闺蜜 Salon

Dear Strait Talking Honeys,

I’ve been reflecting what I get from Strait Talk during the last two more weeks. I found it’s hard to reorganize myself unless I write/ talk something initiated by Strait Talk. It would be a long article, surely not well organized. I try to imagine that I’m talking to you honeys so I may get started.

I. English Hegemony?

After got back from Strait Talk @ UCB, I attended an international conference discussing hegemony within the field of sociology. The most important issue is that sociological theories and studies are evaluated through the lens of unbalanced power of this academic regime. What count as good social studies are heavily judged by the narratives from the society of U.S or west Europe, as if they are the center while other societies are all periphery. In sociology, the experiences of being colonized, of land loosing for the aborigines, and of uneven power in publication are highly neglected. Interestingly, English as some kind of language and idea hegemony were often mentioned.

I’ve always being sensitive to language, to the idea that ppl deliver through talking, and to the obvious/ hidden power relation underlining. Speaking about English hegemony, I notice that several civilizations are using their cannons to fight back. For example, China and Islamic societies are building sociologies of Confucian or Qur’an. I was a little bit concerned if these would be merely a repetition of building hegemonies, but the voices from below are still neglected.

So I raised a question to professor Raewyn Connell from Australia, who actually inspired me in her answer. She said that it’s one way to start by building cannon, but she worries that all these cannons may not be close enough to what ppl are living in their real life. She appreciate more those theorists in African societies who may not be part of an professional academy, but who are successful play writers, artists, philosophers and build their own critical social theories totally different from the center— Because they are talking and getting more closer to people and civil society.

Isn’t that what we are trying to do in this blog? First we try to talk and talk and talk. In English, in Chinese, or in Taiwanese-Chinese (I would like to call it so. Ha.), in languages that we are familiar to. As students, as bloggers, as professional flirter(:-P), as belly dancer, as playwright to be, as mother to be(? Clearly not everyone wants to. Ha.)

Firstly, we talk and we think. And hopefully we challenge and change.

To be continued…