Cultural Alterity: Cross-Cultural Communication and Feminist Theory in North-South Contexts

Abstract

How to communicate with "the other" who is culturally different from oneself is one of the greatest challenges facing North-South relations. This paper builds on existential-phenomenological and poststructuralist concepts of alterity and difference to strengthen the position of Latina and other subaltern speakers in North-South dialogue. It defends a postcolonial approuch to feminist theory us a basis for negotiating culturally differentiated feminist positions in this age of accelerated globalization, migrution, and displacement. This essay will address the issue of understanding cultural differences in the context of cross-cultural communication and dialogue, particularly those cases in which such communication or attempted communication takes place between members of a dominant culture and a subaltern culture. From an examination of these issues we can perhaps draw some ideas that will permit us to reach a fuller understanding of cross-cultural feminist exchanges and dialogues. The reason for focusing on the topic of cross-cultural communication is that recently, I have become increasingly aware of the levels of prejudice affecting the basic processes of communication between Anglo-American and Latina speakers, as well as the difficulties experienced by many Latin American immigrants to the United States. It seems to me that in these times of massive prejudices against immigrants and of extraordinary displacements of people from their communities of origin, the question of how to communicate with "the other" who is culturally different from oneself is one of the greatest challenges facing North-South relations and interaction. If the question before us is how to frame the conditions for the possibility of a global feminist ethics-or whether such an ethics is indeed possible-I see no better place to Hypatia vol. 13, no. 2 (Spring 1998) 0 by Ofelia Schutte I will take into account recent methodological developments regarding the concept of cultural difference as represented in postcolonial feminist theory. Working against the background of the West's history of colonial enterprises and its exploitation of other societies and cultures, postcolonial theory, in its various manifestations, pays special attention to issues of language, class, racial, ethnic, sexual, and gender differences, and to the justification of narratives about the nation-state.* Postcolonial feminist theory, in turn, directs its attention to the lives of women and to the tensions affecting women whose voices appear in national narratives and accounts of diasporic migrations. At stake in these "post" theories is a certain loss of innocence with regard to narratives of identity because of a more critical awareness of the regulative power such narratives have in defining who we are, who we aren't, and who others are and aren't.' The regulative power of narratives of identity is something with respect to which we are, to some extent, complicit, but we are also

‘In the end, we have the Gatling gun, and they have not’: Future prospects of indigenous knowledges

“…31 See Alvares [80], Harding [3,24], Hess [16], Jaggar [4], Narayan [83], Turnbull [49], and Smith [76]. Shohat and Stam [5] and Schutte [77] reject liberal conceptions of pluralism in favor of what they call ''polycentric multiculturalism'' and ''pluricentricism,'' respectively. Dussell [13] characterizes such dialogue as ''transmodern.''…”

“…Everything else is dancing" (quoted in Bernasconi [93:185]); and Richard Rorty who argues that looking for philosophy outside of the West is "pointless" since philosophy is unique to Western culture (quoted in Hallen [94:17]). 39 See also Shohat and Stam [5], Turnbull [49] and Schutte [77]. 40 Nor is conservation understood in terms of top-down raiding and piracy by corporations looking for profits or disenchanted Westerners looking for spiritual renewal.…”

“…46 PGE differs from Jaggar [4] and Harding [24] who restrict participation on the basis of rationality and empirical orientation (respectively). For further argument, see Anzaldú a [102] and Schutte [77].…”

“…For further discussion, see Hughes [78], Posey [43], and Smith [76]. 30 For further discussion, see: Shiva [20,21,79], Smith [76], Harding [3,24], Hess [16], Shohat and Stam [5], Hughes [78], Posey [43], Narayan [84], Schutte [77], Greene [81], and Canclini [85]. This list of caveats also applies to discussions of Western, science, and technology.…”

Sidelines and separate spaces: making education anti‐racist for students of color

“…However, rather than coming to conclusive findings and prescriptions for easing cross-racial tensions in the classrooms, these theorists often suggest that educators and students should let go of their desire to know 'the Other'. Pedagogy of the Unknowable (Ellsworth 1989), Politics of Disappointment (Jones 1999), and Incommensurability (Schutte 2000), are all approaches recommended by critical feminists seeking to find possibility in seemingly impossible situations. There is consensus among them that critical anti-racist educators working in multiracial contexts should (1) give up the belief that they can plan a pedagogy based on critical educational principles and practices that empowers all students equally -regardless of their racial ethnic background, (2) abandon the presupposition that students and the instructor enter the classroom with simple, tidily packaged social identities, and (3) let go of the desire to have students develop a comprehensive understanding of one another through dialogue.…”