Dear all (to phrase it non-exclusively),
I'm not sure I totally agree with the view of culture as so very differing
in identity construction, at least not if we view culture as a thing of
larger group or regional character. I can see that the results will be
extremely different. But I wonder if the actual process within the human
being doesn't work in similar ways. And that "cultural" aspects within
extended families can have the effect of ironing out some of the larger
cultural effects. But then I'm talking about parts of the identity which
belong to a more private sphere.
For example I think the issue of gender is very much something that will
create similar or differing results in identity formation. I think any
British Blokes will understand each other well mainly because you share the
position of being male in a male society. In the same way I have the
experience that I understand women better than men, and women from very
different cultural spheres (even outside the western world) than I sometimes
understand men from Sweden.
Being part of the disabled community I think can act as a similar catalyst.
As can class belonging even if it's for example a middle-class belonging
from totally different cultures.
As an example: being a Swedish disabled woman and feeling an instinctive
sisterhood for a Kenyan disabled woman. Something which then develops into a
friendship. (I'm writing this in past tense as it's a story of an early but
not first meeting.) In our talks the prominent things were very much the
issue of relationships between men and women, how the "competition" for
men's attention with non-disabled women tended to make us question our very
womanhood. Also issues around money and work and dreams of organisation
building for societal change. Then we cooked food from our different
cultural spheres and ate it and talked and talked. That's what women do. You
guys should try it - it's a beautiful thing. And I think that the common
cause to our "clicking" personalities can be found in the fact that we are
women of similar background - middleclass with parents who's teachers,
disabled approximately at the same age, similar relationship experiences
with men etc. etc. I'm not saying culture is not important I'm just
questioning if it's all exclusively the "identity shaper". I think there
could be just as much difference between people from the same culture
depending on other belongings - as class or gender or significant traumatic
experiences - as it can be difference between people of different cultures.
When it comes to the cure issue: that would of course be high on the
priority wish list for me if I lived under other material and cultural
structures. The real contradiction for me is that we who live in the
affluent white west - who can afford personal services through the welfare
system and an accessible environment - seem to hail cure as the ultimate
and only solution. While we have no intention (I'm quite sure of this) to
make it accessible for those disabled people who live elsewhere - who don't
have the material structures and resources to achieve the same welfare and
environmental solutions - and for whom it would indeed be maybe the only
solution in view of the lack of material resources. In a discussion on
euthanasia with a Croatian woman (in the mid 1990's)she said: "I don't
understand why you who have the resources to grant people assistance and a
good life talk about killing disabled people." Well I don't understand this
either. Cure seems to be a priority for the white west primarily male (if
you don't believe me just take a look into medical research connected to SCI
and sexuality). And on the BBC bulletin board people write that Superman
will walk in the life hereafter. (Why don't they just say he will fly - how
limited an imagination.)Be cured or be dead - a western solution?
I guess I'm saying I'm fundamentally a materialist. I believe material
structures - resources and division - are more influential in identity
shaping than just cultural belonging.
Susanne
But none the less - I appreciate older British blokes, especially when
they're gallant.
-------------------------------------------------------
Susanne Berg
Luntmakargatan 86 A
113 51 STOCKHOLM
Sweden
telephone/fax +46 (0)8 15 73 54mobile phone +46 (0)70 515 73 56
e-mail [log in to unmask]
________________End of message______________________
Archives and tools for the Disability-Research Discussion List
are now located at:
www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html
You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.
|