Panel 3: From within Canada: Identity and Public Policy

• Reading Global Genders: Mapping gender-based struggles in the global geographies of local marginality
  (view abstract)
  Michael A. Lithgow, Mass Communication
• Travelling third class: regulating the transport of farm animals in Canada
  (view abstract)
  Michelle Barrett, Political Economy
• National Identity Examined: A Study of the Quebec Nation
  (view abstract)
  Rachel Ariey-Jouglard, Political Science
• A Prosperous Uncertainty: The Canada Border Services Agency, risk management, and the not-so new political imagination of spatially-bound identity
  (view abstract)
  Christopher Alderson, Political Economy
• Discussant: Benjamin Christensen, Sociology

Transcript: Comments from the Discussant.

What unifies these papers-in my opinion, is that they each are describing competing discourse over a particular issue.

Each paper is describing some type of discursive battle that attempts to gain the power and authority to describe a particular phenomenon. Each paper describes a series of tensions and contradictions which produce struggles and resistance to established relations and practices.

When I use the word “discourse”, I am trying to depict discourse as being illustrative of series of social practices. By “social practices”, I mean a continuous series of interconnected networks of economic, political and cultural activities. These social practices belong to a dialectical relationship with meaning-making (or semiosis). In other words, different social groups will use different symbols (language, text) to portray their position as somehow being morally or rationally superior to their opposition. Example: Leaders of the livestock transportation industy basing their position on “sound” science.

I find it useful to conceptualize discursive battles as an arena of competing arguments. Those discourses which become the most salient and dominant in any given social environment, can be understood as reflecting the success of one social group over another, in terms of establishing their paradigmatic views as being more legitimate than the views of their opposition.

For a discourse which holds a position of domination over others, it is important that they continuously reproduce lines of argument which attempt to maintain their position of domination. As different lines of opposition develop, so must the arguments of those in a position of power. It is an ever-ending process of reformulating new forms of meaning-making. Example: the changing meaning of Quebec Nationalism or national security.

Furthermore, each discourse/position will attempt to base their argument in conceptions of common sense. And to conceal, ignore, and romanticize various facts which support their position. Example: Quebec romantizing their history.

Presentations

What these papers have done, to a certain extent, is ask what groups/institutions are producing a particular line of discourse and why-and what oppositional voices are they trying to silence? And why?

It is only by examining these tensions, contradictions and struggles that we can begin to understand how societies are transformed. To quote Wally Clement on the topic of political economy: “Establishments seek to conceal the powers and assumptions that keep them in place. Political economy’s task is to analytically reveal these” (2001: 406). So applaud the presenters for their attempts to deconstruct these various discursive webs.

Questions

I want to apologize first, since my questions for the presenters encompass larger epistemological questions about political economy in general. But hopefully these will ignite some more specific questions from the audience.

Upon demystifying particular lines of discourse and exposing a set of conflicting forces, using what criteria does the graduate student take a position?

Are we always supposed to take the position of the “oppressed”? Whether it be the welfare of livestock, or pools of vulnerable female labourers. Furthermore, by taking a particular position, are we in anyway transforming the processes of conflict embodied in our realm of analysis? Or, by taking a position (of the “little guy”), are we simply attempting to redistribute power from those in a position of power to those without power?

Or perhaps, is it more the job of the grad student to demystify and unravel opposing forces which are seemingly natural and based in rational ideals of common sense.

Whatever the case, I would ask the presenters to be more reflective as to why they are taking the position they are, and to be more reflective in illuminating their assumptions and exploring how their ontological lens influences they way in which they present their findings. Doing so will only give your research more power and veracity.

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