A question that I have about Alcoff’s claims would be: Does she consider the good that does arise from people speaking on behalf of others?  She seems to have a strong distaste, or pure hatred, towards people that speak for others but is it all bad?  I don’t think so.  Ask the people who have been helped by others and perhaps you will see that it is not all that bad.  I also had a question about “location” and how it plays a role in how people view someone?  I got a little confused when she tried to explain the importance of location.

     I think that the article intexturalizes quite well with our class.  Since we are offering a service to those who are less fortunate than us, then I see how some of Alcoff’s fears would come into play.  When we think of and define the word “service,”  we have made many observations about how it can be seen as a superior-subordinate relationship.  And, as Alcoff points out, “the practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf of less privileged persons has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or reenforcing the oppression of the group spoken for.”  So, this article relates to our work at the Boys and Girls Club because we have to make sure that we aren’t oppressing others.  Or maybe not oppression, but that we are actually helping and doing good and not hindering this group.

     This article was useful to me because I have not really ever thought of the differences between “speaking for” and “speaking about” a group of people.  I think that as we create our public service announcements or whatever for the Boys and Girls Club, we have to make sure that we not getting lost in the ambiguity of those two phrases.  It just raises the point that we have to be doing this service learning to truly help someone and not because we feel like we should or want the power. 

    

The honest truth is that I am writing this blog late at night. It was something I thought I could hold off to do until the night before. I guess the long text kind of suprised me. I didn’t read the whole thing. These are things that caught my eye and my attention.

• The recognition that there is a problem in speaking for others has followed from the widespread acceptance of two claims. First, there has been a growing awareness that where one speaks from affects both the meaning and truth of what one says, and thus that one cannot assume an ability to transcend her location.
• It is interesting to think that from where we speak changes how one can take what we say.
• The second claim holds that not only is location epistemically salient, but certain privileged locations are discursively dangerous.⁵ In particular, the practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf of less privileged persons has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or reenforcing the oppression of the group spoken for.
• This made me think of this question: Some are not able to speak for themselves for whatever reasons, is it not better to have someone speak rather than no one?
• In particular, is it ever valid to speak for others who are unlike me or who are less privileged than me?
• We might try to delimit this problem as only arising when a more privileged person speaks for a less privileged one. In this case, we might say that I should only speak for groups of which I am a member. But this does not tell us how groups themselves should be delimited. For example, can a white woman speak for all women simply by virtue of being a woman? If not, how narrowly should we draw the categories?
• Adopting the position that one should only speak for oneself raises similarly difficult questions. If I don’t speak for those less privileged than myself, am I abandoning my political responsibility to speak out against oppression, a responsibility incurred by the very fact of my privilege? If I should not speak for others, should I restrict myself to following their lead uncritically? Is my greatest contribution to move over and get out of the way? And if so, what is the best way to do this—to keep silent or to deconstruct my own discourse?

This made me think. Service is like speaking for others…Its a question of should we speak, should we serve, and no matter what we do what are the costs of us speaking for others or serving others. What cost are there if no one speaks for the unspoken for. It seems like these two subjects have such a wide spectrum of doing good on the far side and yet on the other side their is harm. Many wouldn’t think that we could harm someone from helping. Helping has a positive connotation. But in service cases it can have a negative connotation that is rather unrealized or unknown to those who serve.

This ties into our service learning i believe mostly at the end when we have projects like PSA. Who are we to speak for them when we are just outsiders. Her article I find useful if not just that it opens you mind up, it makes you think. I am thinking more about the connection between speech and service. How to two go hand in hand. Also its made me think more just about the effects of speaking for others. is it good, is it bad, should we or should we not?

I was absolutely overwhelmed with this article, as I’m sure many of my 121 peers were as well.  After reading it, everything seemed like a blur.  I did manage to pull out many quotes from it though that I found highly significant and relevant to the topic of service as well as the curriculum of our class.  The following are some quotes I took from the reading and some notes to go along with them:

“In anthropology there is similar discussion about whether it is possible to speak for others either adequately or justifiably.” I believe this is a topic that raises great questions.  It is not only the basis of Alcoff’s debate, but it relates with what we are doing in our service learning duties as well as discussions within the classroom.  I think this is a debate that could go on forever, and although I may have my own opinion of it, there may never really be one universal answer to this dilema.    

Intertextualizing

“The recognition that there is a problem in speaking for others has followed from the widespread acceptance of two claims.”  Although this quote may not have the depth and meaningful insight as others, I picked it out of the article simply due to the world “claims.”  I feel as if this is an important skill that we must learn and that is crucial to presenting a well-thought and intelligent argument.

“And the effect of the practice of speaking for others is often, though not always, erasure and a reinscription of sexual, national, and other kinds of hierarchies” This quote has special significance to our class simply from the word “sexual,” as strange as that may sound.  I say this only because my groups connotation of the word “service” was in a sexual manner.  I found it interesting that Alcoff brought up this point, in that service can relate to pushing things on to other people, even in a sexual manner as we discussed in class.

 

Build on definition of service

I found all of the following quotes to have significance on building our definitions of service and raising questions and concerns about its intentions:

“In other words, a speaker’s location (which I take here to refer to her social location or social identity) has an epistemically significant impact on that speaker’s claims, and can serve either to authorize or dis-authorize one’s speech.” “The second claim holds that not only is location epistemically salient, but certain privileged locations are discursively dangerous.⁵ In particular, the practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf of less privileged persons has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or reenforcing the oppression of the group spoken for.” “Systematic divergences in social location between speakers and those spoken for will have a significant effect on the content of what is said.” “If one’s immediate impulse is to teach rather than listen to a less-privileged speaker, one should resist that impulse long enough to interrogate it carefully. Some of us have been taught that by right of having the dominant gender, class, race, letters after our name, or some other criterion, we are more likely to have the truth. Others have been taught the opposite and will speak haltingly, with apologies, if they speak at all.” 

“Speaking should always carry with it an accountability and responsibility for what one says”

(I especially like this one…It’s short, to the point, and powerful all at the same time) “In order to evaluate attempts to speak for others in particular instances, we need to analyze the probable or actual effects of the words on the discursive and material context. One cannot simply look at the location of the speaker or her credentials to speak; nor can one look merely at the propositional content of the speech; one must also look at where the speech goes and what it does there.” 

“I would stress that the practice of speaking for others is often born of a desire for mastery, to privilege oneself as the one who more correctly understands the truth about another’s situation or as one who can champion a just cause and thus achieve glory and praise.”

All of these are interesting and important ideas that I plan to refer back to as I continue my service learning and participation in class.  I think that they are great tools that anyone should use to raise debate or as direction towards claims that we as a class can make about service.  After just one day spent at the boys and girls club, I can allready see how some of these issues and concepts brought up in Alcoff’s article are relevant to what we are doing as service learning students.  The kids at the club are so diverse that it will be hard to properly speak for them without altering their voice.  Reading this article has helped me to see this, and also caused me to ponder how I will deal with this issue.  At this point, my only solution is to get to know them as well as possible so that what I am saying is reflective of them.  Hopefully as I continue I will gain more and more insight and develop even more thourough techniques to deal with this dilema. 

“Any statement will invoke the structures of power allied with the social location of the speaker, aside from the speaker’s intentions or attempts to avoid such invocations.”

Given this quote, what happens if someone verbally attacks the very structures of power that are allied with his/her social location? Suppose a government was widely criticized because people felt that it favored the rich and ignored the poor. I’d say that government was “allied” with the upper class, no? Now suppose that a man named Bob was fortunate enough to be among the wealthy in the given country. Given his social status, Bob was personally benefiting from the government’s policies. But Bob was not a greedy person, and he would much prefer to see the government help those who really need it rather than make the wealthy even wealthier. So, he spoke out against the very government that was helping him. Interesting scenario, and how does this relate to the original quote? Would his criticism be less credible because he comes from a social class that is “allied” with the government?

“[Joyce Trebilcot] agrees that an absolute prohibition of speaking for would undermine political effectiveness, and therefore says that she will avoid speaking for others only within her lesbian feminist community.”

I found this puzzling – maybe too much was lost when Alcoff reduced a complex argument to a single sentence. Earlier in the paper, when discussing the proposal that someone “should only speak for groups of which [s/he is] a member,” Alcoff ponders how to “draw the categories” and notes that they are always “arbitrary.” I completely agree with Alcoff’s idea and feel that, with a little generalization, it is highly relevant to the quote about Trebilcot. Why does Trebilcot feel that she cannot speak for her fellow lesbian feminists but can and should speak for others? I’m not attacking her decision, I just feel that the line she draws is arbitrary, and I’m curious why she chose to draw it at the limits of the lesbian feminist circle.

I’m also confused by Alcoff’s criticism of the “Retreat” response. By her definition, “This response is simply to retreat from all practices of speaking for; it asserts that one can only know one’s own narrow individual experience and one’s ‘own truth’ and thus that one can never make claims beyond this.” One of the points she makes against it is that anything you say will inevitably have some impact on others, whether you want it to or not. She writes, “When I ‘speak for myself’ I am participating in the creation and reproduction of discourses through which my own and other selves are constituted.” I certainly agree with her, but I don’t see how this is a point against the retreat response. The justification for the retreat response concerns what you, personally, know and understand before speaking; Alcoff’s supposed criticism of the retreat response concerns what other people know and understand after you speak. Isn’t her argument irrelevant?

Alcoff writes, “I agree, then, that we should strive to create wherever possible the conditions for dialogue and the practice of speaking with and to rather than speaking for others.” This is a good point, but it seems to me that there is still a fuzzy line between speaking with/to others and speaking for them. Alcoff acknowledges that one question each of us must grapple with is, “If I don’t speak for those less privileged than myself, am I abandoning my political responsibility to speak out against oppression, a responsibility incurred by the very fact of my privilege?” Suppose that in an effort not to abandon this responsibility, while not causing harm by speaking for others wrongly, you meet with people from an oppressed group to find out exactly what they have to say for themselves. Now what? To fulfill this “responsibility to speak out against oppression,” you have to spread your newfound knowledge. But how do you do that? You could tape-record your interviews with the oppressed people and play their exact words for people, but realistically, recordings can’t be your sole medium. If you’re speaking in front of a group, you can’t just hit play, let the tape run for half an hour, and then step down from the podium without uttering a word; if you’re writing an article, it needs more than just a raw transcript. Ultimately, you are going to have to speak for others. You might speak for them in a way that reflects their own thoughts extremely accurately, but won’t that still be speaking for them?

The article calls into question the first definition of service: “To be of service to; to serve; to provide with a service.” Many people have excellent intentions when speaking for others, particularly when speaking for underrepresented or disadvantaged groups. They feel they are generously supplying a voice for a group that needs one. Alcoff counters that in some cases, the speakers are causing more harm than good – definitely not providing a service. The example that particularly stands out for me is Native Canadian women’s request that Anne Cameron not speak for them. Cameron most likely felt she was servicing the Native Candians, but she wasn’t at all.

Alcoff’s words of caution against speaking for others are a message I should carry with me. I have a strong interest in volunteer work and social justice. Inevitably, this will lead to situations over the years where I participate in “the practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf of less privileged persons,” which “has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or reenforcing the oppression of the group spoken for.” Reading Alcoff’s article addresses the possibility that I could cause damage when I intend to do good. It serves as a warning to consider the ramifications of what I say when discussing social issues or volunteer experiences.

There were several questions that arose while I was reading Alcoff’s text. The first being, who is her target audience? How does she think she can create a practical solution for the matter at hand? Or even further does she think there’s a serious problem, to a global extent? One thing that was unclear to me regarding Alcoff’s text was her usage of the word epistemology. I looked up several definitions of the term, and they all basically centered around relating to knowledge or the environment surrounding the obtainment of knowledge. However, do speakers always intend to educate or enlighten? She speaks in contemporary terms, and most of the speeches I have heard, have been around to motivate. We are in an age of the internet, where knowledge is at our fingertips and where most people are not that surprised at any new news. Well that’s just me blabbing, let’s move on to the real meat.

Alcoff seems to be saying that there is an inevitable movement towards universal skepticism of the speaker. That makes total sense, because well, even in this class, we must first question the background of our authors’, and what woud motivate his or her argument. In addition, she claims that privileged people speaking for less privileged people usually makes the matter worse. While I put that in the most general manner possible, I also noticed that she offers several conditions. The most important one being this:

“We must ask further questions about its effects, questions which amount to the following: will it enable the empowerment of oppressed peoples? ”

Pertaining to service, to supply someone, or to fix or repair something. Does the speaking help the oppressed people or not? When I speak on behalf or for my service at the Boys and Girls Club, what will be my motivation? Am I trying to help out, or just performing it out of duty? Is the former more righteous than the latter?

I cannot answer these questions fully at this point because I have only gone and done 6 hours, but at this point, after reading Alcoff, I can say this. I will take two points from Alcoff: one pertains to her mentioning her Panamanian and American dual nationality and the other point where she says there is responsibility behind speaking for others.

Well, I thought Alcoff’s article was fairly fantastic. My pdf has about as much text highlighted on it as it has unlighted. And I think I can forgive her for making me use my dictionary widget.

In regards to our blog prompt, it seems to me Alcoff laid out her points extremely well (she rarely threw a curve ball- her case was laid out fairly systematically). Sure, she didn’t bash us over the head with a “right” answer to issues which arise from speaking for other people, but she provided me a lot of food for thought. I found the begining of her conclusion a little sketchy though- I’m not sure where I missed the link between the content of the body of the paper and her claims authorship, but I must have.

The paper was extremely dense, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to reiterate in a blog post everything I took from it. From what I gather, the trials and tribulations of speaking for someone are one and the same as those that come with “service”. Firstly (though I think it was her second point), there is this huge complexity. Our world is not a department store with a shelve for each person, place and event. Everything is intertwined, misconstrued and fuzzy. From the reading, I gathered that people speak for other people because, on some level, they feel they are providing them with some great service. They are giving the oppressed a voice. And by doing so, they are cementing their own superiority. Just as I, right now, by writing about (and almost for) those people, I’m placing myself above them, with my supposed superior knowledge on the subject. How is that for a conundrum.

I think Alcoff’s article was infinitely useful. If nothing else, I discovered how conducive the chairs in the HUB are to napping. It’s also prompted me to think, which I feel is the hallmark of a good piece. It is my predisposition (maybe it’s the predisposition of the entire human race like Alcoff suggested, I don’t know) to talk for other people, and it’s been known to get me in trouble. As a stranger to the Boys and Girls club, I don’t have the authority to be a voice for Nevan, who turned 7 last week, or Amber, who copes with disability.  Additionally, though I don’t think Alcoff expressly mentioned it, words have a tremendous power, and that concept lies beneath the entirety her paper. When you decide to use your words to accomplish something, you are attempting to wield an extremely powerful weapon. Though she doesn’t tell us exactly what we should do in regards to speaking for other people, she insists that we think before we wield our voice, because words have unintended consequences.

Anyhow, I think it was a tremendous piece of writing (even if I’ve already forgotten half of it).

Her claims about the dangers about speaking for others include the idea of ritual  of speaking (bringing speech into a social sphere will be helpful in our activities with boys and girls club), and it seems that this concept of speaking implies that one cannot be objective at all.

the statement that a model of the subject person is made when one speak for or about them (or ourselves) seems relevant to our project inspeaking for the boy’s and girl’s club: we are going to have to hghlight some of their characteristics as people, and not tell others, in accordance to our purpose.

Alcoff’s suggestions for evaluating discourse so that one may decrease the dangers of speaking for others set up a framework through which we can look at our roles with the boys and girls club, and service in general: 1) one should interrogate the impulse to speak can be reformulated to question impulses to serve. 2)One must analyze the affects ones location and context have on what is said: affects on what service is and does. 3) Accountability and reponsibility for what one says; in practice, this involves being open to actively understanding criticism: accountability and responsibility are implied in popular conception of service, but not extended to include damages. 4) one must analyze probable effects of words on the discursive and material context – where is the claim going and what it does there; this relates a lot to the kind of writing Jentery has been guiding us towards: not only looking at how things come to be but also extending these claims into the future – questions about effects.

Alcoff’s approach to speech in a social context can be used to study our service at the club. We can start to think about the context we are doing it in, service-learning, who we are, why such a club was set up, why service-learning exists, how our service may be received. The analysis of service or speech within a social framweork is to the purpose of improving our ability to increase effectiveness.

Her article was useful to me because it advocates for a multi-dimentional analysis of something; an approach that can be used in organizing essays, making claims, increasing the good that comes from any service, and relates to the class, or to any academic pursuit, because it recognizes the modes of production: it questioned the production of meaning, truth, effects.

I felt Alcoff contradicted herself a little bit. First off she is a social theorist arguing that we shouldn’t speak for or about someone or something because we might influence other’s thoughts in the wrong way. But isn’t she doing that by writing this article? Can we ever completely speak or write without influencing someone else? Even right now as I write these thoughts and you read them, they are somehow influencing your thought- whether by changing your perception, asking new questions, or even just by reading, you are subconsciously absorbing my opinions. You might believe or agree with them, but you are still reading, absorbing, and forming your own thoughts on them. Another place I believe she contradicts herself is at the end when she says, “Thus, the effect of a U.S. president’s speaking for Latin America in this way is to re-consolidate U.S. imperialism by obscuring its true role in the region in torturing and murdering hundreds and thousands of people who have tried to bring democratic and progressive governments into existence. And this effect will continue until the U.S. government admits its history of international mass murder and radically alters it foreign policy.” This clearly states HER opinion, and I believe she doesn’t consider the various factors she asks us to consider when speaking for or about someone or a situation.

 

All that aside there are some good points and some rather confusing points. In my opinion (there I go, not taking “responsibility for the effects of words” as Alcoff would say) you cannot speak without having influencing someone else, even in the slightest way.

“First, there has been a growing awareness that where one speaks from affects both the meaning and truth of what one says, and thus that one cannot assume an ability to transcend her location. In other words, a speaker’s location (which I take here to refer to her social location or social identity) has an epistemically significant impact on that speaker’s claims, and can serve either to authorize or dis-authorize one’s speech. “

“Who is speaking to whom turns out to be as important for meaning and truth as what is said; in fact what is said turns out to change according to who is speaking and who is listening.” 

I agree with these statements. We have to take into consideration what stand point we are talking from, from where we are talking from, and what context we have about the situation/person we are talking about. At the boys and girls club, a volunteer has to make him/herself a part of the children’s lives and act as an equal, not a superior figure. As a person you cannot not deny these children with the respect they deserve. I believe by understanding the way to approach and treat these children is a key element in being a successful volunteer. This all incorporates the use of context, where you are located, how your social background may differ and how you decide to overcome these obstacles to be successful. In speaking for these children, are we treating them with respect? Are we treating their background and social place with dignity? Are we speaking for them, about them, or with them?

“ In particular, is it ever valid to speak for others who are unlike me or who are less privileged than me?”

Yes, why not? As long as you talk with these people, understand the context of their situation, the background they come from, and have sufficient evidence then why can you not? You influence people through your words, and if you can help someone with them, then why not? It is a different story if you do not have the context or know the people you are helping, but if you are speaking with these people and are helping get their word across, then I see no reason why it wouldn’t be valid to speak for others unlike you.

“On the one hand, a theory which explains this experience as involving autonomous choices free of material structures would be false and ideological, but on the other hand, if we do not acknowledge the activity of choice and the experience of individual doubt, we are denying a reality of our experiential lives.9 So I see the argument of this paper as addressing that small space of discursive agency we all experience, however multi-layered, fictional, and constrained it in fact is.”

“The dominant modernist view has been that truth represents a relationship of correspondence between a proposition and an extra-discursive reality. On this view, truth is about a realm completely independent of human action and expresses things “as they are in themselves,” that is, free of human interpretation.”

“Such a view has no necessary relationship to idealism, but it allows us to understand how the social location of the speaker can be said to bear on truth. The speaker’s location is one of the elements which converge to produce meaning and thus to determine epistemic validity.12″

“One important implication of this first premise is that we can no longer determine the validity of a given instance of speaking for others simply by asking whether or not the speaker has done sufficient research to justify her claims. Adequate research will be a necessary but insufficient criterion of evaluation.”   

I don’t completely understand the first statement. If you want analyze something, then why are we analyzing something that is fictional and can never be? If do so, aren’t we just creating more problems? And I don’t completely understand what exactly she is analyzing.

I believe these statements are all connected with one fact- that of the unattainable. In the first we are analyzing a somewhat “multi-layered fictional discursive agency.” In the second statement we are discussing a ideal situation- where a statement can be stated free of human interpretation. Sure this is possible, but only in the mind of the person saying it. Anything and everything we say and write is processed by another’s mind where they analyze it. No matter what they do, it is human nature to observe, hear, and analyze everything we see and hear. Sometimes we’ll miss subtleties and focus on the big picture and vice-versa. But an important point she makes is that a “speaker’s location is one of the elements which converge to produce meaning.” If this so, perhaps because of the person’s background and credits what they say has come truth to it. Can we ever speak objectively? Maybe and maybe not. As we view various situations, we form opinions which then transfer into our own opinions and OUR OWN TRUTHS. No two people take the same information and interpretation from a certain situation, and through each of their analysis they establish their own truth. Therefore, can anything a person claims as true, be true to anyone? I feel like I am going in circles, and am making no sense just like some of the article but there are so many questions that arise from a few different points. In high school, when we did a presentation or debate we were asked to provide evidence. If we could provide evidence for our claim, it was valid. In the last statement Alcoff argues this notion. There is so much more than evidence that drives whether an argument is valid.

“To say that location bears on meaning and truth is not the same as saying that location determines meaning and truth.”

 

“There are numerous examples of the practice of speaking for others which have been politically efficacious in advancing the needs of those spoken for, from Rigoberta Menchu to Edward Said and Steven Biko. Menchu’s efforts to speak for the 33 Indian communities facing genocide in Guatemala have helped to raise money for the revolution and bring pressure against the Guatemalan and U.S. governments who have committed the massacres in collusion. The point is not that for some speakers the danger of speaking for others does not arise, but that in some cases certain political effects can be garnered in no other way.”

 

I like the fact that she doesn’t completely undermine the important role speaking for others can play. She warns us of the dangers, but still tells us about the benefits.

 

“As my practices are made possible by events spatially far away from my body so too my own practices make possible or impossible practices of others. The declaration that I “speak only for myself” has the sole effect of allowing me to avoid responsibility and accountability for my effects on others; it cannot literally erase those effects.”

 

I like this quote because we are responsible for our words and actions. As Newton said for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Everything we do and say somehow has an effect on something else, whether it be on ourselves or someone else. I believe by speaking for and about the boys and girls club we definitely have to consider the effects of what we say and how what we say could be taken in a good and bad connotation. We will have to come up with arguments for the counterarguments we may encounter.

 

“Even if the speaker offers a dozen caveats about her views as restricted to her location, she will still affect the other woman’s ability to conceptualize and interpret her experience and her response to it. And this is simply because we cannot neatly separate off our mediating praxis which interprets and constructs our experiences from the praxis of others. We are collectively caught in an intricate, delicate web in which each action I take, discursive or otherwise, pulls on, breaks off, or maintains the tension in many strands of the web in which others find themselves moving also. When I speak for myself, I am constructing a possible self, a way to be in the world, and am offering that, whether I intend to or not, to others, as one possible way to be.”

 

I really like this quote because it sums up the effects our individual words and actions can have on the world.

 

“…but the point is that the impetus to always be the speaker and to speak in all situations must be seen for what it is: a desire for mastery and domination. Some of us have been taught that by right of having the dominant gender, class, race, letters after our name, or some other criterion, we are more likely to have the truth. Others have been taught the opposite and will speak haltingly, with apologies, if they speak at all… speaking should always carry with it an accountability and responsibility for what one says. To whom one is accountable is a political/epistemological choice contestable, contingent and, as Donna Haraway says, constructed through the process of discursive action… we need to analyze the probable or actual effects of the words on the discursive and material context. One cannot simply look at the location of the speaker or her credentials to speak; nor can one look merely at the propositional content of the speech; one must also look at where the speech goes and what it does there.”

 

All of this is in part III and parts I believe are important. I don’t believe that speaking for others or about them is a desire for mastery. When you are helping someone sincerely, you don’t care who notices what you are doing or what you are sacrificing for the cause. You should only care about the outcome and how it will help those you are oppressing. Alcoff says that the oppressed should speak for themselves, but when it is hard enough for them to have a voice that others listen to, what do they do? They turn to someone through whom their voice will be heard. Perhaps these people can help these people form a voice in which they can eventually speak for themselves. There are many factors one needs to consider before speaking for someone but if in any way one does speak for or about someone then they should be ready to accept responsibility for their the effects of their words and actions. The same principle will apply to our volunteer service at the boys and girls club. If we say anything for or about the boys and girls club, whether received in a good or bad way, we are solely responsible for the effects and outcomes. In the end, we hope to help the boys and girls club, but what if our concerns are interpreted wrongly? Then we put the boys and girls club at risk- a risk they are willing to take by having as volunteers and perhaps spokespeople to further their cause. This is the danger Alcoff is talking about when warning us about speaking for and about others. But Alcoff counters this claim by saying, “It is not always the case that when others unlike me speak for me I have ended up worse off, or that when we speak for others they end up worse off. Sometimes, as Loyce Stewart has argued, we do need a “messenger” to advocate for our needs.”

 

“The source of a claim or discursive practice in suspect motives or maneuvers or in privileged social locations, I have argued, though it is always relevant, cannot be sufficient to repudiate it. We must ask further questions about its effects, questions which amount to the following: will it enable the empowerment of oppressed peoples?” 


 

Though Alcoff makes many good points, I believe one of the most important ones is this last question. Ultimately, when we specifically speak for or about others (ignoring our everyday talk and its implications), we wish to help someone or their cause. But there are many factors to take into consideration before actually being able to help someone. Cruz and Illich said in their articles that perhaps we can better service the country by not doing service in these third world countries. Illich said, “The damage which volunteers do willy-nilly is too high a price for the belated insight that they shouldn’t have volunteered in the first place…I am here to suggest that you voluntarily renounce excercising the power which being an American gives you,” and Cruz says, ““I want us to talk about why, in the context of conflicting interests and the historical dominance of one racial or gender group over another, it is possible that ’service,’ in and of itself, can have racist or sexist outcomes despite good intentions. For example, I resist the notion of service learning for U.S. students in the Philippines, my country of origin, because I think it perpetuates a ‘colonial mentality’ among Filipinos and a kind of ‘manifest destiny’ amoung U.S. students. To my way of thinking, the results of the history of U.S. dominance in the Philippines is so overwhelming that it is almost impossible for a U.S. student doing what is regarded on both sides as ’service’ not to deliver a message of superiority.” Through both these quotes we are shown what can happen if the context of the situation is not taken into account and how “service” in its broadest sense can be bad. There are many factors that need to be taken into account when talking about service, just as when you are speaking for or about others. In either case what you consider a “service” may not actually be a service and rather than help, make the situation worse.

  

For Thursday’s reading of Alcoff’s “The Problem of Speaking for Others”, please compose your own blog entry (categorized under “Alcoff”) that engages these three bullets:

• What questions do you have about Alcoff’s text and her argument? What wasn’t clear? What doesn’t add up?
• How does Alcoff’s article intertextualize with our work on “service” in the class thus far? How does it map onto the word, “service”? What issues does it raise about conducting service-learning at Boys and Girls Clubs?
• Finally, how is Alcoff’s article useful for YOU (as a student, as a service-learner, as a writer, as sound-script composer)?

Also, feel free to include your annotations of the article in your post or anything else you want to note, for that matter.

And remember: You are not expected to read this article and “totally get it.” It’s dense and complex. It references a long history of theory, as well as critical stress points in feminist and post-structuralist thought. Don’t get caught up in those references. Read through them and connect the article with our work in 121 — our work on voice-overs, our service-learning work, and our keyword collaboratory work. Cool?

Let me know what questions you have! (Reminder: I have virtual office hours on Wednesday from 5-7 p.m.)

Enjoy, dear theory heads.