Beyond Dualism_toward a Dialogic Negotiation of Difference - Rishma Dunlop

7/28/2019 Beyond Dualism_toward a Dialogic Negotiation of Difference - Rishma Dunlop

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/beyond-dualismtoward-a-dialogic-negotiation-of-difference-rishma-dunlop 1/14

Beyond Dualism: Toward a Dialogic Negotiation of DifferenceAuthor(s): Rishma DunlopReviewed work(s):Source: Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l'éducation, Vol. 24, No. 1

(Winter, 1999), pp. 57-69Published by: Canadian Society for the Study of Education

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1585771 .

Accessed: 16/03/2013 15:47

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Canadian Society for the Study of Education is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend

access to Canadian Journal of Education / Revue canadienne de l'éducation.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded on Sat, 16 Mar 2013 15:47:20 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=csse

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1585771?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp





http://www.jstor.org/stable/1585771?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=csse



Beyond Dualism:Towarda Dialogic Negotiationof Difference

Rishma Dunlop

universityof britishcolumbia

In this articleI explorethedevelopmentof a criticalpedagogythat nterrogates ommonlyheld assumptionsaboutidentityand culture n social, political,and historicalperceptionsof culturaldifference. I attempt o deconstructdichotomizing endenciesof thinkingabout

differences, with the aim to position thinking in the borderlandor on the fault line

between cultures,a "thirdspace"in which to live critically. I examine perspectivesof

criticalconsciousness, third-spacepositionings,and dialogic negotiationsof differencesthrough he lenses of feministtheory,narrative nquiry,andliterary heoryto suggesthow

these perspectivesmay lead to cross-cultural dentificationsor understandingsn post-

secondaryclassrooms. The responsibility or the tracingof the "other"within self is seen

as central to teaching practice, in order to live, as T. Minh-ha Trinh (1989b) states:

"fearlesslywith and withindifference(s)"(p. 84).

Cet article porte sur le developpementde la pedagogie critique, qui remet en questioncertaines idles pr6conquessur l'identite et la culture dans les perceptions sociales,

politiques et historiques.L'auteureexpose les points de vue de la conscience critiquea

travers a theorief6ministe, 'investigationnarrative t la theorie litt6raireafinde montrercomment ces perspectives peuvent mener a la comprehension nterculturelledans des

cours au niveaupostsecondaire.Laresponsabilitede cerner< l'autre?'

l'interieurde soi

est pr6senteecomme un aspectcl de l'enseignement<<ans apprehension n compagnieet au sein de diff6rence(s)? (T. Minh-haTrinh, 1989b,p. 84).

PROLOGUE:OSITIONINGS

Critical pedagogy that engages students and teachers in dialogues about diverse

forms of cross-cultural narratives can deconstruct dichotomizing and pervasivepolarizing tendencies by positioning thinking in the borderland or on the fault

line between cultures, in what Bhaba (1994) refers to as a "third space." This

notion of a third space in which to live critically between multiple cultures is

also reflected in the perspectives of critical consciousness of feminist theorists

Anzaldtia (1987), Kramsch (1993a, 1993b) Kramsch and Hoene (1995), Haraway

(1985), and hooks (1984, 1989), among others. Although these positionings are

common themes in women's studies courses, their application to classroom

communities in Faculties of Education is more novel. My goal is to suggest how

third-space positionings and pedagogical aims can destabilize entrenched ethno-centrism, leading to cross-cultural understandings in classroom communities.

57 CANADIAN JOURNALOF EDUCATION24, 1 (1999): 57-69








58 RISHMA DUNLOP

As Kramsch(1993a) states:

Indeedhephrase"being n the fence" s deceptive,or it seems o suggest hatwe par-takeof onlytwo differentultures,hatof ourpastand hatof ourpresent, r the culturewe left behindand the one we havemoved nto. . . . Butexperiencinghe boundarymeansdiscoveringhat achof theseculturess much essmonolithichanwasoriginallyperceived;ach ncludesa myriad f potentialhanges. . . Thuswe have to view the

boundary otas an actual ventbut, rather, s a stateof mind,as a positioning f thelearner tthe intersectionf multipleocialrolesand ndividualhoices. p.234)

Tocounteractdominantcultural tories andvisions, we need criticalpedagogy

that raises students'politicalawarenessby challengingthe hegemonyof frozen,dichotomized conceptions. Considerations of current debates and divisions

betweenmarginalized roupsoftenreveal differenceswithingroups hemselves-

between dissenting feminists and between dissenting writers and scholars of

similarandvaryingethnicoriginsandin similarandvaryingdisciplinesof study.

Caughtin these divides, as a writer,educator,and academic,I seek approachesto diversitythatpointto connectionsacrossdifferences of race,of gender,and

of disciplines of study.

READING AND WRITINGPRACTICESAS INTERCULTURALKNOWLEDGE

Practices of reading and writing informedby diverse forms of narrative(in-

cluding the works of formerly excluded writers) can usefully inform critical

pedagogy and intercultural tudies. Diverse literacy and discursive practices

expose learnersto cultures in numerousways. Spitta (1995), a literaryscholar

writingaboutLatinAmerican iterature, alls for a "transcultural"nderstandingof diversecultures.She sees LatinAmericancultureas the mixingof Indigenous,African, Asian, and Europeanclass and genderexperiences.Whereas culture is

understoodas contingenton materialandideologicalconcerns,Spittaemphasizesidentities as "always in flux, split between two or more worlds, cultures, and

languages"(p. 8). She expressesprismatically he implicationsfor "transcultur-

alism" for those involved in literarystudy:

If thecharactersepictedn novelsand f thesubjectivitiesf writers reassumedo be

splitand n flux,thenone mustalsocall for thecreation f newtypesof readers.That

is, readerswhoarecapable f reading tleastbiculturallyndbilinguallyndwhodo notthusread . . novelsandnarratives onologically.Spitta,1995,p. 8)

However, it is dangerousto place narrativeswithin frameworks that envisiondifferencesas deviations.Rather, o transform urriculumubstantially, ducatorsneed to unfixmindsetsandunmappolarizednotions of geography.Throughcriti-cal explorationsof literatureas well as multipleforms of narratives,educators








TOWARD A DIALOGIC NEGOTIATIONOF DIFFERENCE 59

and students can allow works by diverse authorsto re-formdeeply embedded

assumptionsandpedagogies,especially in termsof perceptionsof who can speak

and what is heard.In this way, narratives an be understoodas symbolic frame-works in which the complexities of relationshipsamong narrative,power, and

culture are given significance and meaning. Our recognition of difference as

inherent o the humancondition becomes a site for pedagogy thatparadoxically

attemptsto bridge gaps of understandingwithin diverse humandiscourses.

My own particularizingnarrative ncludes my voices as a female academic,a writer,a poet, and a teacher,of East Indiandescent, who immigrated o Can-

adaat the age of 1 and who was raisedin Quebec.I considermy multiplevoices

and the issues of voice and silence in the context of my locations and my per-

ceptions of identity. By accepting multiplicity of voice, the intertwiningofspeech andsilence, ellipses, autobiography ndfiction, t seems possible to create

new discourses that cut acrossgenderandethnicity.This languageof pedagogy

may be found through the discourses of interculturalism.These discourses

acknowledgedifferences,as official tenetsof multiculturalismwould haveus do,but they also seek to find places of understanding, ome borderlandor third

space between cultures,by enablingthe learner o findor recognize the "other"

within her/himself.

These discourses reflectthe polyphonicnatureof our world more adequately

than do dualistic discourses. By reinventing, by listening to speech and by

hearingandfeeling "articulate ilences"(Cheung,1993), we enter new domains

of languagein which we can drawfreely frommultipletraditions o findmiddle

grounds as spaces of understanding.These domains are spaces of heightenedconsciousness and awarenessof the multiplemodalities of words. Althoughwe

may begin with language, t is deep below the surfaceof languagethat we create

new meaningsfor ourselves and with others.

STORIESFROM THE CLASSROOM: NARRATIVESAND SUBJECT POSITIONS

I recall one of my firstexperiencesof teachinga course in a teachereducation

programat a majorCanadianuniversity.The course was designedfor secondaryteachers,and focused on literacy practicesacrosscultures and across the curric-

ulum. During the semester,discussions about multiculturalismand the role of

language in constructingperceptionsof identitywere hotly debatedthemes. In

particular, ne young woman, of Punjabiheritage, continuously challenged my

thinking. Many of her statements n class, her writings, and her insistence on

scribblingphrases n Punjabion herassignmentscommunicatedheropinionthat

I had bought into the GreatWhite Myth.Inourclassroom,tensions and differencesbetweenmy studentandme became

increasinglyevidentthroughour intenseengagementin dialogues,journals,and

readingsof each other's written narratives. sharedpoems andjournalentries

with her thatdescribedthe complexities and paradoxesof my life in Canada.








60 RISHMADUNLOP

I was born in India and immigrated o Canadawith my parentswhen I was

a yearold. My fatherwas a biochemistandmy motherwas an elementary chool

teacher.Both my parentswere schooled underBritish rule and were educated nEnglish. I was raised in an environment hat was culturallydiverse, in a com-

munityof internationalriendsyet in a climateof acculturation o Canadian ife.

AlthoughI was raised with an awarenessof Sikh religioustraditions, attended

a Unitarian church with my family and grew up in a predominantlyWhite,

upper-middle-class uburbof Montreal.

As I sharedmy stories,my student earned hroughmy narratives hatI could

not read or writePunjabi.It was no longermy nativetongue.My student earned

that my languages were English and French,and that the spaces my heritage

culture occupied were different from her own. I, like so many others, am aforeigner,a minority, he other, n the land of my birth.As Mukherjee ays: "MyIndianness, s fragile ... my use of English as a first languagehas cut me off

from my desh (homeland)" Mukherjee& Blaise, 1977, p. 170).In turn,my studentwrote of herimmigrationo Canadaas a teenager, he ugly

and painful strugglesof poverty, family illiteracy,and battles with racism. In a

creative writing assignment,I asked students to write a work inspiredby the

colour blue. This student titled her story "Blue," and in her narrative,blue

representedthe blood of her father,bruised and batteredby the politics and

social pressuresof his life; by alcoholism;by the lack of highereducation orvocational training;by difficulties with language.The spillover of this bruised

existence affected her life in profoundways.On the last day of class, she read herstoryout loud to the class. Althoughshe

had always expressedher views in class, she had never allowed manyothersto

hearthe depthof emotionshe expressed n herwriting.Formanystudents, t was

probablythe first time that access to dialogue was opened up to intercultural

understandings.On her finalexam, my student wrotea note acknowledgingthe

negotiationsof our differences in the classroom, along with an expression of

appreciationfor my role as a teacher in this context of "site of continuous

struggle."She ended with: "This is how you write your name in Punjabi,"

inscribingmy name in Punjabi scriptat the end of her examinationpaper.This encounter was a gift to me as a teacher,a place of learningfrom my

student'snarrativeshat forced me to questionmy own positioningsandperspec-tives. Indeed, this was the first of many events in my teaching practice that

reinforced he fact that ncreasedknowledgeof familiaror othercultures,classes,

contexts, and marginalizedgroups does not in itself lead to understandingor

socially transformative ractices.In additionto knowledge,criticalscrutinyand

destabilizationof one's own subject position and explorations of the manydiscursivepositionsencountereds necessary.Myclassroomexperiencesrevealed

thatby placingourselves in each other'snarratives ome understandings f each

other were reached.Sharedpersonalnarrativesallow a necessary questioningof

thecategorizations f minoritiesso thatunderlying mplicationsof suchlabelling








TOWARD A DIALOGICNEGOTIATIONOF DIFFERENCE 61

may be explored. We were forced to interrogateour own subjective positions,our biases, our privileges, and our assumptionsabout the other,within cultures

andacrossdifferencesandsimilarities.This involves aprocessof "self-othering,"

or, to resist the pervasivedichotomizingtendency,a dialogic process of recog-

nizing the other in self and the self from the position of the other as the pre-

requisiteto developing a transformed elation to differences.

SPEECHAND SILENCE:UNMAPPINGEAST-WESTTHROUGHNARRATIVESOF FICTION

A work s tied to ideologynot so muchby what t saysasby what t does notsay.Itisin the significant ilences of the text, in its gaps and absences hat the presenceof

ideologycan mostpositivelybe felt.

-Terry Eagleton,Marxism ndLiteraryCriticism

There s a silence hatcannot peak.There s a silence hatwill notspeak.Beneath he

grass hespeaking reams ndbeneathhe dreamss a sensate ea. Thespeech hat reescomesforth rom hatamniotic eep.Toattendtsvoice,I can hear t say, s to embraceits absence.

-Joy Kogawa,Obasan

As I consider the possibilities of interculturalnarrativesas pedagogical texts,notions of speech and silence arejuxtaposed against stereotypicalconstructions

of culturalidentities;the uses of silence become voices themselves, including

ellipses andexclusions;"what s left out"or unsaidspeakseloquently.As Trinh

(1989a) states, "Silence as a will not to say or a will to unsay and as a languageof its own has barelybeen explored"(p. 373).

If we reconsidernarrativeexts,theoreticalworks,andperceptionsof ethnicityandrace,we can envision new realmsof expressioncontained n silence. Cheung

(1993), in herbookArticulateSilences,exploresthe rhetoricaland thematicuses

of silence in the fiction of three North American women of second-generationAsian descent: Hisaye Yamamoto,Maxine Hong Kingston, and Joy Kogawa.

Cheung posits that these authors' narrativeschallenge and subvert western

notions thatspeech andsilence arepolarized,opposed,andhierachicallydefined

by culture.Simplistic ideas of East-Westdualism in fact, dualistic considera-

tions of most aspects of human life: male/female, heterosexual/homosexual,

Black/White--are rejectedas stereotypesthatnarrowour vision.

In her considerationsof Kingston's The WomanWarrior 1976/1989b) and

Kogawa's Obasan (1981), Cheung challenges stereotypicaltendencies to value

speech and self-expression by contrastingthese notions with Asian women'ssilence andpassivity.Inbothworks,women characters ace prohibitionof speechas well as coercion to speak. Cheungdirectsour attention o the complexitiesand

difficulties experiencedby women who must strugglewith issues of silences in

situationsshapedby socially imposedstructuresof gender,culture,and race.








62 RISHMADUNLOP

Cheung'sexplorationsof the texts of Yamamoto,Kingston,andKogawasteer

us away froman unqualified ndorsementof the verballyassertivefemale as the

only viable model. Cheung disputesthe associationof Asian silence with femi-

ninity or inscrutability.The texts of Yamamoto,Kingston, and Kogawa givevoice to the voiceless, increasingour awarenessof the nuancesof silence.

Cheung'sArticulate Silences explores new ways of readingwomen's narra-

tives, situating he readerbetweenfeminist andculturalpoetics andpolitics. The

extent of ourunderstanding ependson ourwillingnessto suspendandchallengethe language and knowledge to which we have access. Cheung's interpretive

strategiesreveal subversiveunderstatementn the texts she considers. In "The

Legend of Miss Sasagarawa"by Yamamoto 1988), the mechanismsof family,

state, and communitymirroreach other but are presentedwith an increasing

degree of muteness. In The WomanWarrior, he narrator'sanger at the im-

migrant community's devaluing of girls conceals a strong racial self-hatred,

perceivedto be instilledby the Americaneducational stablishment.As educators

in culturally diverse classrooms, we need to recognize the possibilities and

implicationsof similarnarrativesbeing reflectedin our systems of schooling.

Cheung suggests that Yamamoto,Kingston, and Kogawa resist patriarchalforces in the dominantcultureand in theirown ethnic cultures.They challengetraditional rameworksof historical,legal, and culturaltruths.Similarly,class-

room educators can expose language's complicity by engaging in narrativeenquiriesthat circumventthe restraintsof ghettoized, frozen forms of culture.

Throughgaps,contradictions, ndfragments,ntercultural arratives an reinvent

the past, not by reapppropriatingt but by decentring t and challengingit.

Works ike Yamamoto's"TheLegendof Miss Sasagarawa,"Kingston'sChina

Men(1980/1989a),andKogawa'sObasanchallengeAnglo-American enericand

historicalconventionsby dissolving the boundariesbetween privateand public

history and between fact and fiction. This kind of strategy, acknowledgingculturalcomplexityas essentiallyhumanand not simply socially constructedand

defined,may lead educators owarda criticalpedagogythatacknowledgesmul-tiple subjectivitiesand multipleforms of literacyand discursivepractices.

Said (1979/1984) comments on the effect of categorizing Orientals and

Westerners:

Whenone uses categoriesike Oriental nd Western s both the starting nd the end

pointsof analysis . .. the resultis usuallyto polarizedistinction--the Orientalbecomes

more Oriental,the Westernermore Western--and limit the human encounter between

differentcultures, raditions,andsocieties. Inshort,from its earliestmodernhistoryto the

present,Orientalismas a form of

thoughtor

dealingwiththe

foreignhas

typicallyshown

the altogetherregrettableendencyof any knowledgebasedon hard-and-fast istinctions

... to channelthought nto a West or an Eastcompartment.pp. 45-46)

Said makes relevantpoints about the effect of this split on North Americans

with Asian heritageof second andsubsequentgenerations.Fromthis stems our









currentdebate about the hyphen as an adequatedescriptorfor heritage in our

concernsfor multiculturalism.Theimplications

of dualpersonality

are that the

parts of Asian-American, Chinese-Canadian,Japanese-Canadian,and Indo-

Canadiancan be easily split, keeping individuals strangers, foreigners in the

countriesin which they were born.For manyof us, these hyphenated erms fail

to name us adequatelyand fail to provideus with alternative pace, a thirdspaceof intersectingmultiple positionings.The hyphenated abel may cast doubt on

wholeness of statusas Americanor Canadian.The essence of the questionabout

the hyphenextendsto questionsof identityin the roles of teachersand educators

in Faculties of Education, interrogating he hyphenatedidentities of student-

teachers and teacher-educators.These questions about labelling identities andcategorizationsevoke my readingsof Rushdie's (1994) East, West:

I, too,haveropesaroundmyneck,Ihavethem o thisday,pullingmethiswayand hat,East andWest, he noosestightening,ommanding,hoose,choose. I buck,I snort,I

whinny, rear, kick.Ropes,I do not choosebetweenyou. Lassoes, ariats, choose

neither f you,andboth.Do youhear? refuse o choose. p.211)

POTENTIALPROBLEMSWITH NARRATIVES

Inacademia,ourresponses o multiculturalismndissues of marginalization ave

includedopeningup the canon to includeformerlyexcluded works of ethnic and

culturaldiversity.However, our efforts to respond to "multiculturalism" s a

political movement still leave us groping for the right "mix,"the appropriatebalance between texts and pedagogy,between art and politics, between multi-

culturalismand culturalspecificity.Many of us who see ourselves teaching for

social change need to teach throughand across political culturalmandates,not

simply throughassimilationthat distances itself from ethnic particularities, nd

not simply throughforms of culturalnationalismthatheroicallyreclaim ethnicheritage.The path we need to take rejectseither/orbinaryoppositionsof East/

West or assimilation/ethnocentrism. he aim is neverto return o originalforms

andperceptions,but to narrate ur stories with a difference,drawingfreely from

multipletraditions,refusingto be defined or confinedby any one of them. Our

teachingmust interrogatepolitical,historical,and social constructsthatattemptto define and confine us, enabling us then to challenge these constructs by

reshaping dentities in ways thatchallenge pre-determined erceptions.If our language and our texts representvisions of our cultures, we need to

develop forms of expressionthat may be otherwise marginalizedby dominantcultures.Teachingmust involve students n multipleforms of discourseas they

engage in challengingnot only theirown and others' texts butalso the rhetorical

conventions of the academy.Therefore,as we consider how our forms of dis-

course embodyus, languagebecomes a rangeof "truth" ealizedby oppositions








64 RISHMADUNLOP

and challenges to dominantparadigms.In other words, "truth" ies not in the

words themselves, but in theirparadoxesandjuxtapositions:

An understandingf language s a site of struggle r as a conductor f ideologywill

empower s as both readers ndwriters.Theright o claim inguistic pace s a basichuman ight.Rather hanset theagendasorvariouskindsof writings,we can do nomore hanaskof oureducationystem hat tencouragehewriter othink bouthowshe

positionsherself n thatpolitical pace.(Wicomb, s citedin Britzmant al., 1993,p.188)

HOW SHALL WE TEACH NOW? QUESTIONSOF PRIVILEGE

Narrativeconsiderationsof classroom events and literarytexts have made me

realize that a complex mappingof our differences is needed. This will requireus to clear morespace in ourcurricula o focus on the meaningof privilege from

our varioussubjectpositions.Colonization rom within andwithoutis centralto

our classroomcommunities,notjust in the context of marginalizedpeoples but

for all membersof the community.There is a need for Spivak's (1990) "un-

learning privilege"(p. 30) so that we may "becomeable to listen to that other

constituency" p. 42).

Fostering classroom environmentsthat encouragea transformedrelation todifferenceswill requirecriticalpedagogythatinsists on self-reflexivityand self-

revisionbasedon notions such as Kristeva's(1980) "subject-in-process,"where

emphasis is on the vigilantrecuperation f the strangerwithin. For example, in

Strangersto Ourselves,Kristeva(1991) stresses thatmakingourselves alien to

ourselves is a necessarypositionfrom whichto supportnon-hierarchicalelations

to difference:"Itis not simply humanistically a matterof our being able to

accept the other,but of being in his [sic] place, and this means to imagine and

make oneself other for oneself' (p. 13).

As considerations of narrativeshave shown, narratives ntended to oppose

patriarchal iscoursehavenotalwaysfelt empowering.Ellsworth 1989) exploresthis in her influentialarticle "WhyDoesn't This Feel Empowering?"Two re-

sponses to Ellsworth'squestioncome to mind:we fail to recognize the multiplenatureof subjectivity,hence the complex way we constructmeaning,and we fail

to develop an ethical vision based on our differences(Razack, 1993, p. 108).Ellsworth (1989) notes that in a mixed-sex, mixed-race class on racism,

studentsenter with"investments f privilegeandstrugglealreadymade in favour

of some ethical and political positions concerning racism and against other

positions"(p. 301). In the classroom the strategiesof empowerment,dialogue,and voice do not, in fact, work as neatlyas we might wish them to. Oppressedand marginalizedgroupsdo not possess internalunity,and individualhistoriesare not discardedoutside the classroom door.Ellsworth'sstudents were unable

to "hear" ach other acrosstheirdifferences.Theoperativemode of thoughtwas









rationalityandthe narratives f variousgroupshadto bejustifiedandexplicated

using the very tools that held these stories to be inadmissible.Going beyond

simplistic calls for tolerating ambiguity,Ellsworth suggests that we respectdiversity of voices, of narratives,and of stories, and that we recognize thatthe

voices are "valid-but not without response" (p. 305). In other words, she

believes the stories must be critiquedand offers a numberof concrete sugges-tions for doing so.

Ellsworth(1989) recommendsthat we work hard at building trust,to which

end we mustbuildopportunities or social interaction; hat we stress the need to

learnabout the realitiesof others withoutrelyingon them to informus; thatwe

namethe inequalities n the classroom and devise groundrules for communicat-

ion (Narayan's1988 article"WorkingAcross Differences"would be useful forthis); that we consider strategies such as encouraging affinity between those

groups most likely to share the same forms of oppression;and that we con-

sciously offer such groupstime to coalesce so that individuals can speak from

within groups. All of these recommendedpedagogical practices evolve from

Ellsworth's central advice that we critically examine what we do and do not

share.This done, we can workfrom the basis thatwe all have partialknowledgeand thatwe come from differentsubject positions.Most important,no one is let

off the hook, since we can all claim to be oppressoror oppressedin relation to

someone else. These suggestions comprisean excellent startingpoint. My own

practiceof using an exchange of autobiographical arrativesas a way to begin

dialogue and build classroom communityhas been invaluable in shaping my

teaching.However,as I have elaboratedwithrespectto my own narratives, uch

strategiesdo not always save us from ethical dilemmas andproblematicencoun-

ters in our classrooms.

The dialogic emergenceof differencemayalso be viewed as an intersubjective

process, central to Lugones' (1990) concept of "world-travelling."Envisioningthe classroom as a potential site for conscious constructionsof positions that

challenge the intra-andintersubjective elationsof poweralso evokes Kristeva's

(1980) notion of subject-in-process ndhooks' (1989) theoryon coming to voice

and self-recovery.A critical pedagogy would requiremembers of a classroom community to

engage in dialogue about narrativesof diverse forms-literary texts, personalnarratives, ilms, oralhistories,drama-to inviteresponsesthatreflectcriticallyon difference and voice. In otherwords, teachersand studentswill need to deal

explicitly with difference and diversity of voices in classroom contexts. This

explicitnessis oftenglossedover forthe sakeof politicalcorrectness,particularlyin courses in Facultiesof Education,where our desire to offer inclusive educa-

tion and to be sensitive to the oppressionsof marginalizedgroupsoften leads us

to rathersanitized discussions and avoidance of issues. Applying some of the

theorizingI have mentioned n this articlewill provideavenues to overcome the

homegenization of voice in post-secondaryclassrooms of teacher education.








66 RISHMA DUNLOP

Languagebecomes not only a medium for instructionand dialogue, but also a

style of interactionthat explores the enactmentof difference and encourages

critical reflectionand revisions of one's own subjectposition.In this situation hecommunity engaged in discourse practices that emerge in the classroom can

consciously choose to produce, reproduce,or resist existing relationshipsof

power, race, nationality,class, and gender(Kramsch,1993b).From this criticalpedagogy, t becomespossibleto developa "double-voiced"

discourse.The notions of single-voiced discourseand double-voiced discourse

are Bakhtin's(1986), and were laterechoed by feminists like Kristeva(1990-

1991) andhooks (1989). Single-voiceddiscourseis a style in which the speakeradheresto his or herown viewpoint,withoutperceivingthe need to acknowledge

his or her own stance nor to revise it in light of possibly conflicting voiceswithin and without. In single-voiced discourse, speakers do not attempt to

perceive themselves as others see or hear them. When speaking with a singlevoice, speakersremain within their usualway of speaking,not recognizing that

interactionwithother anguagesor culturesor withoppressedgroupsmight placein questiontheir usual worldview.

On the other hand, double-voiced discourse is consistent with what hooks

(1989) calls "the social constructionof the self in relation," n which the self is

seen "notas a signifierof one 'I' but the coming togetherof many 'I's,' the self

embodyingcollective realitypast and present,family and community" p. 31).Sheldon (1992) describes double-voiced discourse in this way:

Theprimaryrientations to theself, to one's ownagenda.The otherorientations tomembers f thegroup.Theorientationo othersdoes not mean hat hespeaker eces-

sarilyacts in an altruistic, ccommodating,r even self-sacrificingmanner. t means,rather,hat the speakerpaysattention o the companion's ointof view, even while

pursuing erownagenda.As a result, he voiceof theself is enmeshedwithandregu-latedby the voiceof the other. p.99)

Indouble-voicedclassroomdiscourse, eacherandstudentsdevelop and revise

theirown views throughdialogic interactionwith other members of the group.This does not mean that all these intra-andintersubjective oices are always in

harmonywith each other;in fact, it may be quite the contrary.Morson (1981)

speaks of the "cacophonyof values" that underlieBakhtin's"play of voices"

(Morson, 1981, p. 4). In addition,Morson states, "Language, or [Bakhtin]is

open to historyand social conflict. Eachword is open to conflictingpronuncia-tions, intonationsand allusionsand so may be an arena of social conflict and asensitive barometerof social change" (p. 6).

CODA

I have suggested ways to facilitateeducationthatfosterscritical consciousness

of difference in classrooms. I have arguedthat central to the developmentof








TOWARD DIALOGICEGOTIATIONFDIFFERENCE 67

critical consciousness in our pedagogy and in our students is a transformed

response to conceptionsof difference.As Lorde(1984) states:

Institutionalizedejectionf differences anabsolute ecessityn aprofit conomywhichneedsoutsiders s surplus eople.As members f such an economy,we have all been

programmedorespondo thehuman ifferencesetweenuswithfearand oathing....Butwe havenopatternsorrelating cross urhuman ifferences s equals.As aresult,those differences avebeen misnamed ndmisused n the serviceof separationndconfusion.... Wedo notdevelop oolsforusinghuman ifference s a springboardorcreative hangewithinour ives.(p. 115)

Our classroomshave the potentialto facilitatedialogic encountersgearedto

creativechangeand the constructionof solidarityandequalitynot in spite of but

ratherbecause of difference.Inthedialogic engagements n eachclassroom,each

with its multiple variables of voice (accordingto influences of race, culture,

class, andgender), ies theopportunityo reflectcriticallyuponandto revise our

own individual and culturalpracticesof human interaction.

Two types of dialogic encountersare identifiedby anthropological inguistsAttinasi and Friedrich(1995). Among the first type are the often repetitious,routineconversationsanddialoguesthat functionprimarily o maintainrelations

between friends, families, and neighbours.The secondtype

ofdialogue

is a

catalyst thateffects a change in the imaginationsof those engaged in dialogic

exchange. Dialogues of this type elicit fundamentalreassessmentsand reposi-

tioningsof psychologicalstances in the mindsof the interlocutors.The meaningsof thesedialoguesare notalwaysrecognized mmediatelybutemergedynamical-

ly as dialogues are relived, reconsidered,and transformed hroughcontinued

engagementsof the interlocutors' maginings and reflections.As Attinasi and

Friedrich llustrate, hesedialogic breakthroughs rovideopportunities or trans-

formations n cognitive andaffectivedomains; herefore, hese dynamic types of

dialogicencountershavegreatpotential or thedevelopmentof criticalpedagogy.As teachersreflecton theirpastteachingexperiences, they can also encounter

opportunities or realigningandre-evaluating heir own and theirstudents'per-

ceptions.Theseeffortscan helpthem to imagineandanticipate utureencounters

with the intersectingboundariesof self and other. This critical consciousness

calls for new approachesn teacher raining, ocussingon the social constructions

withinlanguagesandculturesof the many"I"s(hooks, 1989, p. 31) who inhabit

each person. Consequently, f we wish to encourageour students to "go so far

as to questionthe foundationof theirbeings andmakings" Trinh,1989b,p. 88),we must engage in thatprocess ourselves.

Inconsideringnarratives s sourcesforpromoting ntercultural nderstanding,stories and choices of classroom curriculumneed to reflect a movement awayfrom definingourselves as a unifiedsubjectidentity:

YouandI areclose,we intertwine;ou maystandon the other ideof thehill oncein








68 RISHMAUNLOP

a while;butyou mayalso beme,whileremaining hatyouareandwhatI amnot.The

differencesmadebetween ntities omprehendeds absoluteresences hence henotion

of pureoriginand rueself-- areanoutgrowthf a dualisticystemof thought eculiarto theOccident.Trinh, 989b,p. 90)

When we realize that we are without true selves, without pure origins or

absolutes, it becomes imperativeto increase awareness of how our multipleidentities are constructedand played out at any given time and in any givencontext.As we seek bridgingterritories or understandinghroughcross-cultural

narratives,we seek to deconstruct rozen, false boundariesof gender, ethnicity,culture,geography,andtemporality.n theclassroom,ourresponsibilitybecomes

"a responsibilityto trace the other in self' (Spivak, 1990, p. 47). To find thewillingness to live "fearlesslywith and within difference(s)"(Trinh, 1989b, p.

84), we must make centralto our teaching process the task of tracingthe other

in self. The developmentof criticalpedagogythroughclassroomdialogues and

exchanges of cross-culturalnarratives eads to transformedunderstandingsof

human differences.

REFERENCES

Anzaldiia,G. (1987). Borderlands/Larontera:The newMestiza.San Francisco:SpinstersInk/Aunt

Lute FoundationBooks.

Attinasi,J., & Friedrich,P. (1995). Dialogic breakthrough: atalysisand synthesis in life-changing

dialogue. In B. Mannheim& D. Tedlock(Eds.),Thedialogic emergenceof culture(pp. 33-53).Urbana:Universityof Illinois Press.

Bakhtin,M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (C. Emerson& M. Holquist,Eds.; V. W.

McGee, Trans.).Austin:Texas UniversityPress.

Bhaba,H. (1994). Thelocation of culture. London:Routledge.

Britzman,D., Santiago-Vallez,K., Jimenez-Munoz,G., & Lamash,L. (1993). Slips that show and

tell: Fashioningmulticultureas a problemof representation. n C. McCarthy& W. Crichlow

(Eds.), Race, identityand representationn education(pp. 188-200). New York:Routledge.

Cheung,K.-K.(1993). Articulatesilences: Hisaye Yamamoto,MaxineHong Kingston,Joy Kogawa.Ithaca:CornellUniversityPress.

Eagleton,T.(1976). Marxismand literarycriticism.Berkeley: Universityof CaliforniaPress.

Ellsworth,E. (1989). Why doesn't this feel empowering?Working hrough he repressive mythsof

criticalpedagogy.HarvardEducationalReview,59, 297-324.

Haraway,D. (1985). A manifestofor cyborgs:Science, technology,and socialist feminism in the

1980's. Socialist Review,80, 65-108.

hooks, b. (1984). Feministtheory.-Frommarginto center Boston:South End Press.

hooks, b. (1989). Talkingback: Thinkingeminist, thinkingblack. Boston:South End Press.

Kingston,M. H. (1989a). Chinamen.New York:Vintage/RandomHouse. (Originalworkpublished

1980)

Kingston,M. H. (1989b). The womanwarrior: Memoirsof a girlhood among ghosts. New York:

Vintage.(Originalworkpublished1976)








TOWARD A DIALOGIC NEGOTIATIONOF DIFFERENCE 69

Kogawa,J. (1981). Obasan.Toronto:Lester& OrpenDennys.

Kramsch,C. (1993a). Contextand culture in language teaching.Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress.Kramsch,C. (1993b). Languagestudyas borderstudy: Experiencingdifference.EuropeanJournal

of Education, 28, 349-358.

Kramsch,C., & Hoene, L. (1995). The dialogic emergenceof difference: Feministexplorationsin

foreign language learningand teaching. In D. Stanton & A. Stewart(Eds.), Feminismsin the

academy(pp. 330-357). Ann Arbor:Universityof MichiganPress.

Kristeva,J. (1980). Desire in language. New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress.

Kristeva,J. (1990-1991). An interviewwith JuliaKristeva:Cultural trangenessand the subjectin

crisis. Discourse, 13(1), 149-180.

Kristeva,J. (1991). Strangersto ourselves(L. S. Roudiez,Trans.).New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress.

Lorde,A. (1984). Sisteroutsider Freedom,CA: CrossingPress.

Lugones, M. (1990). Playfulness,"word"-travelling,nd loving perception.In G. Anzaldtia(Ed.),

Makingace, makingsoul: Haciendocaras: Creativeand criticalperspectivesby womenof color

(pp. 390-402). San Francisco:Aunt Lute FoundationBooks.

Morson,G. (1981). Who speaksfor Bakhtin? nG. Morson(Ed.),Bakhtin:Essaysand dialogues on

his work(pp. 1-19). Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press.

Mukherjee,B., & Blaise, C. (1977). Days and nights in Calcutta. GardenCity, NY: Doubleday.

Narayan,U. (1988). Workingacross differences.Hypatia,3(2), 31-47.

Razack, S. (1993). Storytellingfor social change. In H. Bannerji Ed.),Returningthe gaze: Essayson racism, eminismand politics (pp. 100-122). Toronto:SisterVision Press.

Rushdie, S. (1994). East, west. Toronto:Alfred A. Knopf.

Said, E. (1994). Orientalism.New York:VintageBooks. (Originalworkpublished1979)

Sheldon, A. (1992). Conflicttalk:Sociolinguistic challenges to self-assertion and how young girlsmeet them. Merrill-PalmerQuarterly,38(6), pp. 95-117.

Spitta, S. (1995). Transculturation nd ambiguityof signs in Latin America. In her Between two

waters: Narrativesof transculturation n Latin America (pp. 1-28). Houston: Rice UniversityPress.

Spivak, G. C. (1990). Thepost-colonial critic: Interviews,strategies, dialogues. New York: Rout-

ledge.

Trinh,T Minh-Ha.(1989a). Not you/like you: Post-colonialwomen and the interlockingquestionsof identity and difference. In G. Anzaldtia(Ed.), Making face, makingsoul: Haciendo caras.Creativeand criticalperspectives by womenof color (pp. 371-375). San Francisco:Aunt Lute

FoundationBooks.

Trinh,T. Minh-Ha. 1989b). Woman, ative,other.:Writing ostcolonialityandfeminism.Blooming-ton: IndianaUniversityPress.

Yamamoto,H. (1988). Seventeensyllables and otherstories. Latham,NY: Kitchen TablePress.

Rishma Dunlop teaches in the Departmentof Language Educationat the University of British

Columbia,2125 Main Mall, Vancouver,BritishColumbia,V6T 1Z4.

Date post:	03-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	soranz
View:	219 times
Download:	0 times

Beyond Dualism_toward a Dialogic Negotiation of Difference - Rishma Dunlop

Documents