Wow. So that was one of the most confusing things I’ve ever read. Lots of run on sentences? anyways! reading it, there was her obvious bias. Her dislike, might I even say, hatred toward speaking for others. But unless I missed it ( which I very well could have; I couldn’t concentrate toward the end) it seemed very one sided. She did give many examples and reasons to why speaking for others was detrimental, but it seemed there was a complete lack of any argument for the other side. That alone, the failure to show the other side takes away some of the credibility. It makes it seem more like a rant. Of course, there was still a lot of good information in there. Just reading through it, I got the feeling that her hatred of speaking for others were a bit over the edge.

“There is a strong, albeit contested, current within feminism which holds that speaking for others—even for other women—is arrogant, vain, unethical, and politically illegitimate.”

That just really struck me, the choice of words used. All some of the worst insults you could say to someone. Also              “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. ” This was really interesting. Even though you try to speak for yourself, you can still end up speaking for others. Of note, is that no matter what you say, its going to have an effect one way or another on someone elses views.

This intertextualizes with service in this class thus far, because currently, we are providing a service to the Boys and Girls Club.  Our personal experiences are akin to what she Alcoff is talking about. She mentions people in different locations speaking for people of a different location, with location not being just the traditional sense, but also, a persons “social Location”; what rung are they on society’s ladder.

“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”

This highly pertains to us and our class, because as we do our sevice learning, we are interacting with a group who are at a different location in society. Thus, we must tread lightly, as we can not truely understand them. Since we are going to be making a Public Service Announcement, what we say is going to either, as Alcott puts it, “authorize or de-authorize” our announcement.

For me, it just sort of re affirms the idea of not being able to truely speak for another group of people. But at the same time, it also dredges up questions of where that line is. At what point can you still speak for others, and at what point should you just stop. Also, it makes me think about the ramifications of everything i say, and also when I dont say anything, what happens.

It is hard for me to point out what is unclear or what does not add up. For me, the text was a little overwhelming. I was curious about how Alcoff defines “priviliged” and “oppressed,” since most people (I am speaking for others) are both. Alcoff addresses this in her footnotes, though. I found one statement that seems to be an oversimplification:

“For example, in many situations when a woman speaks the presumption is against her; when a man speaks he is usually taken seriously (unless his speech patterns mark him as socially inferior by dominant standards).”

I guess Alcoff’s context and “location” matters here. I do not, consciously at least, think less of something a woman says. Maybe the fact that I do not think I am prejudiced towards women makes more vulnerable to accidentally being sexist. Wimmin…

I do not know what “post-structuralist” means, but I am sure Wikipedia can fix that.

Alcoff discusses how the social position of the speaker and the person being spoken too change the meaning of what is said, and can reflect social hierarchies. The definition of “service” as sexual intercourse suggest a dominant role of the person doing the “service.” Depending on who is saying the word, and to whom, the suggested social relationship could change. Alcoff’s points also raise questions regarding Illich’s speech “To Hell with Good Intentions.” For one, is Illich speaking for the underprivileged of Mexico? And if so, is he justified?

While learning at the Boys and Girl’s Club, I need to make sure that I do not speak for the children I am working with unless I need to. Also, I need to make sure that if I do speak for any of the children, I am not reinforcing class or societal hierarchies. By criticizing my words with my social location in mind, I might possibly prevent unjustifiably speaking for others.

     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).

Of use for your new sound-scripts?

Alcoff attempts to differentiate between what is acceptable and what is not when speaking for others.  She claims that speaking about a group is different from speaking for a group when she says,“Thus I would maintain that if the practice of speaking for others is problematic, so too must be the practice of speaking about others.This is partly the case because of what has been called the “crisis of representation.” For in both the practice of speaking for as well as the practice of speaking about others, I am engaging in the act of representing the other’s needs, goals, situation, and in fact, who they are, based on my own situated interpretation. In post-structuralist terms, I am participating in the construction of their subject-positions rather than simply discovering their true selves.”   However, this leads me to wonder where do you draw the line between speaking for others and speaking about others?  Doesn’t a representative of a group contradict this statement?  Alcoff claims that speaking for others is knowing and discovering the subject matter at hand while speaking about others is the speaker’s way of interpreting the group based on the speaker’s situation.   Many groups have representatives speak on their behalf.  In these situations, the representative is speaking for others yet the title of a representative seems to employ the position of speaking about others. 

“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.”  

This quote made me realize that when speaking for or about another group, I will have some influence on the way others perceive that group.  As with doing service work at the Boys and Girls Club, what we say about the Boys and Girls club will surely have an effect and influence others’ perceptions of the Club.  Therefore, we should consider what we say about the Boys and Girls Club carefully and take responsibility for those outcomes.  As a student, we will have to write about and eventually make a PSA representing the Boys and Girls Club which brings to light Alcoff’s claim that speaking for others often time raises problematic issues.  Alcoff mentions these issues when she says “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… The second claim holds that not only is location epistemically salient, but certain privileged locations are discursively dangerous. 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 re-enforcing the oppression of the group spoken for”.  For our future assignments, it should be in our best interest to represent the Boys and Girls Club with the best ability we can.   According to Alcoff’s claims, we should go about our work by getting to know the people we work with at the Boys and Girls and understand their feelings and thoughts.  By doing so, as a service learner we will have a better understanding of their position.