Social Death 1+2

Lisa Marie Cachos book Social death is a response to the the system of racialized rightlessness. She expands on issues related to vulnerability and criminality, but from different disciplines, like sociology, criminology, race, media. She crosses all these disciplines already in her foreword, when she describes the medial representation of the similar actions affected victims took after the hurricane Katrina. The dichotomy „how human value is made intelligible through racialized, sexualized, spatialized, and state- sanctioned violences (4).
The first chapter discusses the incident of six white Californian teenagers, attacking four Mexican migrant workers. Interesting is the connection of legality and illegality dichotomy with race. The migrants are observed isolated from personhood, their status is perceived as an offense itself, and the crime is therefore deserved. She also analyses the gang dynamic. It is interesting because the double standard of the law is subject here. One can remain subject to it, but be excluded from protection.
It made me think about the hate crime law, which for example was invented to protect marginalized groups in particular, which nevertheless, at the same, still time measures crimes in relation to the affected body.
In Chapter two, Cacho presents the case of Kim Ho Ma. The Cambodian refugee was subject to deportation, after being pronounced guilty of murder. The meaning of freedom is especially challenged in this chapter. As a refugee Ma became stateless status, and could not be deported. His refugee status made him automatically a noncitizen. This means that there is actually no freedom for refugees like Ma, if misconduct is immediately punished with deportation. It seems like these groups are just in the States for a permanent tryout.
Chapter three and four were especially interesting to me, after the recent attacks in Paris, as well as the episode of the Dreamers we watched in class. Cacho describes American media representations of Muslims after the 9/11 attacks. Again citizenship and personhood are facing one another. Personhood is not something naturally given. It seems like it is exclusive to certain groups of people, for everybody else it rather has to be earned.
In chapter four Cacho describes the case of an illegal migrant worker, Elvira Arellano. She is illegally in the US, whereas her child is an American citizen. The chapter does again present also media, which chooses a certain way to represent. In this case African American and undocumented migrants are standing across from each, which in the end leaves the white majority undisturbed exploitation.
The last chapter deals with the death of the authors cousin, in a drunk-driving accident.
Cacho discusses the racialization in the US. The legal system treats based on race, dependent on their status as well.
moreover, her case studies are just examples that could be found in any other ‘western’- country in the world. The refugees arriving in Europe just now will just go through this process and will probably face similar devaluations. And especially after the attacks in Paris some political fights, will be fought on the refugees back. Already now, refugees become the scapegoats for the terror, the already difficult process of entering Europe is subject to be debated. At the same time, the burning of one of the refugee camps in France, was barely covered by media. Although nobody got hurt, this event would have emphasized the victim position of the refugees. Furthermore, the worldwide reactions to this attack show one more time how bodies value is differentiated. Cacho encourages with her contribution on racialization for the reader to move beyond the systems, she “centers the responsibility to reckon with those deemed dangerous, undeserving, and unintelligible“ (168).

Social Death Part 2

This week's reading was interesting for me, especially because it started with the after-effects of September 11. Having lived in New York this summer, I visited the museum multiple times, as well as the new One World Trade Center and Ground Zero. Interestingly enough, I could see how the descriptors of the terrorists through transcripts and other evidence clearly matched Cacho's descriptors: "gang members ('people who strike and hide'), undocumented immigrants ('people who know no borders'), the disabled or mentally ill ('people who depend upon others'), and their allies ('people who harbor them and finance them and feed them')." Also interesting is the effects of 9/11 particularly on people of the Muslim faith and people who choose to veil. It's strange to see the immediate after-effects of an event that seemed to have happen not long ago. People who do not look like the American were/possibly still are labeled the Other, the non-citizen, constantly weaving their American identity into their story in order to compensate for not looking the part of a white American. "Because terrorism in the United States was associated with Islam and signified by both Arab/Muslim bodies and nations in the Middle East following as well as predating 9/11, being suspected of terrorism because of one's race, ethnicity, and/or religion became a de facto status crime that could be enforced through immigration law and justified through the ascription of illegality." Cacho also points out that in order to mask the clear racism in the War on Terror, the national identity post-9/11 took a form of diverse, multiracial Americans, going as far as the military. Not only did the U.S. go outside its border to recruit, but it also recruited heavily in particular areas — areas with heavy representation of People of Color. While it looked/looks like the U.S. military is attempting to diversify its ranks, in all actuality, the U.S. military recruited certain populations that were considered disposable in the first place, i.e. Latino/a and Black populations. Because the U.S. recruited outside the U.S., many of the soldiers were "undocumented" "non-citizens." Yet, the U.S. did not give them the label "American citizen" until after death.

In using Cachos argument to look at Black Lives Matter, Brown Lives Matter and All Lives Matter, I think Cacho would find all three somewhat problematic. Black/Brown Lives Matter attempt to document citizenship for People of Color, yet who all is included in Black/Brown Lives? Even though Black Lives Matter was actually started by three Black women, the movement is largely represented by Black men. All Lives Matter, however, is not as all-inclusive as it seems. Are women included in All Lives Matter? Are all races and ethnicities included, or is All Lives Matter just a cover up to silence Black Lives Matter and Brown Lives Matter? Most likely closest to Cachos argument would be, do undocumented, non-citizens lives matter? Black and Brown Lives Matter do a better job than All Lives Matter are revealing the inconsistencies in this hegemonic culture. But I still believe Cacho would argue with Black/Brown Lives Matter because it attempts to humanize these American citizens.

Social Death Part 2

            The new movements in response to police brutality are numerous things to different people. Depending upon positionality to the situation, people find some movements more relevant or fairer than others. Placing Cacho in conversation with these movements is interesting for various reasons. Each movement has it’s own specific target with it’s own political agenda.

            “All Lives Matter” is known as the counter movement to “Black Lives Matter,” but some view ALM as a more inclusive movement. Personally, I think ALM is another way for people to justify saying that black people whine too much about the situations somehow find themselves. ALM is the majority response to BLM. I think Cacho would place ALM as a form of white entitlement because they are under the illusion that all bodies are treated equally under the law. Their thoughts that ALM is the answer better serves to prove that the people involved in that movement do not understand their privileges, and don’t understand reasoning for the BLM movement. While it can be said that ALM is not exactly the group that Cacho would advocate for, I don’t think the other movements are the answer either.

            “Black and Brown Lives Matter” both have agendas that are meant to help people of color, but they do it at each other’s expense. While there should be light shed on these issues respectively, both of these movements are vying for attention in the mainstream. Cacho notes how bodies of color have to fight among themselves to gain attention from the group in power. They subvert the power of other minority groups so they can get a chance to change their status – which I cannot blame them for. Who wants to be at the bottom of the power totem pole? BLM and BLM have wonderful intentions as political activist groups, but they are playing into the hands of those in power because they are undermining each other for attention. Both of these movements seem more like the oppression Olympics than a real activist movements, both are still trying to get attention from the mainstream by calling on the shortcoming or lack of inclusivity of the other group.

            I think Cacho would call these movements a response to the power dynamic, and a genuine attempt at social change. However, these movements are using tactics that don’t serve all bodies of color because they are still attempting to place value on bodies as more valuable than others. For the other there is still an Other that they can place underneath them, which does not solve the problems that these movements want it places them in the position to affect another body of color. The answer to these groups problems is not the ALM movement – since it doesn’t address anything other than reinforcing white denial and power.

Social Death, Pt. 2

This week's readings, the closing half of Lisa Marie Cacho's Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected, continues in many ways some of our discussions from last week, which centered around the idea of "social death" and the permanent(ly) unmournable criminalized. However, for a number of reasons, Cacho pulls us out of abstraction so that we might grapple more completely with the material effects of criminalization–rather than social death being a "killing abstraction"..."it becomes the premise and precondition for actual death" (98). In her discussion of the "War on Terrorism," Cacho examines the ways in which this permanent class of "non-citizen" is created through a mesh of intricate signifiers that denote who belongs; who does not belong; who deserves understanding and compassion; who does not deserve understanding and compassion. As Cacho reminds us: "The 'illegal alien' is the signifier, which should concern us because it signifies persons fundamentally unentitled to rights, and it refers to a category of nonpersonhood that institutes discrimination" (113). This is an important juncture in our theorizations and discussions about not only this work, but the work of transnational projects more broadly because they force (perhaps in a more nuanced way, coerce) us to contend with our own necessity for a "racialized/criminalized Other" against whom we are able to measure our own appropriateness as citizens, as law abiders, as capitalists, as human beings. Cacho must likewise contend with this very proposal in the conclusion via the death of her cousin. In this chapter she states, "On some level, the violence of Brandon's death was perversely and disconcertingly a source of value for us because it valorized the life choices that each of us made but he did not. It naturalized how and why he died while simultaneously reaffirming our social worth and societal value. His violent death validated the rightness of our choices and the righteousness of our behaviors, thereby illustrating Barrett's insight that 'relativities of value [are] ratios of violence.'" (149). Moreso, Cacho necessitates an examination of how/why the choices that we have made "to become valuable members of society validated U.S. society's exclusionary methods for assigning social value" and therefore our own immersion within the complex web of neoliberal ideologies that we seek to critique–constantly reminding us that we are not able to escape yet this is no reason to be complicit.

In thinking more generally about the application of Cacho's work onto discussions of the #BlackLivesMatter movement–including its subsequent and causal iterations #AllLivesMatter and #BrownLivesMatter–there is a necessity in examining, however partially, the role of valuation in our considerations about who, literally, matters and who does not. Cacho would certainly be critical of the tendencies in #BlackLivesMatter to focus on the lives of Black men, which has the unfortunate implication of rendering women of color, at least unintentionally, illegible or unimportant. Yet, I also think that #BlackLivesMatter and #BrownLivesMatter seek to push against a hegemonic (White) desire to maintain the status quo within our neoliberal capitalist culture in a way that Cacho very much articulates. #AllLivesMatter, on the other hand, is an exercise by the White hegemony to silence the calls for justice that are being made by People of Color in response to the state sanctioned violences that are taking place against them, both in immigrant communities and in "criminalized" neighborhoods around the country. The main thing that I see as being important in communicating between the #BlackLivesMatter/#BrownLivesMatter movements and Cacho is the insistence upon highlighting the inconsistencies between the neoliberal (homophobic, racist, classist) ideologies of the State, which is perennially seeking to maintain an unconscious/silenced group by whom appropriate humanity can be measured, and the material violences that are a result of those ideologies. I see them as being fundamentally important to the task that Cacho has taken up; though highlighting or rendering these practices evident may not seem important to their end, it is inarticulably necessary and, I would argue, essential for them to be revealed, which is, in itself, an ostensible impossibility. Thus, this work works in the interstices between what is believed to be possible and what is necessary. Perhaps someone else can articulate this better than I...

social Death Pt 1

Overall i really have enjoyed Cacho's very important book which analysis "how race and space are imagined" thus it " governs how neighborhoods of color and their residents will be managed". Immediately began to compare Cacho work with Michelle Alexanders important work which analyzes the criminalization of african american communities. And i think something very important we may discuss in class today is in what ways can criminalized populations resist a  system that is nothing more than a system of social control for bodies that are casted as "other:" than white?

What i appreciated about Cachos work is her dedication to analyze how bodies of color have been criminalized and and as a result stand outside the protection of the law, but not necessarily excluded from the law.  Cacho argues that "criminalized populations and the places where they live form the foundation of the U.S. legal system, imagined to be the reason why a punitive (in)justice system exists". and lastly I was very intrigued by Cachos argument of "unfamiliarized" those narratives that continue to disempower those who have been marginalized.

Social Death Part 1

            The stereotyping of certain people are trickle down effects from the representation of other groups of people. Cacho echoed Ulysse in some respect; they both understand that certain representations of people become their only identity.  Cacho’s discussion on the representation of Hurricane Katrina victims is similar to the experiences that Haitian earthquake victims suffer. Hurricane Katrina victims were not given proper medical care or basic supplies because of concerns for safety, similar to hot areas during the Haitian earthquake. It was clear, based on who received aid, whose bodies were found to be more valuable therefore worth saving. In the case of New Orleans, the people should have been worth saving, at least to some of the public, because they were not refugees, but U.S. citizens.

            Cacho grappled with notions of citizenship in a very interesting way. Instead of the simple what makes a citizen a citizen, Cacho shed light on which citizens are valued more. The citizen has a monetary value placed on their rescue, so are they worth saving if they are on considered to be less than worthy citizens? What makes a worthy citizen? It seems in the course of natural disasters that the only citizens not worth saving have color and are poor. People who are the victims of government’s misconducts are usually the people who are too disadvantaged to combat or correct the situation.

            Governmental claims to aid people and be an equal force of justice for all are proven false by constant reformation of policies and responses to major crises. Governmental reforms of immigration still leave someone unprotected. The immigration process is tedious and meant to keep out “others” because of nationalistic, liberalist ideals that reinforce the notion that all immigrants are thieves that are robbing the country dry. These laws are intimate ways to keep certain bodies governed within the law while simultaneously keeping them on the outside unable to reap any benefits. As Cohen points out, the immigrants aren’t able to receive any of the benefits their taxes pay for, although the common representation is they don’t pay taxes.

            Cacho reaffirms Ulysse’s notion that representations in the media can become attached to bodies as a singular identity. These singular representations or association of people of color, especially black people, with evil, dangerous and/or sinister themes serves to reinforce the capitalistic ideals that require someone to be placed at the bottom, as the undesirable or other, so that the top can continue to be.  

Social Death, week 1

“If acting ‘normal’ is symptomatic of sociopathology as a ‘condition,’ how would one ever demonstrate reform or rehabilitation?” (Cacho, 72).

For there to be a demonstration of reform and rehabilitation there would need to be the opportunity given for that demonstration, and it does not seem too bleak or harsh to claim that that opportunity is denied to people of color both within the legal system and outside of it in the U.S. Beyond that lack of opportunity, there is no desire for that opportunity to be given. Intrinsic within basic systems of evaluation, like psychology and other such practices that seek to get at the ‘heart’ of the human experience, are criteria that implicates those who do not fit within neoliberalist standards as being morally deficient and socially disabled (Cacho, 92). As seen in the psych evaluation of Ma, the refusal to comply with ‘normal’ expressions of guilt and acceptance of 'guilt' are incriminations in and of themselves that denote an overall defect in the accused. How is it even possible for a person to show that they ‘have value’ when they are assumed to be incapable of value from the start?

De facto status crimes are defined by Cacho as “specific activities that are only transparently recognized as ‘criminal’ when they are attached to statuses that invoke race (gang member), ethnicity (“illegal alien”), and/or national origin (suspected terrorist)” (Cacho, 43). This concept of transferable meaning in many ways invokes the ideas set out by Sara Ahmed about hate being a transferable commodity. Though there is nothing intrinsically criminal in bodies of color, bodies of color are seen to be sites of criminality. Bodies of color that cross into the U.S. are told from the beginning that they are of less value, from the random screenings at airports to the ‘alien’ label they receive upon entrance.

If ever there were to be an example of cognitive dissonance, it would be in how the U.S. claims to be the land of the freedom while having the highest levels of incarceration in the world.

Chaco part I

Chaco is analyzing texts that she thinks help to illuminate the ways in which poor people of color are criminalized, how public opinion on such matters is shaped, and how the American ideal of divinely endowed inalienable rights does not, in fact, prevent the U.S. from alienating such rights from particular classes of persons. She draws a great deal on news media reports, but also Congressional and court transcripts, books, and police bulletins. She uses case studies from the past three decades to illustrate her points, which focus to a large extent on treatment of immigrant people of color and on gangs.

One of the concepts she relies on is “symbolic colonization”: how the media perpetuate a characterization of race and ethnic differences that serves a hegemonic devaluation of ethnic others. In the concept of hegemony (from Gramsci), public order is maintained non-forcibly by a subtle process in which members of the community come to adopt the belief systems that serve those in power, even sometimes to their own detriment. This is most often implemented through the institutions of learning and through public media. Thus, media portrayals of gang life, immigrant populations (I kept thinking of Gran Torino), and terrorists enable the government to maintain public support for policies that deny such groups their supposedly inalienable rights.

I particularly appreciated her introduction of Bell’s concept of “racial realism” – the idea that what is most important is not whether or not one wins, but whether one stands up for oneself. Standing up for oneself, even just to be knocked down, is a claiming of dignity. More importantly, failure to stand up for oneself is an indignity that continues to make its effects felt throughout life. For someone deciding how best to expend one’s energy to address race-based inequalities, it is important to be reminded that doing the best one can, with integrity, is a win in its own right, but I also would add that to do so inspires others, gives people hope, and can lead to real advances by unforeseeable routes.

I have some questions about some parts of her argument. For example, on page 15 she is discussing the effects of Hurricane Katrina and the argument over the use of the word “refugee”. While I understand how referring to African-American victims of Katrina as "refugees" was alienating and distancing, I don't understand how it criminalized them. I also don't understand how calling a person a refugee “forecloses sympathy” –  aren't people sympathetic to refugees?

On page 50, she is discussing the case in which a group of middle-class young men attacked Mexican immigrants, and the suggestion by some that it would be useful to have the assailants spend time working with and learning about the group that they attacked. She says, “learning from migrant workers in order to learn about them implies that knowing is humanizing, but in actuality, it is objectifying.” She uses Ahmed’s explanation about strangers, but it is not clear why she thinks spending time with someone who begins as a stranger cannot lead to an new understanding of that person as “some-body”. And if knowing is objectifying, then is there anything that is humanizing?  

Social Death

Throughout the main crux of this book, I mostly nodded my head in both agreement and disappointment. The fact that these thoughts and ideas have been printed in a book for distribution, yet the majority of voters for the upcoming presidential election have no idea of how the policies that these potential propose can and will negatively effect marginalized groups is astounding yet not surprising at all. I feel like I'm constantly bouncing back-and-forth between conversations where people are knowledgable and understanding to those that claim to "know politics" yet are the least knowledgable, in my opinion. But, just as Cacho says, "Most propositions on the ballots are drafted primarily by wealthy citizens and politicians" (Cacho, p. 38).

Especially in the state of Alabama, I find myself constantly dancing the line of loving and hating this place, but every time our state politicians open their mouths, I nod myself in disbelief. How could these people possibly be seen by the majority of the state as competent and knowledgable? Particularly in the case of the state of Alabama requiring IDs for voting. When that law particularly came up, people raved saying it was going to crack down on "illegal voters" and keep elections honest. At that claim in particular, I have to literally laugh out loud because when have elections ever been completely honest? I won't even go into the term "illegal voters." This law, in particular, caught my attention because I knew this could not be good. It sounded good, it looked good, but in the state of Alabama, looking good and sounding good can only mean that something is lurking in the background. Just a few weeks ago, we found out what was lurking. The state of Alabama closed 31 drivers license offices. The state claims this isn't discrimination because 22 of those offices are in white-majority counties. However, every county in which 75 percent or more of the registered are black will lose its office. The budget cuts and voter registration IDs sound great, but that's where they want you to stop. They don't want you to elaborate on those facts at all. How are these counties truly affected. We're not only going to close their drivers license offices — which will limit their abilities to obtain legal ways of transportation — but we're also going to limit their abilities to vote on the very laws that are pushing them further outside the margin. "Many are aimed either at expanding state powers in order to police marginalized populations or at decreasing state resources that help these same aggrieved groups" (Cacho, p. 38). This quote rings all too true.

White entitlement is a real thing. As a white, female American, I am somewhat aware of some of my privileges. But even I can see how these laws are made in selfish ambitions seeking only for self entitlement and gain. We purposefully devalue bodies that are not our own in order to move ourselves up the ladder. White bodies devalue any body that is not white through criminalization. Light colored — but not white bodies — devalue bodies darker than themselves. Bodies devalue other bodies in order to prioritize their own and prove their worth.

At the end, Chaco claims that in order to value another body, we must devalue our own bodies. I'm not sure that I agree with this, but I don't disagree. The optimistic side of me wants to claim that we all have some decency, some human, some logical sense that would keep us from being terrible human beings. But then I watch presidential debates and my optimism shrinks as Donald Trump's hair, Carly Fiorina's smile and Hillary Clinton's emails are prioritized over human bodies. "The choices we made to become valuable members of society validated U.S. society's exclusionary methods for assigning social value. These methods also assign not-value, fixing the other's devaluation" (Cacho, p. 149).


Cacho, Lisa Marie (2012-11-12). Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected (Nation of Nations) (p. 38). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.

Accountability in Knowledge Production

After completing the articles, I sat staring angrily at my wall. I couldn’t shake the waves swelling in my chest every time I thought of the violations of K*. Not just because of the rapes that she endured, but also because the violations that came from Mac McClelland’s reporting. One important aspect of knowledge production is ethical agency and an aspect of this is the risks that come with the misappropriation of the experiences of others (Fernandes, 129). Those risks are manifested in flat, misconstrued views of peoples and places that can have ramifications both publically and privately for those involved. In many ways, McClelland’s depiction of Haiti and the misappropriation of K*’s story falls neatly into the legacy of neoliberal constructions of female bodies of color and of Haiti as well as the use of these bodies and stories for personal gain.

McClelland’s piece (written with the cheap articulation of a tabloid) is riddled with misrepresentations of Haiti, such as the description of how ‘American sunshine’ could not dispel the horrors she had experienced due to Haiti, a country in ‘ugly chaos’. This serves to perpetuate long held opinions of a hierarchy between those within Western ‘civilizations’ and the ‘others’. As she talks about working through the trauma she experienced throughout her reporting career, McClelland expresses a desire to regain the control that she feels she has lost. But what about K*? Does she not deserve her own sense of control? Should she not at least have control over who knows about her experiences and how this knowledge is dispersed? These experiences that she will carry with her for a lifetime should at least be her own to tell. The violation of K* came again through the pen of McClelland and this exploitive use of another woman’s story for personal gain.

Where McClelland’s article was a dehumanization of Haitians, Danticat’s response was the humanization of the victimized. Each sentence materialized a richer, fuller woman and Haiti that is missing from McClelland’s reporting. Danticat, like Ulysse, strives to return the narrative of Haiti to the truth and this accountability to what she is creating knowledge around is seen through her constructions of K*. In an email to Danticant, K* says: “I want victims in Haiti to know that they can be strong and stand up for their rights and have a voice. Our choices about when and how our story is told must be respected."

Oftentimes the rights of sexual assault victims are stripped away and in the case of K*, these rights to her own story were construed for the gain of another. This is a violation in and of itself that needs to be addressed within the process of producing knowledge, not just within fast media outlets, but also within academia. 

Truth and Fiction on Haiti: The Real Victim speaks was content wise a very problematic read for me. Neither am I familiar with any of these authors, nor with the magazines, so it is hard to judge the substance. However, Majorie Valbourn claims, that McClelland did not seek for the victims approval to portray her experiences. This is a legitimate critique, if it is correct. Rather low down is her statement of “McClellands ‘questionable’ truth about her personal experiences.“ She does not provide any evidence or proof of this claim, which makes it fictional as well. She criticizes McClelland on a very personal level, which seems to be out of place for me.

The Female Journalists & Researchers Respond To Haiti PTSD Article is directed to the editors, which makes their respond in contrast to Valbrun less personal already. Furthermore, their critique is to reconsider the representation, which is based on a generalization of Haiti, which McClelland presents within her article. The critiques seem to be justifiable.

Valburn is afraid that public’s trust in journalism is undermined. I think if public questions articles it is just an act of enlightenment;  and enlighten be the journalists aim.

In the end, it needs a recipient who questions, checks different perspectives and builds is opinion only after this process. Furthermore, this position should be dynamic.

I think Leela Fernandas concept minorization of the world, introduced in chapter 6 of Transnational Feminism in the United States, could be one way to dynamize (does this verb exist?) this process of positioning. The transnational perspective would ask you to minoritize your home country, for example the US. She describes this adding of a transnational perspective, as a simple „inclusion of one more category of the ‚other‘. I think it is interesting, that she chooses the word inclusion over integration though. Inclusion means to not just integrate in an existing system, but to change the system to make something actually fit. This means inherently, that not just one ‚other‘ is added, but that the original perspective, is overthought, and also changed.

Fernandes

I am glad that Fernandes is talking about the "market driven organization of the production and consumption of knowledge." As I move through academia, the sense of faddishness and cliquishness has been surprising. In particular, I have been frustrated by what she calls "the new stylistic or linguistic turn of phrase" (p.195) which seems to be mandatory for publication. For social scientists, who might be assumed to share a concern with the ways in which institutions like education affect people differentially on the basis of class, it seems peculiar that what we publish should be written in a style that is linguistically inaccessible to ordinary citizens.

That said, once I figured out what was meant by an “ethic of risk”, I found her discussion of the matter useful, although I can only hope that I understood her correctly. There is danger in the attempt to translate other peoples’ worlds into academic knowledge, but it is unethical to try to play it safe. The fieldwork I am proposing for my dissertation will be among African-Americans. As one of my classmates said to me, “Wouldn’t it be better for an African-American to do that study?” Yes. Yes it would, but I don’t  see anyone ready to take it up, so I have been trying to figure out how to do this ethically. Yet I have been acutely aware that this is a project which is entirely my idea. It’s a fairly hot topic with the people who have the power to grant funds. It’s a topic that is dear to the heart of my advisor. These are things that are important ingredients for a successful dissertation – what Fernandes refers to as the politics of fieldwork. But it may not be a hot topic with the people in the community I will be asking to participate.

I hope I can design a study that will produce knowledge that is helpful to the community. I have to write a proposal for something that I think will contribute to the well-being of its subjects, as well as to the theoretical edifice of my discipline, get it approved by a committee of professors, and get it funded by some committee of experts in public health. Will this proposal be something that the local community finds valuable? Quoting Welch, Fernandes writes, "...within an ethic of risk, actions begin with the recognition that far too much has been lost and there are no clear means of restitution" (p.131). When I start talking to potential informants, I may find out that there is something else they wish I would study, or I may find out that they agree with my classmate and want me to get out of the neighborhood. It seems better to talk to potential informants first, recognizing that I might be going back to my advisor and saying, “They would rather I studied something else.” The ethic of risk – to decide to care and to act although there are no guarantees of success.

So, Fernandes’ discussion of a practice-oriented approach, with attention to the practice of ethical principles as knowledge is produced, contains suggestions that I should keep as a list above my desk. Pay attention to how you are gaining access to informants and to information. Think about what kinds of questions should (or should not) be asked. Make sure your subjects have the information they need. When you write your papers, think about who will be using it, for what purpose, and who will profit from it. Your subjects should profit from it. She suggests being an engaged witness, not merely observing, but in the sense of bearing witness, testifying, or speaking out on behalf of others. The witness in a field setting changes the dynamics, and there is the danger of putting one’s informants in a bad position. This makes perfect sense, but what can I assume about the way that my presence will change the dynamics in a given situation? Above all, I need to be willing to give up a degree of control, to develop and rethink my research goals and agendas in collaboration with members of the local community.

 

January 12, 2010 4:53:10 PM

January 12, 2010 4:53:10 PM

How you know you’re sad a book is over:

1. You read the acknowledgments slowly (like you may recognize a name

2. You flip bak to the beginning to reread the introduction (just to make sure the author did what they said they were going to do)

3. You reread the entirety of the pages you dogeared

4. You go back and double underline your favorite passages

5. You contemplate ordering every book in the bibliography

Those are all things I did when I finished Why Haiti Needs New Narrative by Gina Ulysse. 

Gina Ulysse for President

When looking at what the President of Haiti needs to possess, I would say- an understanding of the complex and misunderstood history of the country, the challenges, the corruption. But also the beauty. Someone who is motivated by and inspired about the future of Haiti. I nominate Gina Ulysse. She is motivated by one thing: systematic changes in Haiti (42). She has “knowledge of our country’s extremes and knows that change will not come to Haiti without conscious and radial approaches. Otherwise, Haiti’s future will abound with more man-made disasters” (52). She is a self proclaimed “die-hard Haitiphile” (59). 

Lot bo dlo & the Haitian diaspora 

Gina Ulyyse is a member of the Haiti’s large diaspora. What is known as the tenth department, the 1million+ Haitians "on the other side of the water” yet remain connected to Haiti. 70% were impacted directly by the earthquake, the other 30% were one degree of separation. “Diaspora communities produce various cultural formations that travel back to and are consumed in their place of origin” (Fernandes, 61). Across the ocean, after the earthquake, she wrote and was a voice for many in Haiti. She remained connected to the culture of both Haiti and the US, a transnational feminist. 

Why do people hate Haiti?

Gina Ulysse makes it clear that there is a PR problem with Haiti. Throughout her essays she talks about the perceptions and stereotypes of everything from race to class to religion. “The day when Haitians as a people, and Haiti as a symbol, are no longer representatives of or synonymous with poverty, backwardness, and evil is still yet to come” (Ulysse, 26). 

“Hate is an intense emotion; it involves a feeling of ‘againstness’ that is always, in the phenomenological sense, intentional. Hate is always hatred of something or somebody… Hate may respond to the particular, but it tends to do so by aligning the particular with the general; 'I hate you because you are this or that’, where the ‘this’ or ‘that’ evokes a group that the individual comes to stand for or stand in for” (Ahmed, 49).

In the same way that Americans responded to Slumdog Millionaire, Haiti itself “provides a safe and uplifting representation of poverty that allows American audiences to both mediate their own economic anxieties and also project these anxieties on an 'other' country that can still be viewed as distant and inferior” (Fernandes, 76). 

Ahmed describes the concept of affective economies, which I understand as referring to the way that emotional reactions are distributed and gain value through repeated verbal expression. Fernandes quotes her, and expounds on the idea through her analyses of how The Bandit Queen and Slumdog Millionaire were used to reinforce notions of Indian barbarism and corruption. Ulysse also refers to the way transnational media productions perpetuate affective patterns for their audiences, with the trope of the white guy gone native who takes up the battle against colonial power. Both Fernandes and Ulysse raise the question of how the subaltern can be given voice, in transnational atmosphere where agents of colonizing nations are deciding what media will be funded and distributed.

Ahmed points out the way certain phrases and words come to be linked to issues around particular groups, what Goffman would call ‘framing’. A recent example of this in the U.S. was the use of the word ‘thug’ to describe Baltimore teenagers acting out in the aftermath of the Freddie Gray shooting. Or how repetition of the phrase ‘kept us safe’ served a double purpose of instilling fear and reinforcing an image of the President as protector-in-chief during the years following September 11.  If such a phrase is repeated often enough, the association ‘sticks’, and become hard to combat through rational discussion. It is interesting to see how now that association is being deconstructed only now, as Donald Trump makes the point that was certainly brought up at various times in the past decade, which is that Bush actually failed to keep us safe. Whole books were written about that in the mid-2000’s, so what were the forces that kept the public’s eyes closed then, and why are they ready to open them now? While this may seem off-topic, the underlying question is about how the affective economy can be manipulated, and by whom. Who is it that could challenge the framing of teenagers as thugs?

In class the other week, we performed an exercise of word association with France and Africa that demonstrated what all three of these authors are arguing. The representations of minority groups and “third world” populations in both scholarly papers and public media have reinforced images of France that are largely positive, while those of Africa are largely negative. With regard to Haiti, all we hear is the negative – the corruption, disorganization, devastation, disease – it always appears as a backward and hopeless case. I expected, as I read Ulysse, that I would find a more positive portrayal, that at some point I would find the stories of heroism and community she occasionally made reference to. Sadly, they never appeared beyond a mere glimpse. While I am sure, on an intellectual level, that she is telling the truth when she asserts that there is more to Haiti than poverty, danger, and hopelessness, her book did nothing to alter my affective view of the country.

With regard to the voice of the subaltern, which Fernandes dwells on, this seems quite a dilemma. If Spivak is right, that no one can speak on behalf of the subaltern without subjecting her to the influence of existing power structures (e.g., the academy), then what would be preferable? If the subaltern speaks to the researcher, we cannot be sure that she is speaking frankly, or whether a justified failure of trust suppresses the honest expression of opinion or feeling. If she does speak frankly, the question remains whether the researcher is able to hear and translate in a way that maintains integrity – that conveys to the audience an accurate depiction of the subaltern’s message. If the voices of subalterns are frankly opened, and translated with integrity, then at the next level of choice, who is deciding which voices are worthy of presentation to a larger audience? In Slumdog Millionaire, the decision to replace a civilized female lawyer with a brutal male interrogator substituted a trope of barbarism for the more realistic expression of democracy. One has to wonder if the movie would have been as successful had such alterations not been made. Or for that matter, whether the movie that was made did any good in terms of changing the world’s image of India, and if it could have done any good by insisting on more fidelity to the original story, even if that meant a reduced audience.

The Organization of Hate - Sara Ahmed

            Ahmed’s chapter two is very illuminating on the subject of hate; her affective economies are the most interesting part. While I believe I understand how she is using affective economies to unpack and place hate, her Marxian connection was somewhat lost upon me. I understand her connection of emotion working as capital means that the emotion is essentially works as an advantage, giving it more power as it circulates. Her language was somewhat difficult to unpack, but I think I got to the idea she is conveying about affective economies. The link to Marxian capitalism was what convoluted the idea for me; while I understand her intention was for clarification, it served to further confuse me. However, her example for how affective economies functions on the bodies of refugees served as a better clarification point, and brought up some interesting thought processes for me.

            Ahmed’s example of the speeches William Hague gave about asylum seekers was in aiding the understanding of how affective economies function in the everyday. The language Hague uses to talk about refugees and the nation conflate asylum seekers with burglary and the nation with victimization and exploitation. This victimization of the nation allows for despotic invasion over certain bodies because of the conceptualization of this “bogey man” that could be any body within certain groups. Hague’s language is used to talk about asylum seekers in the year 2000 that “swamped” or “overwhelmed” Europe – it’s funny how things change.

            I work at an advertising agency in Birmingham that specializes in health care advertising. They recently wanted to help the influx of Syrian refugees that have been covered in the news recently. The email implores everyone to donate anything because “these poor people need our help!” It echoes the circulation of Hague’s language about asylum seekers in 2000 – note that they are now referred to as refugees, which further places the nation as the good neighbor letting people into their home. When station began covering the emigrants it began by covering what these people were running from, the hardships they’d suffered and how people wanting to help could do something. However, that narrative is all but depleted; it has been replaced with the crisis that Europe is facing because they are “accepting” so many refugees. This kind of language is circulated redundantly in news cycles now, which gives these new immigrants the image of being leeches that are sucking the wealth of the nation. It is interesting how this affective economic works on and through bodies, but the focus is on the “victim” not the bodies absorbing language and being affected by it.

            Ahmed’s need to focus on the bodies affected by hate is unusual in that people do not usually focus on the affected bodies. The current news cycles talk about the immigrants in statistical terms: where they emigrate from, where they settle or gain asylum and how it is affecting that country economically. I found it interesting how this colonialist perpetuation of hatred is ingrained in the media so much so that they absent-mindedly distribute and reproduce hatred almost hourly. Similar to Ahmed, I’m curious how this perception of this group of immigrants is internalized within their bodies. They are the true victims within and around this discourse. How this hatred is absorbed and enacted on these bodies will be interesting to see.