Abstract
The following theses suggest that white assumptions, whether consciously articulated or not, determine our epistemologies, methodologies and politics. ‘Our’ in this case addresses white colleagues in academia (like myself). In spite of recent theoretical (postcolonial) endeavors to undo the epistemological reign of ethnocentric givens in a post-enlightenment tradition, the subject position of white academia has still remained the default position — in its exclusionary terms of address, in its evasion of seeking out actual dialogues with intellectual agents NOT based in Western academic centers, in its representational claims and in a widespread inability to accept non-white authority as prior to one’s own. I see this problematics at work not only in mainstream academic production, but also within Gender Studies. My theses raise but cannot solve — the question of how to work on a different ethics.
“It’s white people who are flawed and at fault.” Jamaica Kincaid
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Broeck, S. (2002). Will White Feminism Surrender the Default Position? Gender Studies and Whiteness. In: Härtel, I., Schade, S. (eds) Body and Representation. Schriftenreihe der Internationalen Frauenuniversität »Technik und Kultur«, vol 6. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-663-11622-6_7
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