Hi everyone again
Thank you all for providing these stimulating posts. Acadaemia
doesn't really allow time nowadays for thinking.
I just wanted to comment on Mairian's thoughts on post modern
deconstruction and post modern/ post structural writers and the
subjects of their studies. I agree that the metanarrative or universal
theory blankets interpretation of meaning within a prescribed frame.
To look at how the recently discussed themes of inclusion and
exclusivity (by specific groups) and the apparent dialectical
opposition and friction of the two has lead a few us to the crossed
fingers approach utopian visions of a world where difference is a
non-issue.
Themes within post modern writing, I feel, provide opportunities to
understand how such a world may be constructed. The multiplicity of
meanings ascribed to and by disability and the tooling of metaphors
allows us to create a cut and paste collage without concern for
pastiche. One which appropriates historical artefacts and honours
patina- the texture of old age, without concern of parody.
A world or a society where difference is respected and with no
hierarchy of discourses? If we aim to get there it seems we must
understand how we got where we are and *wonder* more about how
to get where we want to go.
> Thanks Simi. I think I would want to add and maybe emphasise deconstruction
> also, because parts of disability studies have tended to give it a bad
> name. Deconstruction is also a methodological *tool* that is used by those
> of postructural orientation in looking at contextualised meaning in
> language - it is not a tool of destruction. It urges its practitioners be
> careful and rigorous in how they interpret things and why. Various
> postmodern writers have pointed out that there is no such thing as
> deconstructionISM, nor indeed is there any such thing as social
> constructionISM because these things are not doctrines or ideologies,
> unlike modernism and its associated *tool* structuralism, which have
> assumed the status of metanarrative. I get very frustrated when I read
> disability texts that damn posmodernISM without understanding that there is
> no such thing (and yes, I did use that term myself at one time, though I no
> longer do so and I'm also very capable of accepting SOME aspects of
> materialist writing). Poststructural writers aim to deconstruct
> oppositional categories and universal 'truths' by showing how the concept
> of 'voice' becomes meaningless within the framework of such categorising
> since these categories exclude large swathes of human experience. Yes, a
> lot of people feel threatened by that, because it means that nothing is as
> clear cut as it seems. But then, isn't that how the powerholders would like
> us to think, just because it makes life easier for them?
>
> Best wishes
>
>
> Mairian
>
>
> Mairian Corker
> Senior Research Fellow in Deaf and Disability Studies
> Department of Education Studies
> University of Central Lancashire
> Preston PR1 2HE
>
> Address for correspondence:
> 111 Balfour Road
> Highbury
> London N5 2HE
> U.K.
>
> Minicom/TTY +44 [0]171 359 8085
> Fax +44 [0]870 0553967
> Typetalk (voice) +44 [0]800 515152 (and ask for minicom/TTY number)
>
> *********
>
> "To understand what I am doing, you need a third eye"
>
> *********
>
>
Best regards
Laurence Bathurst
School of Occupation and Leisure Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
University of Sydney
P.O. Box 170
Lidcombe NSW 2141
Australia
Phone: (62 1) 9351 9509
Fax: (62 1) 9351 9166
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Please visit the School's interim web site at
http://www.ot.cchs.usyd.edu.au
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Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious
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