I thought it would be useful to make a stable link for this short summary that was both the impetus for my 15 years with Spivaks work, and that has also served me well as a heuristic in my own brief forays into the international development arena. I first saw this on the postcolonial list, and a quote ridden forward (initially by my online comrade Radhika ) is the only surviving document I can find, so heres a readable version that still deserves a wide readership outside academia, the developmental attitude is perhaps only even more present now than then: Professor Spivak noted that women are the power in tribal groups. She questioned the validity of the public/private or inside/outside dichotomy in analysing issues among such groups, arguing that while this may be applicable to the middle class, this analysis did not work well at the grassroots [...] Gender is a field that goes beyond reason, and can not be analysed within the paradigm of rational expectations. However, she stressed that tradition is not necessarily good, and change is imperative. However, assistance for such change should not take away what people have and replace it with top down schemes. Professor Spivak urged the need to look and see if there is not already a starting point within the present in the society itself, from which one can begin one’s work. One must not approach the work with the “supremacist’s assumption” that anything that exists must be bettered. The idea is to enter into and learn the traditions from inside, see what traditions can be worked with to slowly make the situation better and accepted from the inside, and to ensure that new developments are initiated from the inside. [...] She stated that if people and not economic growth, are the motivating factor for working in gender, then we have to also realise that the change will not happen fast. Patience, she said, was critical.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 09:31:06 +0000
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