I observe that I am an over-thinker, which perhaps sometimes is not helpful in some aspects of this process in this Unit. I must regulate it a bit… but it is also who I am.
I have an aversion to labelling. Which is ironic as this is part of my job as an archivist.
This in part explains my difficulty, at times to the practices of labelling in identity-thinking, in the frameworks introduced in this unit (intersectionality, positionality). I have sought to take up the frameworks and use them in good faith in my blogs, and in my interventions and reflections, to show that I understand. And in the process, I have also learned from them. But still, I do get concerned by the processed of categorisation that are repeated in these frameworks.
But, on the other hand, there is a difference between unhelpful labels, and ‘naming’ a problem, an issue, as it arises, or showing where there is an obvious gap in our teaching. I don’t want to avoid naming the obvious inequities, where they exist.
And yet, it is important for me, where I can, in a very limited capacity in my context (I am not a teacher, but auxiliary to teaching and research) to encourage students (and myself) to become more subtle thinkers. To not make assumptions about people, or evidence, or objects. To not over-generalise.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to see the wood from the trees, or that I want to insist on ‘balance’/’neutrality’ to demonstrate ‘thinking’. But I would like to think about ways to approach nuance. Sometimes I am still not sure that can quite be captured, by the methodology of intersectionality, even by intersecting the intersection… but thinking about it has been helpful.
I feel we still live in a world that Adorno and Horkheimer described in Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) as ‘ticket-thinking’: ‘it is not just the anti-Semitic ticket which is anti-Semitic, but the ticket mentality itself’. I take this to mean reification. This is something I have found myself thinking about again, and how to overcome it, during this course.
This is not an argument, therefore, for greyness, or relativity, or against categories or naming per se. But maybe about the (im)possibility to still think dialectically, and whether (or not) that might still be useful.
I am not sure if this applies directly to my intervention(s), but it has been in the back of my mind. And I am thankful for the course, for it to be so thought provoking.
Adorno, T; Horkheimer, M (1944), The Dialectic of the Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments https://monoskop.org/images/2/27/Horkheimer_Max_Adorno_Theodor_W_Dialectic_of_Enlightenment_Philosophical_Fragments.pdf