The Challenge of Maria Lugones to Theories of Oppression

140 Pages·2001·6.6 MB·English

Conflicted Identities
The Challenge of Maria Lugones
to Theories of Oppression
Mary AM Bendfeld
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the degree of Master of Arts
Dalhousie University
Halifax, Nova Scotia
August, 2000
8 Copyright by Mary Ann Bendfeld, 2000
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For Eva, my Gennan / Tibetan I Canadian cornpanion, whose multipiicity
continues to e ~ c mhy life. Thank you for waiting, . . . and most of dl, for
understanding. And for my daughters, Jennifer, Amanda and Maureen, who have
made my ventures into ferninist theory urgent and worthwhiie endeavors.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
SECTION 1: Conscience, Expression and Identity
la: Constitution of Conscience
Ib : Conscience and Language
Ic: Knowing What to Feel
Id: Different Bodies
SECTION II: Conscience and Multipiicity
IIa: Conflicts of Conscience
IIb: Fragmentation, Multiplicity and Autonomy
Fragmentation
Multiplicity
Autonomy
IIc: Gay Conscience and Gay Identity . . . Possibilities
CONCLUSION
ABSTRACT
The following Thesis takes its reference point from the work of Maria
Lugones. Lugones is a writer and thinker who inhabits multiple ethnic and
cultural communities, thus the issues of identity and the construction of selves are
important focal points of her work. I argue that the development ofidentity is
interdependent with the development of a conscience. Additionally, using the
work of Louis Althusser and Wilfied Sellars, I argue that languages and the
attendant social practices they represent, explain, or refer to, play a significant role
in the formation of moral identity and conscience.
Thus I suggest that learning multiple languages leads to the development
of multiple selves, a theory that Lugones argues for. The possibility of
understanding the expenencing subject as "multiple" in this way also allows for
the development of new identities when the subject has experiences that language
cannot adequately represent. Section I of this Thesis focuses on the development
of conscience and identity and thus provides a background for the discussion
following in Section II, where 1 use the work of Lugones and her view of selves as
multiple to draw out and illustrate the complexities that evolve for subordinated
groups, especially gays and lesbians, in their continual development of conscience
and identity.
List of Abbreviations
Abbreviations for the essays of Maria Lugones are as follows. They have al1
contributed to my understanding of her ideas and her work.
El Pasar Discontinu0 de la Cachapera 1 Tortillera del Bamo a la Banio al
Moviemiento. ntr Disconhtous Passing oj the Cachapera / Tor~illera
Frorn the Barrio to the Bar to the Movernent
Purity, Irnpurity, and Separation
On Borderian& l La Frontera: An Interpretive Essay
On the Logic of Pluralist Feminism
Hispaneando y Lesbiando: On Sarah Hoagland's Lesbian Ethics
Stmcture/Antistructurea nd Agency Under Oppression
Playfulness, 'W orldY-Travellinga, nd Loving Perception
vii
My deep and heartfelt thanks to Dr. Susan Campbell for her encouragement
and her understanding for my project! Her assistance and advice, as well as
cnticism and comments were invaluable in helping to shape the finished product. I
am also grateful to Dr. Susan Shenvin, whose comrnents helped to improve and
clarify my thoughts at many points, and to Dr. Steven Burns for his careful reading
of this thesis which improved the end result. Your comrnents and thoughtfûi input
were greatly appreciated.
Confliced Identities
The Challenge of Mm'a Lugones tu Theories of Oppression
INTRODUCTION
The following thesis took its reference point h m a n essay by Maria
Lugones ent it led "Structure, Antistnicture and Agency Under Oppression."
Lugones, as a Hispanic woman and a lesbian, is a doubly disenfianchised member
within a dominant cornmunity that is white and heterosexuai. As such, 1 believed
that her theorizing about her experience held potential for my thinking conceming
gay and lesbian identity. Although on an initial reading of Lugones' work, 1 was
sceptical of her daims to multiplicity and her valonzation of such a concept, I have
since had cause to change my minci. I have been moved by her work: her anger, her
cornmitment to the multiple identities she embodies and continues to encourage and
strengthen, and most of dl, by her commitment to ideais such as autonomy and her
passionate articulation of how agency under oppression is possible. The questions
that occurred to me when 1 initially considered Lugones' work were: "Weii, which
'self' does she consult when she has a difficult decision to make? How does she
know what to do, given that each 'self may conhibute a different answer?" Such
thoughts directed me to the notion of a conscience, for although we conceive of a
conscience as a center of moral decision-making that tells us what to do in a given
context, that makes distinctions between 'good' and 'b ad' actions, does someone
like Lugones have multiple consciences, aiid how could diverse consciences within
one person possibly function? Furthemore, if conscience is culturdly constructed
(as Lugones argues), yet we are all members of that same culture, how does a
person develop more than one conscience within that culture? Reading more of her
work helped me to understand the thesis she presents in regard to multiplicity and
autonomy, and rewarded me with an edarged understanding of identity, agency and
autonomy, and some understanding of the consciousnesses of oppressed persons,
such as gays and lesbians. This thesis is an articulation of those understandings.
In Section I of this thesis, 1 provide a background against which the
discussion regarding oppressed identities in Section II takes place. 1 argue that the
development of conscience and identity are interdependent, and moreover, that the
developing and developed conscience whose duty it is to produce practical moral
knowledge, is in turn heavily dependent on our emotiond life and the feelings
and/or sentiments that penneate the cultural language and expressions that we lem.
In other words, languages and linguistic expressions, and the attendant social
practices they represent, explain or refer to, play a significant role in the formation
of identity' in the process of reasoning about right ends-'the right thing to do9-
the language we use forms and lirnits the thinking that results in the formulation of
moral questions and the construction of appropriate answers. Although we are
taught that good reasoning is objective and unsullied with emotional influences,
feelings and sentiments are already present in the conceptual understandings that we
have-in the language and linguistic expressions that our culture has produced. We
leam the concepts consciously, but the attendant sentiments present in the concepts
are ofien unconscious, a part of the cultural practices and rneanings that linguistic
expressions represent, refer to, or explain.
Language and linguistic expressions assist in shaping and influencing our
feelings because they have evolved over long periods of time and over certain
experiences and contexts. However, it can be granted that some feelings and the
linguistic expressions that represent them have more authority in representing
expenence than others. For example, women may find the language of anger
difficult to use, as it has developed over men's experienceO2C onfusion can result
when women's feelings contlict with male understandings of anger. Although the
dominant cultural group dong with every other cultural group can lack adequate