Workshop 4: Know Thy Self

1. Workshop 4: Know Thy Self Or once upon a time…

2. Today we will: Think about what makes you/us in context, by looking at where we were born Explore cultural, geographic, national identities in socio-political terms; Discuss this as an ‘inventory of the self’ as suggested by Gramsci and Said Today’s Workshop

3. Outcomes By the end of today, you should be able to: • Understand the construction of alternative histories in relation to spaces, places and theories; • Think of space and place beyond the obvious surface level; • Apply this work to an ‘inventory/archive of yourself’; • Use this inventory to feed into this week’s task (clue to be revealed at the end)

4. What are our normative constructions of New Zealand?

5. Postcolonial New Zealand • Pakeha – colonized for reasons of hunting and resources of ‘natural’ environment (e.g. Dow Chemicals) – but also in bid to stop French. • Treaty of Waitangi – a document ‘lost in translation’, and not rarefied into (colonial) law. • Prior to urbanization 80% Maori rural, post-urbanization 80% urban.

8. Another Orientalism The commodification of Otherness has been so successful because it is offered as a new delight, more intense, more satisfying than normal ways of doing and feeling. Within commodity culture, ethnicity becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture. (hooks 1992)

9. Once Were Warriors

11. Pisa, Italy What could you expect to find if you travelled to a tourist paradise such as this? • Natural and artistic beauty • Excellent food • Great weather • Civilised people adept at the “art of good living” • Or…

13. Alternative Facing criticism, Barilla issued an apology. “With reference to statements made yesterday, I apologize if my words have generated controversy or misunderstanding, or if they have hurt the sensibilities of some people. In the interview I simply wanted to highlight the central role of the woman in the family.” Stop digging?

14. Paolo Seganti: homophobic crime in Italy 2005: Paolo Seganti is beaten to death and his body mutilated while he was gardening in a public allottment. His killer(s) were never found. 2008: 45 aggressions, 9 murders 2009: 52 aggressions, 8 murders

15. ‘The starting-point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and is ‘knowing thyself’ as a product of the historical processes to date, which has deposited in you an infinity of traces, without leaving an inventory… Therefore the task at the outset, is to try to compile an inventory’ – Gramsci, Prison Notebooks

16. Postcards from Below For this activity, you will have to stand and move quickly across the room. Please do your best to make it all go smoothly! • Statements will refer to your place of birth: based on your answer, you will have to arrange yourself. • We will repeat this process several times, so you will have to re-position yourself. Be on your toes!

17. Go LEFT Go RIGHT If you were not born in the UK If you were born in the UK What does it mean to be a UK national? What are the privileges? What is it like to arrive in the UK? What’s strange/normal/indifferent? Do you know how to reply when people ask where you’re from? Do you think nationalism still exists and what does it mean today?

18. Go LEFT Go RIGHT If you were born in a rural area If you were born in an urban area What has happened to traditional rural areas? What does it mean to ‘get out’? What are the social stereotypes of ‘city types’? What are the limitations/possibilities of youth in each context?

19. Go LEFT Go RIGHT If you were NOT born in a capitalist country If you were born in a capitalist country Do you need to be born into capitalism to understand its mechanisms? What is capitalism today, and what is non-capitalism? Do we have a global economic system?

20. Go LEFT Go RIGHT If you were born as the ethnic majority If you were born as the ethnic minority In what ways does ethnicity shape our cultural, social and political expectations? Does multi-culturalism offer more than middle-class peace of mind? According to Gilroy, there ‘Aint no black in the Union Jack’ – what do we understand by ‘Britishness’ (or any other national identity)?

21. Wish you were here? Go LEFT Go RIGHT If where you were born would not result in a postcard If where you were born would result in a postcard How do we define places that are considered beautiful? Does their image match their lived experience? What geographical objects result in a place being defined as beautiful/ugly? How does the socio-political context delimit this (e.g. in terms of wealth, crime, poverty, industry) Does Coventry have postcards?!

22. Summary Understanding the self and the histories that make you who you are is important to critical thinking – it means we are able to position ourselves, not in a bid to be more ‘objective’, but as a way of understanding ourselves in relations of power. By now you should be able to: Understand the construction of alternative histories in relation to spaces, places and theories; Think of space and place beyond the obvious surface level; Apply this work to an ‘inventory/archive of yourself’.

23. Give us a clue! And the reading for this week!

24. Clue to this week’s task is… It is commonly understood that Freud's theories have been absorbed into the way we understand ourselves as people. However, what drug is Freud widely know for using?