Dear all,

Victor has said:

>To the degree that they try to create a narrative based on events, 
>they may be taken seriously as historians... There is too much 
>evidence to contradict their claims. We develop our own capacities 
>to judge the accuracy of linguistic
representation, i.e. to judge whether something said is likely to be
an accurate representation. It also helps to use the term 'fiction'
for works that are self-consciously imaginative. To call history
writing, for example, fiction, is to suggest that there is no claim
to any degree of veracity.<

And Klaus has said:

>Moreover, historical events, as they were, are by
definition inaccessible and historians are highly selective as to what
these events left behind, raising the question of fiction as the
preferred story told.<

And, according to Lerner, because historians were traditionally men, 
history has focused on events that were experienced by and of 
significance to men. This means that histories omit, and therefore 
devalue as being of no interest, events experienced by and of 
significance to women. And so it can be said of people of colour, or 
children, or the illiterate for example. Thus histories are selective 
as linguistic representations of what actually happened, even as they 
are based on evidence.

And yes, we do develop our own capacities to judge whether something 
said is likely to be an accurate linguistic representation, but not 
in social isolation. This 'capacity development' is a socially 
mediated process whereby we learn what is acceptable, reasonable, 
credible and valid within specific discourse communities.

And speaking from my experience, I move through different discourse 
communities each day, whereby my meaning-making and judgement 
capacities are continually adjusted so that what I say might seem 
reasonable or credible in each place. Or not. And in different 
discourse communities, I may be positioned variously as a middle 
aged, educated white woman, artist, teacher, student, mother, sister, 
friend, daughter or partner and so what I say is judged differently 
in each community, or I may not even be seen/heard. And the change in 
positions is fluid, but I sometimes make a conscious adjustment of my 
voice in each community. As when I post to this list. And as a 
designer in a faculty of education, when I teach in different design 
faculties, when I pick my girls up from school, when I negotiate my 
car being fixed, when I challenge a telco for wrongfully charged 
fees, and when I work as a graphic designer. As my work is primarily 
in the area of community cultural development, I think what I do is 
more about using visual/verbal rhetoric (Bonsiepe) while producing 
communicative ideas that perhaps instigate social change, rather than 
consumable products, objects or artefacts. But ideas are also 
knowledge products conveyed through visual language, so this is also 
just rhetoric.

And so, as the designer I am, I do not position myself or what I do 
within science, as some on this list might. And thus, my arguments 
are 'exposed as representations that allow for interpretation and 
debate as legitimate forms of response'. Which is what I have been 
attempting this past week. So thanks to all who have engaged! It has 
been most illuminating for me.

cheers, and as a point in case in Australia, on 'Invasion Day',
teena

Lerner, G., 1986. Introduction to The Creation of Patriarchy, Oxford: 
Oxford University Press, pp. 3-14.

Bonsiepe, G., 1965, 'Visual verbal rhetoric', in M. Bierut, J. 
Helfand & S. Heller (Eds), 1999, Looking Closer 3: Classic writings 
on graphic design, pp. 167-173.