Essay on The Politics of Difference and Identity.
You have to use at least three of our course readings. Please check the file section for more instruction.

Short Essay: The Politics of Difference and Identity

Weight: 15 % of your final grade

Due: After you have completed Unit 3 (according to the schedule, in Week 14)

Length: 2,000 to 2,500 words

“We all write and speak from a particular place and time, from a history and a culture which is specific. What we say is always “in context,” positioned.”(Stuart Hall, 1990, p. 222)

The materials in Unit 3 demonstrate how formations such as race, sexuality, and gender are not reducible one to the other. Rather they are dynamic—their specificity is always shifting, the product of a complex dialectic of negotiations. Following Stuart Hall, this assignment asks you “to pursue a dialogue, an investigation, on the subject of cultural identity and representation” (1990, p. 222).  In this essay you are to explore the politics of difference and identity—for example, the politics of location). To put it another way, what is the relationship between the politics of place and voice, between who speaks, and the subjects spoken?  Other questions to consider when formulating your paper are:

• Owing to our diverse linguistic, geographical, class (and so on) positions, we are variously located in different relations/structures and belief systems. How would you situate yourself as a knowledge producer?
• How do the various elements of your identity influence and determine your personal, social, and political thinking and decision making?
• What components of your social identity shape your sense of self/your daily life? In what ways?
• What specific world events, personal incidents, relationships (such as with friends and classmates), environmental factors (for example, the neighbourhood you lived in, family situations), media images (books, movies, television—please identify specific names/titles), and other such factors have had an effect on your ideas about sexuality, class, gender, race/ethnicity, and racism?

Your essay will be evaluated on both clarity and complexity, and should include a brief thesis, several sections in the body of your essay supporting your position with reference to the course materials, and a conclusion. See “Assignment Grading Criteria” in the Course Information Moodle book for more information and the “Essay Research and Writing” links provided on the home page for help in crafting your thesis.

You are to use at least three of our course readings.

Section 3.1
The Politics of Representation I: Cultural History/Cultural Memory

Reading

Reading

Blaagaard, Bolette B. (2011, January). Whose freedom? Whose memories? Commemorating Danish colonialism in St. Croix. Social Identities, 17(1), 61–72.

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=f509ff1a-57be-4e78-881e-ec04948f4582%40sessionmgr4&vid=2&hid=4

 

Robins, Steven. (2007). “Can’t forget, can’t remember”: Reflections on the cultural afterlife of the TRC. Critical Arts: A South-North Journal of Cultural & Media Studies, 21(1), 121–151.

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=a61c74eb-9a05-4de4-99c6-94420989b352%40sessionmgr13&vid=2&hid=4

Section 3.2
The Politics of Representation II: Cultural History/Cultural Memory: A Canadian Agenda

Reading

Reading

Innes, Randy. (2008, Fall). Contemporary presents: The Canadian War Museum’s Afghanistan: A glimpse of war and the unfinished business of representation. Topia, 20, 93–108.

https://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/topia/article/view/22880

 

Yeoman, Elizabeth. (2004, Fall). Je me souviens: About the St. Armand slave cemetery, memory, counter-memory and historic trauma. Topia, 12, 9–24.

https://pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/topia/article/view/2913

Section 3.3
Mixed Race and Multiracial Identities

Reading

Reading

Haritaworn, Jin. (2009, February). “Caucasian and Thai make a good mix”: Gender, ambivalence and the “mixed-race” body. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 12(1), 59–78.

http://0-ecs.sagepub.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/content/12/1/59.full.pdf+html

 

Tyler, Katharine. (2011, July).  New ethnicities and old classities: Respectability and diaspora. Social Identities, 17(4), 523–542.

http://0-www.tandfonline.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/13504630.2011.587306

Section 3.4
Cultural Politics/Sexual Politics

Reading

Reading

Lugo-Lugo, Carmen R., & Bloodsworth-Lugo, Mary K. (2010, March). 475° from September 11: Citizenship, immigration, same-sex marriage, and the browning of terror. Cultural Studies, 24(2), 234–255.

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=7d8e49af-02dd-4bc9-be2c-bfa5e1e631f4%40sessionmgr15&vid=2&hid=4

 

Somerville, Siobhan B. (2005, September). Notes toward a queer history of naturalization. American Quarterly, 57(3), 659–675.

http://0-muse.jhu.edu.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/journals/american_quarterly/v057/57.3somerville.pdf

Section 3.5
Globalization, the Precariat, and the Politics of the Present

Reading and Viewing Assignment

Reading

Miller, Toby. (2010, March). Culture+Labour=Precariat. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 7(1), 96–99.

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=33431321-a9d4-40e7-bada-ce558d4b9e5a%40sessionmgr4&vid=2&hid=4

 

Ross, Andrew. (2010, March). The making of sustainable livelihoods. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 7(1), 92–95.

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=b7bf3230-7b33-442e-9ade-08cc9fec0222%40sessionmgr4&vid=2&hid=4

 

Sassoon, Anne S. (2001). Globalisation, hegemony and passive revolution. New Political Economy, 6(1), 5–17.

http://0-www.tandfonline.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/doi/pdf/10.1080/13563460020027722

 

Standing, Guy. (2010, March–April). The precariat and basic income. BIN Report 8. Basic Income Network Italia. Reposted on pratichesociali.

Section 3.6
Empire, Sovereignty, and Indigeneity

Reading and Viewing Assignment

Reading

Alfred, Taiaiake. (2010, Spring). Then and now, for the land. Socialist Studies: The Journal of the Society for Socialist Studies, 6(1), 93–95.

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=361a8353-0174-4691-8351-f1f5837b689b%40sessionmgr4&vid=2&hid=4

 

Bedford, David, & Cheney, Thomas. (2010, Spring). The Kahnawá:ke standoff and reflections on fascism. Socialist Studies: The Journal of the Society for Socialist Studies, 6(1), 125–136.

http://0-ehis.ebscohost.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=abf89ea1-590a-4b29-89c3-1de5906a6bd9%40sessionmgr4&vid=2&hid=4

 

Coulthard, Glen S.  (2007, November). Subjects of empire: Indigenous peoples and the “politics of recognition” in Canada. Contemporary Political Theory, 6(4), 437–460.

http://0-search.proquest.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/docview/237019859?accountid=8408

 

 

 

 

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