Speech Acts On Problematising Empowerment

Speech Acts: On Problematising ‘Empowerment’

Open Lecture

Certificate IV in Community Services,

Melton Campus, Victoria University of Technology

Thursday November 4th 1997

Good evening, thank you for the opportunity to share with you some of my ruminations about ‘speech acts’. I will be talking to you about the ways we speak about ourselves and others, the dilemmas and complexities of empowerment, and the struggle for non-oppressive personal practice. Let me start with a quotation from Linda Alcoff, in order to set the scene:

… when we sit down to write, or get up to speak, we experience ourselves as making choices. We may experience hesitation from fear of being criticised or from fear of exacerbating a problem we would like to remedy, or we may experience a resolve to speak despite existing obstacles. But in many cases we experience having the possibility to speak or not to speak. (Alcoff 1991:11).

So I have agreed to speak. Those of you who have come tonight to hear the ‘last word’ or definitive position on speaking about empowerment, I tell you now, at the outset, that you will go away disappointed. For my mission is the stimulate the senses, ‘cognitively kick start’ your journey to thinking critically about issues. In fact, as many of my students point out, albeit kindly; I speak more to raise questions, to get you angry and fired with passion, to stir up confusion/trouble. Or as Foucault once stated, to

… wear … away certain self-evidences and common places … to contribute to changing certain things in people’s ways of perceiving sensibility and thresholds of tolerance … (Foucault 1991: 83)

In other words, my job tonight is to open up ‘spaces’ for debate and dialogue, to identify and characterise problems and unsettle ‘truth’ claims’ and encourage each of you to engage in constant reflection upon your actions. For many of you, this task will involve not just stretching your vocabulary, but it will also demand that you ‘think about hard things’.

My speaking position

So who am I - to speak, to be listened to? And why is it important to identify my speaking position? The ‘word’ in spoken or written form (sometimes referred to as Discourse), is the site that both power and knowledge meet. Which is why speech acts can be inherently dangerous. Furthermore, a person in a privileged speaking position, such as myself, has a political/ethical responsibility to interrogate his/her relationship” to subordinated and disadvantaged peoples and declare their ‘interest’. On this point, La Trobe University, Professor Margaret Thornton states “assumed objectivity of knowledge itself camouflage not only the fact that it always has a standpoint, but that it also serves an ideological purpose” (Thornton 1989: 125).

Refusing to declare one’s speaking position, I argue constitutes not only a flagrant denial of the privileging effect of speech, but must be considered as an act of complicity to systematically mislead. I speak tonight from what I would term, a privileged speaking position. As someone who has been exposed to tertiary education, had an opportunity to read and reflect on many books and ideas, with a job and more particularly, as a teacher. Indeed, for some I act as a mentor - the one who ‘knows something about knowledge’.

On the other hand, I am deeply ambivalent about my ‘expertise’ to engage in the act of public speech talk. For am from the margins, the client, patient, the ‘riff raff’, flotsam and jetsam of society and might say - somewhat ‘deviant’. It is important to come clean about my speaking position, my knowledge standpoint and declare my interests: I speak for myself as a woman who has experienced youth homelessness, childhood violence and later ‘disability’.

Accountability for One’s Speech: Blessings & Dangers

Before I speak I am required to undertake a process of self-examination, to scrutinise my representational politics, to immerse myself in a self-reflexive interrogation and discern “what [my] representational politics authorises and who it erases … “(Howe 1994: 217). Do I speak for myself or others? Am I making gross generalisations about groups in the community? Does my speech contain unacknowledged assumptions and values? More specifically, within this process of reflection, I am required to examine the context and location from which I speak, in order to ascertain whether it is “allied with structures of oppression … [or] … allied with resistance to oppression ( Alcoff: 1991: 15). We need to ask before we speak, ‘who is doing what to whom’ (Howe 1994: 105-106), in other words, examine the issue of what is termed ‘agency’, for my and your ‘speech acts’ have the capacity to “define [my/your] possibilities and limitations …” (Black & Coward, in Lees 1986: 159). African American activist and academic Bell hooks asks us to decide where we ‘stand in the struggle’:

So each of us has to decide whether we are on the side of young people, people with disabilities, indigenous Australians, homeless people, women and children who have been abused/bashed/raped/killed or alternatively, whether we rest in the solace of ‘fence – sitting’, blaming the victim, individualising and psychologising subordinated peoples’ ‘experience’.

Even the use of ‘I’ and ‘we’ in my speech has to be undertaken with caution. Sometimes, so-called ‘radical’ words and creative political ways of talking/advocating around suffering and ‘oppression’ can be co-opted, recuperated or appropriated by those in power. Suddenly, an explosive and ‘radical’ concept such as ‘consumer control’, in the area of disability has been neutralised and reconstituted into ‘consumer participation’. Or more recently, the notion of ‘empowerment’ and ‘self-determination’ of indigenous Australians within a structural-political context, has been transmogrified by the current Coalition government into ‘self-empowerment’. In other words, we have returned to the ‘pull them up by the bootstraps’ mentality ~ individual solutions to individualised problems. It’s fascinating to see some of the language used by social action groups during the 1970’s and 1980’s appear ‘reinvented’ and ‘sanitised’ in government bureaucracies and even, heaven help us, politicians are using it. This adoption would be nice, except it is often the case that our ‘justice’ language has been bastardised and used in ways to push policies not in the interests of grassroots organisations. If nothing else, Alcoff & Gray alert us to the fact that

… even when disruptive speech is not silenced by subsuming it within the framework of ... discourse in such a way that it is disempowered and no longer disruptive … [disruptive speech can be] … channel[ed] … into non - threatening outlets . (Alcoff & Gray 1993: 268)

Mindful of the pitfalls and ‘dangers’ of speech acts, what can we do and how can we resist speech appropriation? As a safeguard we need to “ … to look at where the incitement to speak originates … as well as to whom the disclosure is directed” (Alcoff & Gray 1993: 284), before agreeing/deciding to speak; We need to recognise that not all situations are discursively empowering (Alcoff 1991: 7) – some territory is indeed dangerous! In other words, we need to check out who is doing the ‘asking’ and who is listening/reading e.g. audience demographics.

As a discerning individual, you should fastidiously examine your own ‘motivation’ to speak out. To ask whether your impulse to speak is coming from a place of solidarity and rage or if this impulse is bound up with deeper questions of your ‘ego’, zeal and desire to ‘save’. Such ‘Messiah complexes’ are not uncommon among community and justice advocates and Spivak notes this concern when she says: “… there is an impulse among literary critics and other kinds of intellectuals to save the masses, speak for the masses, describe the masses” (Spivak 1990a: 56), at the expense of providing spaces for the ‘voice’ of subordinated peoples. These semantic moves, must not be taken lightly as the “ … appropriation and use of space are political acts” (Pratibha Parma, in hooks 1990: 152).

‘Secrets, Lies & Silences’[1]: Speaking for Others

This brings us to the conundrum of speaking for/with others. For many of us engaged in the justice enterprise, there will come a time when we will be called upon to speak for or about Others - and I’m not just talking about some formalised/institutionalised advocacy situation. In fact our everyday lives involve acts of representation. The representation I am talking about is that which is especially related to people who do not have a ‘voice’, are not ‘listened’ to. Those whose ‘knowledge’ has been excluded, minimised, has been disqualified or has been considered marginal. Surely it would be better, you might say, for those of us who have ‘experienced’ the pain of our subordination/violence to speak?

We are currently experiencing what has been termed, a ‘crisis of representation’ - how can we speak of others, especially subordinated peoples in non-oppressive ways. Do we refrain from speaking and ‘let’ them speak? What if, for whatever reason, there is silence? As privileged speaking subjects what responsibility do we have to speak out about injustice and powerlessness and create spaces for resistance?

I am highly critical of those individuals who say they can’t speak because ‘they have not been there’. Throwing out the gauntlet, Spivak says in response: “why not develop a certain degree of rage against the history that has written such an abject script for you that you are silenced?” (Spivak 1990b: 62 ~ emphasis added). These issues have been raised in recent times in the area of ‘disability’ studies. The wisdom of the so-called ‘enabling language movement’ is encapsulated in the following statement about the power of naming:

Prejudice is not merely imparted or superimposed. It is metabolised in the bloodstream of society. What is needed is not sop much a change in language as an awareness of the power of words to condition attitudes. (Saturday Review, in Zola 1988: 13).

The art of speaking should not merely be reduced to the level of the pursuit of ’rightness’, a kind of ‘morality’ of speech. Rather, each of us is called to constantly reflect and be mindful of the potential violence of our speech and representation. Sticks and stones may break my bones and contrary to the saying, names do have the capacity to injure and demean me. Need you think I am coming on too strong, I am supported by Morrison when she says “oppressive language … does more than represent violence; it is violence” (Morrison, in Butler 1997: 6 - emphasis added).

By now, it should be clear that the ‘voice of agency’ is not just implicated in speech , but also in the silence of those in privileged speaking positions. To insist that those of us that have ‘suffered’ only do the speaking is not only to disempower us more (leaving aside the question of stress) and disregard unequal power relations, but in effect you are saying that : “I/we are not your concern, that there is no ‘agency dilemma’ here, my/our situation is a private matter”. In doing so, the (hidden experiences and wisdom), what I term ‘subjugated knowledges’ of subordinated peoples will remain hidden and responsibility for collectively challenging dominant values will remain an illusion. Speaking and advocacy are inherently political acts. Let us remember that if it were not for people like the late Herbert Cole ‘Nugget’ Coombs, who many called “ … a man with vision for reconciliation, a true friend of Indigenous people” (Gatjil Djerrkura, in Whitlock 1997: B2) there would have been less debate about responsibility around indigenous issues in public discourse. It is time for us to speak …

Up until this point, the focus of tonight’s lecture has been on speech acts – as a method/vehicle for empowerment. What I want to move onto now is a discussion of the problematical nature of the ‘empowerment’ concept itself, albeit briefly. The term ‘empowerment’ is somewhat elusive and used in different ways across disciplines, contexts. Ward & Mullender point out the term has been adopted by the New Right in the form of a rampant style of individualism – the consumerist movement. Whereas, the social justice/user movement speaks of ‘empowerment’ in terms of the collective – human service control (Ward & Mullender 1991: 21). I would argue that the prolific and varied use of such a term has left the concept somewhat empty of meaning, devoid of passion and open to co-option. (Cars will be sold as new empowerment tools soon, if they haven’t already!).

Even within social and community service courses, the notion of ‘empowerment’ and how it relates to broader concepts of power, domination and subordination have been viewed as unproblematic. Indeed, Baistow points to the “lack of analysis of the meanings & practices associated with empowerment” (Baistow 1994: 34). An unexamined concept of ‘empowerment’ in fact may lead to a situation where important issues for marginalised people are obscured and certain practices and structures that are disempowering are legitimised” (Tyne, in Hagner & Marrone 1995 : 3). Furthermore, Solas argues that the perpetuation of asymmetrical or unequal power relations may be due in part to some of the “key assumptions, goals and practices fundamental to empowerment” (Solas 1996: 147). For example, ‘empowerment’ often involves such situations where “… public ills [are repackaged] … under the guise of private troubles” (Ward & Mullender 1991: 24). Issues often related more the structural issues have become ‘psychologised’. This is particularly common in the ‘disability’ and youth services fields with its focus upon – the unemployment or integration ‘problem’ and the ‘lack’ of the client which can be ‘solved’ with reference to strategies such as competency development, counselling and ‘expert’ guidance. Even in so-called ‘progressive’ agencies, often power, it seems still remains in the hands of the provider: the ‘expert’ community worker, who ministers to the receiving ‘client’. As Rees states “ Empowerment may give the illusion of equality while in fact leaving the authoritarian nature of the practitioner-client relationship intact” (Ree, in Solas 1996: 151).

How do we really know if our intentions and practices are really empowering and who decides? These are critical and complex questions that need to be discussed and discerned. They are beyond the parameters of tonight’s topic. I mention them as ‘signposts’ that need more clarity. A commitment to ‘empowerment’ necessitates a commitment to combating injustice in all its forms and requires from each of us a constant re-examination and reflexivity of both theory and practice, to ask daily “ why are we doing what we are doing”.

I thank you for the opportunity to speak with you about these important matters and I hope that you will be provided with ‘food for thought’ in your class discussions. A paper of this talk will be distributed for you to digest at another time.

Alcoff, L. (1991) ‘The Problem of Speaking for Others’, Cultural Critique, 2, 5-34.

Alcoff, L. & L. Gray. (1993) ‘Survivor Discourse: Transgression or Recuperation?’, Signs, Winter, 260 - 290.

Baistow, K. (1994) ‘Liberation and regulation? Some paradoxes of empowerment’, Critical Social Policy, (42), Winter, 34 – 46.

Butler, J. (1997) ‘Introduction: On Linguistic Vulnerability’, in Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative, New York: Routledge.

Foucault, M. (1991) ‘Questions of Method’, in G. Burchell, C. Gordon & P. Miller (eds), The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Hagner, D & J Marrone. (1995) ‘Empowerment issues in Services to Individuals with Disabilities’, Journal of Disability Policy Studies, Vol 6, (2), Online at http://www.empowermentzone.com/empower.txt

hooks, b. (1990) Yearning: race, gender and cultural politics, Boston: South End Press.

Howe, A. (1994) Punish and Critique Towards a Feminist Analysis of Penalty, London: Routledge.

Solas, J. (1996) ‘The Limits of Empowerment in Human Service Work’, Australian Journal of Social Issues, Vol 31 (2), 146 – 156.

Spivak, G. (1990a) ‘The Problem of Cultural Self-Representation’, in S. Harasyn (ed) Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak The Post Colonial critic Interviews, strategies, Dialogues, New York: Routledge.

Spivak, G. (1990b) ‘Questions of Multi-culturalism’, in S. Harasyn (ed) Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak The Post Colonial critic Interviews, strategies, Dialogues, New York: Routledge.

Thornton, M. (1989) ‘Hegemonic Masculinity and the Academy’, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, 17, 115 -130.

Ward, D & A. Mullender. (1991) ‘ Empowerment and Oppression: An Indissoluble pairing for Contemporary social work’, Critical Social Policy, Vol 11, (32), 21 – 30.

Whitlock, F. (ed) (1997) ‘A humane and Influential Life, Herbert Cole ‘Nugget’ Coombs’, Obituaries, The Age, 30/10/97, B2.

Zola, I. (1988) ‘The language of Disability: Problems of Politics and Practice”, Australian Disability Review, Vol 1, (3), 13 - 19.

[1] With apologies to Adrienne Rich, whose book title I have adapted and now acknowledge: On Lies, Secrets, Silence, London: Virago, 1980

Open Lecture

Certificate IV in Community Services,

Melton Campus, Victoria University of Technology

Thursday November 4th 1997

My speaking position

Accountability for One’s Speech: Blessings & Dangers

‘Secrets, Lies & Silences’[1]: Speaking for Others

Empowerment … Revisited