Month: June 2022

Social Justice / Buddhism / Queerness

I read the article by Tiffany Webster, ‘Social Justice / Buddhism / Queerness’. What strikes me in this text is the consideration of paradoxes, and this led me to reflect on my position in relation to these in the context of ‘whiteness’.

“Race is the ultimate delusion in that it both does and does not exist in reality”

I think that when we speak about ‘whiteness’ and ‘white fragility’, it easy to simplify these positions as a feeling of discomfort speaking about issues of race because of a wrangling, with, or without, guilt. But I feel that, as is mirrored in the comments around capitalism and Buddhism I the article, this concept has more to do with paradoxical values surrounding recognition. It is of course right that injustice must be recognised and corrected, but in relation to identity this can be problematic as it takes a political act of identity, and therefore a confirmation of difference. When the desire is to eradicate difference, or to confirm the non-existence of ‘race’, or ‘gender’, or ‘sexuality’, the act potentially obliterates the intention/desire. “Liberation is a process”, and therefore the conversation cannot be one that ends, but that leads us away from difference eventually. These are just thoughts that come to mind in considering my own positionality in the context of potential inaction for fear of confirmation of the very difference we wish to eradicate. In my own experience, I prefer to think of a ‘paralysis’ as more fitting than ‘fragility’, caused by the paradoxical nature of what is faced in identity confirmation.

These paradoxes are useful to explore, however, as they deepen the understanding of how positionality interacts with causes. A way this concept could be explored with students in my teaching practice would be through storytelling workshops. I could conceive of a writing exercise where students describe themselves through positionality statements and then are asked to write similar statements for another member of the group. A discussion of what different feelings these two processes produce would be an interesting way of considering the paradoxes of identity and positionality and their relevance to modes of storytelling.     

I found this lecture fascinating in the context of storytelling; in how we tell our own stories about ourselves (to ourselves and to the world) and how we tell the stories of others to ourselves through intersecting and divergent identity signifiers. Appiah talks of personal and social identity in a way that reminded me of the question posed in the essay by Razia Aziz “Feminism and the challenge of racism” from Session Two: “What is identity for?” In Aziz’s context, this question is posed in relation to the political act of identity. In the context of this lecture, I have reflected on the more personal use of the story of identity in understanding who I am, or rather, where I come from.  

The question “Where are you from?” is one that, whilst commonplace and seemingly innocuous, carries with it an othering quality, as Appiah relates early in the lecture. It presupposes the answer: ‘not from around here’. I had my own experiences of this growing up. Whilst I looked like most of the people around me where I was raised, I never sounded like any of the children at my school. Nor did I sound like members of my mother’s family in London. My mother, the eldest child in her family, had received elocution lessons at a school she was sent to as a teenager, whereas her many siblings had not. In a similar act of adaptation, my father’s father had taught himself to speak “properly” (as he saw it) by listening to voices on the radio, to improve his chances at being accepted into a Grammar School, and so passed on to my father not the accent of his parents, but one that was acquired. The result of these adaptations for my sisters and I is an accent that is an amalgam, somewhat unplaceable, not being one thing or another and not mirroring voices of our local surroundings or wider family and has therefore been a voice perpetually out of place, be it with peers growing up, or family members who have distinct regional accents.

My point in telling the mini biography of my voice relates to how I feel about growing up in a non-religious family, and the generational story of this. ‘Atheist’ or ‘Agnostic’ are not terms that I feel comfortable with in describing myself, as they simplify the generational story behind my religious positionality. I feel deeply connected to the story of my grandparents’ relationship, for example; the societal difficulties encountered at the time and their own personal connections with religion. My grandfather was a self-proclaimed Agnostic from a Protestant family, my grandmother a devout Catholic with a worldview that was radically liberal for her generation. Their different interpretations of where they come from religiously have always affected me in my own understanding of my relationship to religion and faith. These stories are an important part of my story and cannot be encompassed by a term such as ‘Atheist’, even though I would say that I am not a believer.

These stories, of why I grew up sounding a certain way, and how my relationship to faith was formed as a child, involve many characters and interpretations. They are stories retold and adapted. Appiah says, “The story of texts, is the story of readers and their interpretations”.

In the context of my work as a lecturer with performance students, storytelling in the context of identity could work well to explore questions of one’s own positionality, whilst also considering how a character is represented through storytelling. This approach to identity through the multiplicity of storytelling could be a very effective introduction to both character development and storytelling through character, in relation to identity and to change, with students developing concepts for performance projects. Perhaps a storytelling workshop (‘How did I get here?’) where the multiplicity of backgrounds and their formations is shared and explored together in a group.

I looked at the headings ‘Multiculturalism’, ‘The ‘Vaguely Christian’ UK’, and ‘Religion and knowledge of religion in UK universities’. Below are some reflections on my reading of these articles with a bit of a jumble of learnings and provocations that I reflected upon as a whole but have divided under the three headings.

Multiculturalism

“…some pro-diversity advocates are reluctant to extend multiculturalism to include religious groups. One argument is that ‘woman’, ‘Black’ and ‘gay’ are ascribed, involuntary identities while being, say, a Muslim is about chosen beliefs, and that Muslims therefore need or ought to have less legal protection than the other kinds of identities.”

Calhoun raises the fascinating issue of choice in his essay. This interests me in terms of the direction of the individual and societal gaze in relation to identity. How one sees oneself and how society decides is the correct way to see the identities of other selves, are distinct and often opposing movements which are plural and in flux, not fixed positions. How we decide as to how society should see people works in tandem with the individual who chooses to be seen a certain way, but is also at odds with historical societal ‘norms’ that often put people, particularly older generations, in a position of trying to keep up with changes, and is inevitably wrong in certain cases of identities that choose not to be seen in the same way as that which is agreed upon. This tends to lead to further categorisations, or sub-categorisations, rather than to the appreciation of the fluid and plural nature of self. This interests me in the context of capitalism and a kind of market approach to identity. This brought to mind a passage in ‘Saint Paul, The Foundation of Universalism’ by Alan Badiou where he considers what “identitarian and communitarian categories have to do with truth procedures”. Badiou writes, “The contemporary world is thus doubly hostile to truth procedures. This hostility betrays itself though nominal occlusions: where the name of a truth procedure should obtain, another, which represses it, holds sway. The name “culture” comes to obliterate that of “art.” The word “technology” obliterates the word “science.” The word “management” obliterates the word “politics.” The word “sexuality” obliterates love.” I am very interested in exploring further the concept of capitalism within the framework of identity categories and positionality.

On the subject of agency/choice Calhoun writes, “No one chooses to be or not to be born into a Muslim family. Similarly, no one chooses to be born into a society where to look like a Muslim or to be a Muslim creates suspicion, hostility, or failure to get the job you applied for. Of course, how Muslims respond to these circumstances will vary. Some will organise resistance, while others will try to stop looking like Muslims (the equivalent of ‘passing’ for white); some will build an ideology out of their subordination, others will not, just as a woman can choose to be a feminist or not.” The question for me here is: is it a choice to identify a person as “white”, or “black”, or to decide to be identified as “white” or “black”, or a “woman”, or “gay”? Whilst the argument can obviously be made that these are empirical facts, so are many other categorical ‘attributes’ that make up a person that both self and society do not deem key identifiers (Right-handed? Brown eyes?) Again, this is for obvious historical and political reasons (and is not meant as a provocation against the recognition of these identifiers), but these reasons do not deflect from the fact that our decisions to categorise identity by these, ever increasing, group of categories, and not by others, is a choice that we all make, individually and collectively. This comes back to the question posed by Razia Aziz of ‘what is identity for?’

The ‘vaguely Christian’ UK

Whilst aware of the historical ‘Christian-ness’ of the UK countries, I had not fully considered the range of intersectional and prominence of certain groups within this. ‘Christian’ in my limited familial world of religious inheritance is neatly divided between Catholic and Protestant. This is probably true for many British of my generation who identify as non-religious. Other groups of the multicultural state are identified by their religious denomination (Sikh, Muslim, Hindi, Jewish, Buddhist, etc). Being a long time Hackney dweller, the visibility of Pentecostal and Evangelical communities is very apparent. However, these groups tend to be identified as ‘Black’ communities, rather than by their faith, such as their ‘Hasidic’ neighbours in Stamford Hill. I had always considered the ‘Vaguely Christian’ concept of the UK to be down to the historical attachment of the large proportion of British communities who are basically non-religious, or at least non-practicing ‘Christians’. What does this mean for our conception of faith as an identifier, and of intersectionality more general, who one identifying category so deeply overshadows another?

Religion and knowledge of religion in UK universities

“The Church of England has chaplains at nearly every English university.”

I found this fact surprising, although, upon reflection, realised that I had always noticed the presence of the chaplaincy at the universities I have either attended or worked at. Usually merely the occasional sighting of a marked door, whilst never knowing exactly who the Chaplain is or what they do. Such is the ubiquity of background Christianity in my experiences (at primary school we were all made to ‘pray’ together daily in assembly, even though the school was secular) that I think little of this and do not question it.

“Even when delivered in entirely secular ways, this is still often termed ‘pastoral care’ in UK universities; chaplains are important to it, and academics offer less than they once did.”

This quote stood out to me as reflective of my own experiences with students as both a technician and, more recently, as a lecturer. The space for ‘pastoral care’ seems to have become far more spread, away from academics, into unofficial areas (such as workshop technicians, with whom some students spend a great deal more time than with academics, and who are not involved in assessment, so tend to be more approachable to students). The recognition of the need for this type of support, and the unrecognised provision of it, is potentially problematic in the sense that those who provide it should be recognised for it, but more importantly should be properly prepared for it and able to feed back to the university in relation to this provision. The concept of ‘religious literacy’ should be encouraged and provided for all those who come into regular contact with students and not held solely by ‘religious specialists’ (from a single religious background).

Browsing this excellent collection of resources made me consider the concept of the archive in relation to moving viewpoints and changing conversations around identity and inclusivity. Some of the articles are over ten years old and it made me try to imagine how I might have responded to them at the time of publication. Had anything changed about me? I read the article by Alister Sooke (Does Modern Art Hate Religion?) and thought about how, in the context of faith and art, this is an excellent starting point in considering the changing relationships between and readings of art and faith. Being nearly ten years old the article is already behind so many key events of recent years. How does this affect our reading of such resources?

I feel that much like the function of our blogposts here, encouraging students to consider the historical legacy of artefacts and their changing relevance could be an interesting use of, or approach to, the blog. To think about what is relevant and how that has shifted in relation to a similar blogging activity could create an interesting resource for future cohorts. This could encourage engagement with the subject, but also develop the research sensibilities of a group in the action of adding to and responding to the archive.

I particularly like the Pen Portraits case study as an activity as a means of ‘breaking the ice’. In the context of legacy as noted above, perhaps a publication project could be included, as an agreed upon public version of blog entries, so that later years could consider the answers of students that preceded them?