FMST- 112
Terms
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- Diaspora
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A term that refers to an exodus of people, whether forced (as in, the Palestinian Diaspora, the African Diaspora, and the Jewish Diaspora) or voluntary (the Philippine Diaspora, the South Asian Diaspora), from the place considered Òthe homeland.Ó Diaspora can be both physical, material, and symbolic. In the article about her film Brincando el charco, Frances Negr—n-Muntaner writes about how the film illustrates both the Puerto Rican diaspora and the queer diaspora. When ClaudiaÕs father rejects her for being a lesbian, he Òsets up a series of transformations, of daughters mutating into queers, queers into migrants, migrants into niuyoricans, niuyoricans into lovers, lovers into activists, activists into touristsÉ Hence what forces Claudia into a diasporic conditipon is an image that seemingly proves her the worst of the worst, a lover of womenÓ (52). Negr—n-Muntaner also writes that in Puerto RicoÕs case, ÒNot only did the diaspora take the nation with it, modularly reproducing it as a partially deterritorialized ethnic formation, but many in the diaspora never went away entirely; instead, they extended the borders of what we can now call the ÔPuerto Rican archipelago,Õ a chain that includes Vieques, Manhattan, Chicago, Hawaii, and Lorain, OhioÓ (52).
- Mestizo
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In the film, Claudia uses the term mestizo to designate a mixed identity, one that is neither quite white nor of color, Puerto Rican or American, but a hybridization of categories. Feminist theorists such as Gloria Anzaldœa have taken up the concept of the mestiza as a way of thinking about identity as something more complex than an either/or binary would allow. The mestizo/a is, for Negr—n-Muntaner, part of Òsupposedly marginal, extraterritorial populationsÓ that are Òtransformed into centrally located paradigms of collective hope—a utopia of sortsÓ (54).
- Color blind
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the belief that racism must be ignored in order for things to remain the same. It does not examine the production of inequality, but rather focuses on mystifying the unification of colored people. This is not the case, according to Prashad, who considers color blindness "divisive."
"The problem of the twenty-first century, then, is the problem of the color blind. This problem is simple: it believes that to redress racism, we need to not consider race in social practice, notably in the sphere of governmental action. The state, we are told, is above race. It must not actively discriminate against people on the basis of race in its actions" (38).
This faade of equality and "tolerance," is however, ineffective. When the state is primarily a white hegemonic power, color blindness becomes nothing more than ignoring the needs and rights of colored groups, and instead focuses on a notion of the "model minority," according to white perception.
"Essentially the argument is that Asians are good citizens and hardworking; they do not need state assistance. Blacks need state assistance; they must be bad citizens and lazy. This is the chain of reason for the color blind" (44). - Sanctioned Ignorance
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Can be seen in the selective forgetting of knowledge based production. Spivak calls sanctioned ignorance where the student or reader cannot know the depths of the loss that is there in translation of ideological rewritings of history, for instance of social movements, independence struggles or the lives of significant activists/thinkers. An example is the use of "Heritage Month" where particular cultural events, bands or speakers are scheduled to highlight "Latinos". This gesture is interpreted as sufficient acknowledgement of Latinos relationships and presence in the US as well as an inclusive alliance of anti-racism.
- Repatriation
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in general signifies the returning to a country of origin, such as an artifact or person. Yet repatriation can also denote a compensation, a sort of compensate that is paid back to person or persons that have been exploited, such as in the case of slavery. In this example reparation an "acknowledgement" of the violence caused by slavery is made, however no tangible remedy has yet to be seen or give back.
- Simultaneity of oppression
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one of the feminist theoretical frameworks initially developed by women of color activists, and later adopted and elaborated upon by women of color theorists through the 80s and 90s. It was developed in direct opposition to the idea that "racism should take precedence over all other forms of resistance to inequality" (9). It expresses how women of color are affected by multiple oppressions at the same time, none of which are more important than another. Central to the simultaneity of oppression is the lived experiences of women of color, and asserts that gender discrimination is just as important to the lives of women of color as racism. (In Time to Rise article).
- Triple jornada or triple shift of labor
- term coined by Latina feminists that references the multiple spheres of labor women are involved in: the workplace, the family, and the community. This idea is important because poor women across the world are shouldering more and more of the unpaid labor as wages and social services have been cut. This triple shift of labor directly stems from the simultaneity of oppressions faced by women of color workers involving their "class, race, national origin, and gender status (Time to Rise 18)"
- Contract
- At its simplest, a contract can be defined as an agreement between two parties, whether through formal or informal channels. However, in "The Pain of Word Bondage," Patricia Williams interrogates the notion of a contract as it relates to subject formation, the access to certain forms of language, and subjectivity/objectivity. Particularly, she is concerned with the ways in which differently racialized subjects are represented with regards to the law, when the very genealogy of contracts (via the slave trade) has constructed black people as objects. Williams asks, what does it mean to be outside the terms of a contract? As such, a multilingual reconfiguration of rights, Williams argues, attends to the exclusions that the logics of contract inhabit.
- The Language of Rights vs. The Language of Need
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In "The Pain of Word Bondage," Patricia Williams examines the relationship between rights rhetoric and the language of need, where one language is positioned as institutional stability and order (rights) and the other is positioned as community desire to fulfill a certain form of lack, such as suitable housing, employment, etc. (needs). Williams argues that while the language of needs has "succeeded only as a literary achievement," as a political statement, it has failed. From this vantage point, one can see the broader implications on the use of language as an active political project. Therefore, Williams argues for a broader interpretation of rights language, in the sense that it needs to be multilingual. By invoking the term multilingual, Williams enables an understanding of rights and difference as it relates to differently racialized communities.
- Metanarrative
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A metanarrative is a particular kind of narrative or story. When we hear the term story, we most typically think of a story of, say, Julia and Chela and their adventures. A metanarrative is a bit different: its protagonists are concepts, movements, ideas, schools of thought, epochs, and even other stories.
This is an example of a metanarrative: "Once feminism was a movement which defined itself as fighting for all women. Then, it realized that one had also to interrogate the term women. It also began to pay attention to oppression based on race, class and sexuality. Now, feminism fights against the gender binary and all forms of oppression." (Just to clarify: This is not the true or only story of feminism. It is not the only metanarrative of feminism.)
A metanarratives orders ideas, concepts, and bodies of knowledge in their relationship to each other, typically in a linear temporal succession. If successful, it thereby gives a (seemingly) comprehensive account of reality. It makes it difficult to see phenomena that contradict the narrative (for example the persistence in the presence of ideas said to be "past").
- Topography
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Chela Sandoval uses this term to refer to the different way she approaches feminist historiography, or the practice of writing history. She uses a topographical approach to help understand how feminism, using what she calls oppositional consciousness, can respond to oppression under postmodern conditions (266). This is different from a typology, which would see a struggle in a simple binary of A vs B, or hegemony vs the opposition, bad guys vs. good. A topography, a term that designates the practice of mapping, instead sees things more complexly. In order to understand how feminism can best be used as a tool for resistance, Sandoval argues that the hegemonic model of feminism had to be rethought (see keyword below). Her five-location topography, or "cognitive mapping" of "the modes that the subordinated of the United States (of any sex, gender, race, or class constituency) have claimed as the positions that resist domination" is different from either the hegemonic model or a simple typology: "Unlike its previous and modernist hegemonic version, however, this alternative typography of consciousness and action is not historically or teleologically organized; no enactment is privileged over any other; and the recognition that each site is as potentially effective in opposition as any other makes visible the differential mode of consciousness," developed by US third world feminists, that is particularly useful for resistance under late capitalist and postmodern cultural conditions (278).