact the PhD was an intervention in a wider academic field in which I hoped to get a job. Therefore the way it was structured had to be shaped by my political and immediate material interests. But denying that, or passing over it in silence is to buy into the ideology of neutrality Bourdieu talks about. The PhD wasn't neutral knowledge, far from it.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-7160025842049613482013-06-06T01:33:52.990+01:002013-06-06T01:33:52.990+01:00"As one intersectional feminist on Twitter ha..."As one intersectional feminist on Twitter has almost literally told me..." coffee spittingly hilarious half sentence there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-39003834715724727702013-06-06T00:16:37.110+01:002013-06-06T00:16:37.110+01:00Speedy - for me "reflexivity" means thin...Speedy - for me "reflexivity" means thinking seriously about where you're coming from, and how that may affect what you've got to say without you even knowing it. And that's basically a good thing - but it's a <b>big</b> thing. You can't know for certain how your upbringing or your background affects what you say until you really stop and think about it, and that's a long process.<br /><br />"Check your privilege" is like a common-sense short-cut version of reflexivity - "you're male/white/bourgeois/straight/able-bodied/etc, so <b>obviously</b> that's going to distort the way you think". But, like most common-sense shortcuts, it's an oversimplification. The trouble is that it's being used by people who don't care that it's an oversimplification, because (for the time being) it won't affect them: they can challenge other people's "privilege" without being afraid anyone will do the same to them.<br /><br />It's like Maoist self-criticism, really. To put it another way, it's cultish bollocks.Philhttp://gapingsilence.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-84325248210817514692013-06-05T16:49:08.292+01:002013-06-05T16:49:08.292+01:00By the way Phil, did I actually understand where y...By the way Phil, did I actually understand where you were coming from? I'm curious as I didn't get half of the academic stuff, but i always think if an idea is good it can be summed up simply...Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-61260399186754436552013-06-05T16:44:29.747+01:002013-06-05T16:44:29.747+01:00@ Salman
Bastard!@ Salman <br /><br />Bastard!Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-69289309840091778372013-06-05T13:54:13.578+01:002013-06-05T13:54:13.578+01:00"It is not about shutting anyone up."
I..."It is not about shutting anyone up."<br /><br />It shouldn't be, but I think it has been used irresponsibly by some for exactly those purposes. At one intersectional feminist on Twitter has almost literally told me I'm not allowed an opinion on a subject because I'm a Cambridge-educated male. Even though I was agreeing with her!Salman Shaheenhttp://www.salmanshaheen.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-12329230157925394562013-06-05T10:46:23.062+01:002013-06-05T10:46:23.062+01:00"privilege checking, or reflexivity,"
W..."privilege checking, or reflexivity,"<br /><br />Whoa there. Reflexivity in anything like a Bourdieuvian(?) sense is a lot more thoughtful - and a lot more demanding - than what's currently known as privilege-checking. That isn't necessarily a good thing - research projects can go up in smoke if the researcher decides that it's more important to interrogate his/her own position vis-a-vis the discursive (re)production of (cont'd p. 94). But if reflexivity can be a rabbit-hole, privilege-checking can be a <a href="http://storify.com/helenlewis/how-privilege-checking-shuts-down-discussion" rel="nofollow">conversation-stopper</a>.Philhttp://gapingsilence.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-90833318349549501372013-06-05T08:04:47.223+01:002013-06-05T08:04:47.223+01:00So what you're saying is that the circumstance...So what you're saying is that the circumstances of someone's birth affects the entire way they experience the world and their perceptions of it?<br /><br />If that's the case it may explain New Labour's approach to student tuition fees - because Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and most of their advisers came from middle class backgrounds they literally did not understand why working class people might be "put off" by the fees - I learned in my O'Level sociology about the deferred gratification of the middle class v the immediate gratification of the working class. Well-meaning middle class people would simply not "get" why investing in ones future could disincentivise education. <br /><br />They would certainly not "get" my experience - a working class kid with a handful of A Levels who leaves school and no one in his entire life, not parents, not school, has ever suggested doing a degree - which is what posh people do - and the idea had literally never occurred to him either until, bored in his clerical job he meets one of these "posh" girls in the pub who says - "why don't you do a degree then?" and he's - nah... you're alright - and she's: no, why not. And two weeks later he's doing one, just like that, and it changes his life for ever. That's what class is all about and what New Labour never seemed to get. <br /><br />But that was in the days of full grants of course, when you could ring around a few unis and polys and they'd say see you on Wednesday. Had she said - all you have to do is take out this huge loan... etc... then he'd have never got out. <br /><br />Of course the argument is that New Labour massively increased the amount of people doing degrees during their tenure with the intention of changing this, but I wonder - could it be instead that degrees became the "new" A Levels? The necessary quailification for the "aspirational" working class, rather than something that actually broke the class barrier?<br /><br />I suspect Oxbridge and the other old unis became the new "degrees". The "middle class" closed ranks - it has been said Blair's generation pulled the ladder out from under them and I have read that social mobility actually fell under New Labour. <br /><br />When I was young I didn't think of myself as working class and I don't think that young people now who get in to debt doing their degrees but end up in the same dull office job in insurance or whatever as I was realise that either - they've got degrees, right? Aren't they "middle class" too? <br /><br /><br />Speedynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-32597054844017328922013-06-05T07:58:34.358+01:002013-06-05T07:58:34.358+01:00I think you'll find the following paper releva...I think you'll find the following paper relevant to this issue: •Bhambra, Gurminder K., and Victoria Margree. "Identity politics and the need for a ‘tomorrow’." Economic and Political Weekly 45.15 (2010): 59-66. - it's available online: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2258/1/WRAP_Bhambra_Identity_politics.pdfYakoubhttp://www.tasneemproject.info/noreply@blogger.com