關于我們為什么要批判性反思和在對話中進行思考和寫作的研究

More in-depth background: why we do critically reflexive or dialogic thinking and writing深入了解：我們為什么要批判性反思和在對話中進行思考和寫作

A lot of the postcolonial theories and films you are reading in AAM220 have been influenced by and also reciprocally influence 'Postmodern' or PO/MO theory. In general, most (but not all) of these approaches fit into a larger category known as 'poststructuralism'. This account is a too simple and contested but it is somewhere for us to start.
你正在閱讀的在??AAM220中講的后殖民理論和電影已經產生很多影響，并且造成“后現代”或PO / MO理論的相互影響。在一般情況下，大多數（但不是全部），這些理論方法適合于被稱為“后結構主義的類別中。此論點是一個過于簡單的和有爭議的，但它是我們最開始啟蒙我們的地方。

As an accepted academic method and style of writing and thought, reflexivity ot dialogic style has been around in academic and artistic disciplines and circles since the late 1960s. Some people trace its roots much earlier to places such as Plato and Socratic method, and to other groups such as the beat poets or early Blues music in the USA, and to modern art and architecture in late C19th=early C20th Europe, for example. Arts, Social Sciences, Fine Arts, Criticism, Literature, Films, Media Theory, Literary Studies, Humanistic Psychology, Art Criticism, and certain History and Education have all been using this methods sonce at least the 1970s. Many people trace its international spread in the 1970s to English translations of the works of poststructuralists like Michel Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Umberto Eco, Frederic Jameson, and Jacques Derrida. Feminists like Julia Kristeva and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, postcolonial writers like Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Hamid Naficy, Stuart Hall, gay lesbian and queer theorists, and many others, challenged science, visual epistemology, and ideas about (white male straight European) genius or authority. Many such writers also questioned why being a man or masculinity seemed to endow one with the right to voice authorised or definitive ideas and methodologies. They deconstructed the so-called 'grands recits', a.k.a. ‘Modernist'  'grand narratives’. Please listen in lectures and look up this specialised use of Modern. In the contexts of postmodern (or PO/MO) and postcolonial theories it does not mean its colloquial senses of 'now', or 'up to date', or 'recent'. I recommend you put this term in your Glossary.在后現代語境（或PO/ MO）和后殖民理論中，并不意味著它的口語化，感覺是使用'現在'，或“日期”，或“最近的”的這些詞匯是必要的。我建議你??把這一術語的詞匯添加進去。

According to the PO/MO crowd, discourses set up the stories rules and allegedly stable states, the identities and methods within which humans formulate Truths.Examples they deconstructed included the epistemology of vision - especially camera and photographic technologies. Ideas such a corporeality of the body as a site of the ‘self’, gender, race, nationality, scientific method have been critiqued. The idea an expert (or you and I) can look at someone and know who they are has been dramatically problematised. They idea that we could photograph them and record who they are using vital signes like fingerprints, hair or bone samples, blood type, skull type, eye types, DNA, skin colour, how extensive the fat deposits on your bum are ..... (etc) (the last is a real example of racial typing) (believe me .... it's limitless!)  have all been problematised. One of the main reasons for this has been the oppressive uses of such technologies. See Spencer (2006)http://ukthesis.org/dissertation_sample/

Self-identified feminists, black activists, Hispanics, gay activists, indigenous and first peoples, those in 'minority', or 'oppressed', or 'marginalised' cultures within dominant cultures, have been especially interested in how to design styles and ways to communicate that include themselves in ways they like and prefer.  Such styles often also upset coloniser or 'master' narratives, expectations and stereotypes. Film-makers and novelists who want to make 'anti-colonial’ films or documentaries or postcolonial art (etc.) often seek out elements that are seen as unsettling to colonial domination. Sometimes they also deliberatley obscure the messages from the oppressors. Often they MUST do this in order to protect themsleves and their people. The techniques they employ include magical realism, non-continuity editing, fragmented or open narratives, indigenous languages, oral culture, art, music or dance, stories and traditions recognisable to local people. Thery also use satire, parody, allegory, experimental content, cartoons, mockumentaries, gritty realism, and so on.  

4. How to do it – some models如何做到這一點 - 某些模型

There are no right answers or tight models for reflexive style. We all do it differently, although there will be at least an appearance of certain elements in common, just as we believe we ‘share’ cultural ideas and ways of acting ‘in common’. Learning to think and write in this way is a matter of trial and error. I just want you to give it a go!

I suggest you read any of the following AAM220 articles as models: Sreberny  (2002) ‘Globalization and me … ’ E/R R; Lall (2007) ‘Meaning through contrast: colour and image in Water’, (READER Vol 2); Hall, S (1990)  ‘Cultural identity and diaspora’ in Rutherford, J (ed.) Identity, community, culture, differenceLondon: Lawrence & Wishart, 1990 p.222-237 READER. Another good model, Abu-Lughod “Culture After TV” [PDF] is on the DSO site.

NUTSHELL

When you use a reflexive style in your work you are expected to you:

• Own your readings [don’t assume, or write as if, you are objective, or know the facts. Do not assume another reader will make the same reading or respond the same ways as you do.] 

• Personalize and use ‘I’ [that doesn’t mean you are free to generalize wildly from your own experience, or write vague, chatty, sweeping, opinionated, or unsupported claims.] 

• Use your own words

• Explain all quotes

• Provide evidence and discuss the steps you went through in interpreting it

• Critically evaluate the explanatory or methodological advantages and limitations of everything

• Drop definitive references to proof, truth, fact, reality unless others are using these ideas

• Be playful

• Invite others to dialogue

• Critique, discuss, debate, act … 

• IF THIS SOUNDS alarmingly LIKE ‘ANYTHING GOES’ …

it is important not to confuse poststructuralist and postmodern critiques of structuralist method and theory as implying that ‘anything goes’ methodologically and in terms of writing style! Students sometimes make this error. The most common symptoms are a chatty style, more like a coffee table conversation, without evidence to back allegations or claims, and the second is a confessional style often with ardent references to ‘I believe’. Markers are not interested in your beliefs, they are interested in your clear academic arguments and careful evidence.

The idea that Poststructuralism is radically relativist and therefore undermines both anything real or factual, and the possibility of action and real life identities, is a commonsense objection, but ill-informed. If it were true, we really would have a chaotic, incomprehensible world. Postmodern theories simply look a lot more closely at the processes through which humans construct and share social realities and the processes through which we gain an impression of stability and the real or ‘facticity’. I think postmodern theories have improved our sense that each of us and as groups can intervene, act, and make a difference! So don’t get sunk in despair thinking postmodernism is impractical, anti-science, anti-fact, and anti-action. It is none of these things in my view.

READ EXAMPLES OF REFLEXIVE STYLE IN THE AAM220 READING LISTS AND ON DSO

5. What it looks like: typical dialogic or reflexive styles of argument它是什么樣子的：典型的對話或反省式的討論風格

Following from the above points, when you write in a reflexive manner, drop the remote, third person, objectivist, style typical of science, empiricism, and Modernist expertise. Do not say “Butler (2005, p.20) is right …” or “Fanon (1990, pp. 153 ff.) is wrong …” .  Use the softer style of claim such as “It can be argued that …” or “My reading of Amuta  (1995, p.159) suggests …” or “In my view …” . Remember that we are not talking beliefs here. Markers don’t expect to hear about personal religious or political convictions as your rationale! Personalise, own your arguments and values, and provide the evidence to support what you say. To do so invites your reader to actively respond and dialogue with you, putting forward their opinions, arguments, counter-evidence or whatever, in reply. This way we all learn.要做到這一點，你需要邀請你的讀者積極響應和進行對話，提出他們的意見，以及參數，任何在答復中的依據。這樣一來大家都能知道。

6. Writing called dialogic or reflexive is processual寫作對話或自我反射性論點

At its best it looks at or reveals the processes of meaning construction. Later, in SCCA 300 level units, Honours, or as a graduate student you will be likly be asked to explore this in more depth. If any of you want more reading or discussions please come and ask. At this stage in your assignments I want you to include yourself as the person creating the reading and the argument. Work on becoming more conscious that you are drawing on your socialization into a particular culture and your professional training, in specific times and places to make the world sensible. Try to acknowledge and show how you are drawing on this background just as you draw on other people’s ideas (AAM220) to make your arguments. Reflexive style shows that you use and prefer certain knowledges, languages, beliefs, habits and values that influence what you perceive, emphasize and prefer.  It does not pretend you are an authority whose word is fact, knowledge, or law. Rather you are always a beginner, an artist, a performer, a novelist, a passionate critic.  No matter how expert, in my view it helps to understand ourselves and others this way. Using a dialogic approach, you want to hear from other people and to pool your ideas with theirs. The same goes for classmates and readings.

7. A final caveat最后一個要注意的

Poststructuralist approaches challenge many commonsense assumptions. It is inevitable that you will sometimes disagree with your readings, the lecturer, peers or study group members. You might feel uncomfortable, confronted, dismissive, that you know more or better. You might feel angry, repulsed, guilty, bored, superior, or confused for example. Try to examine why. Acknowledge what you feel (privately), and remain open-minded, even when you feel passionately you are RIGHT. Agree to disagree, and find evidence to support what you say. Do not get into personally targeted arguments against any individual, group, writer or filmmaker  (ad hominem argument). If you can hang in the present in this un-judgmental sort of way, you will be developing inestimable personal and professional life skills.