THE INTERFACE BETWEEN LINGUISTIC  
AND POST-STRUCTURALIST FEMINIST ETHNOGRAPHIES 

19-20 April 2004
King's College, London

UK Linguistic Ethnography Forum Seminar 4

The UK Linguistic Ethnography Forum is a Special Interest Group 
within the British Association of Applied Linguistics

P R O V I S I O N A L   P R O G R A M M E

The interface between Linguistic and Poststructuralist Feminist
Ethnographies

MONDAY 19 APRIL

1.30			Tea, coffee and biscuits

2.00 	2.15		Welcome and Introductions
			Ben Rampton and Angela Creese

2.15     3.30	Prof. Valerie Hey (Brunel University)
			(Chair: Angela Creese)		

3.30	4.00		Tea and coffee

4.00	5.15		Prof. Don Kulick (New York University)
(Chair: Janet Maybin)

5.15	5.30		Break

5.30	7.00		Business Meeting
			(Chair: Ben Rampton)
	
7.30			Dinner 

TUESDAY 30TH APRIL

10.00    11.15		Discussion of pre-circulated readings
(Chair: Janet Maybin)
11.15     11.45		Tea and coffee
11.45      1.00		Dr. Shereen Benjamin (University of Birmingham)
(Chair: Angela Creese)

1.00	   2.00  	Sandwich lunch

2.00       3.30	Discussion: Representing reality: a reading on reflexivity 
			(Chair: Richard Barwell)

Speakers’ Abstracts and Publications

	
Valerie Hey:  Brunel University
The power of voice and the voice of power: the epistemology of the speaking /
theorising subject 
 
Poststructuralism is now an orthodox position in critical social science research and analysis. It is not of course a single/singular position but is perhaps best conceived of as a theoretical assemblage. In this assemblage certain concepts have gained prominence notably: subjectivity, discourse,  identity and identifications ; ideas that elaborate a network or capillary model of power. 

Feminist materialist poststructuralism is a position within the theoretical field that seeks to en/gender a poststructuralist sociological imagination.- one that by its nature problematises the power relations of academic knowledge production and the forms of rationality on which it has been built.  Taking up a position as a feminist academic is thus inherently dilemmatic. At the level of the epistemological – the practice entails asking how we assert our rights to: know, knowledge and to ‘know the other’? This directs attention to questions of the power of representation. At the level of the ontological as embodied knowers from somewhere, what forms of ‘extra – discursive’ experience configure our research practices on/with others. For me this concerns the intangible role of the 

psychosocial, the emotional as well as the persistent historical shaping of women’s positioned subjectivity as relational.  Can a feminist-inspired materialist poststructuralist methodology  contribute to the emergence of a new form of rationality? My interest is in the untapped potential of poststructuralist reasoning to explore these issues through examples of the social praxis of research which itself remains under-theorised as a (very peculiar/particular) practice.

relevant publications

Hey, V. (2003)Joining the Club? Academia and working Class Femininities. Gender & Education vol 15 (3)319-335

Hey, V. (2002) ‘Horizontal solidarities and molten capitalism: the subject, intersubjectivity, self and the other in late modernity’ Discourse 23(2) 227-241 (Special issue on relationship cultures).

Maugher, M. and Hey, V. (1999) ‘Researching girls: a poststructuralist approach’ Educational and child psychology. 16(2) 67-84. 

Hey, V. (1997) The company she keeps: an ethnography of girls’ friendshi. Buckingham, Open University Press.

Shereen Benjamin (University of Birmingham)

The Weakest Link?

'Few people would seriously get up in public and argue in principle against peace: yet we live in a nation that continuously holds itself in a state of readiness for war, and whose economy is linked indissolubly with the arms trade. Similarly, few would argue against inclusive schooling, but the English school system is designed to reduce children and young people to sets of quantifiable performance targets, so that they and their teachers can be graded accordingly. Pupils, students and teachers have to find ways of negotiating the resulting discursive web of weasel words and inhuman demands. Aqsa, a 15-year-old student in her final year of compulsory schooling at an inner-city comprehensive school, is one such student. The 'benchmark standard' for such students - currently five passes at grades A* - C in GCSE examinations - is not accessible to her, so she cannot readily read herself into hegemonic and instantly-recognisable discourses of 'success'. We will look at some fragments of interview, fieldnote and documentary data collected during an ethnographic study, to tease out some of the discourses in play as Aqsa goes about the task of positioning herself in relation to the discourses that characterise urban schooling in an era of new public management.'

relevant publications

Benjamin, S. (2003) ‘What Counts as ‘Success’? Hierarchical discourses in a girls’ comprehensive school’, Discourse 24/1, 105-118

Benjamin, S. (2002) ‘Valuing Diversity: A cliché for the 21st century?, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 6/4, 309-324

Benjamin, S. (2002) The micropolitics of special education needs: an ethnography. Buckingham, Open University Press.

Benjamin (2001) ‘Challenging masculinities: disability and achievement in testing times’ Gender and Education 13 (1) 39-55.

Don Kulick: New York University

Working title: Language and Sexuality

This session will discuss issues raised in his recent book with Deborah Cameron "Language & Sexuality" (Cambridge CUP). 

 relevant publications
Kulick, D. (2003). No. Language & Communication 23(2): 139-151, special issue on "Language and Desire" edited by Deborah Cameron and Don Kulick.

Cameron, D. and Kulick, D. (2003) Language and Sexuality. Cambridge: CUP

Kulick, D. (2000) Gay & lesbian language. Annual Review of Anthropology 29:243-85. 

Kulick D. (1998) Travesti: sex, gender and culture among Brazilian transgendered prostitutes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 

Questions for discussion at the Tuesday afternoon session ‘Representing reality’

Critical reflection on the practice of our research, particularly with respect to how we represent our work, leads to many tricky questions:-

How do we represent the participants in our research?
How do we represent ourselves?
How do we represent or construct or orient to the different possible 
audiences for our research?
How do we deal with issues of power and responsibility in representing 
the different participants? How, for example, do we represent the 
marginalised?
How do we represent different meanings and perspectives?

Given that language mediates both our research and its representation 
(can they be separated?), these questions seem particularly relevant 
for linguistic ethnography.