Diapositiva 1 - Piattaforma eLearning L`Orientale

Il regime razzializzato della
rappresentazione
Sociologia delle comunicazioni
30.3.2012
‘How do we represent people
and places which are
significantly different from
us?... What are the typical
forms and representational
practices which are used to
represent ‘difference’ in
popular culture today and
where did these popular
figures and stereotypes come
from?’ (Stuart Hall ‘The
Spectacle of the Other’ in
Representation, p. 225)
‘Why is ‘otherness’ so compelling an
object of representation? … What
are the discursive formations’, the
repertoirs or ‘regimes of
representation’ on which media
are drawing when they represent
difference? Why is one dimension
of difference –e.g. ‘race’ –crossed
by other dimensions, such as
sexuality, gender or class? And
how is the representation of
‘difference’ linked to questions of
power?’ (Hall p. 234)
Black British Cultural Studies
Paul Gilroy (1987)There Ain’t No
Black in the Union Jack; The
Black Atlantic: Modernity and
Double Consciousness (1993)
Kobena Mercer (1994) Welcome
to the Jungle: New Positions in
Black Cultural Studies; con
Isaac Julien (1988) Race,
Sexual Politics and Black
Maculinity: A Dossier.
Lola Young (1996) Fear of the
Dark: ‘Race’, Gender and
Sexuality in the Cinema
African American Studies
Michele Wallace (1979) The
Black Macho and the Myth
of the Superwoman.
Cornel West(1994) Race
Matters
bell hooks (1989) Talking
Back: Thinking Feminist,
Thinking Black (1992) Black
Looks: Race and
Representation
Stuart Hall: la razza come
‘categoria discorsiva’ e
‘costruzione socioculturale storica’. Contro
ogni forma di
determinismo biologico e
naturalizzazione delle
differenze
(vedi lezione ‘Race as
floating signifier
http://www.youtube.com/w
atch?v=bMo2uiRAf30)
I regimi di rappresentazione:
1) L’importanza della differenza
1) intertestualità
1) Potere e formazioni discorsive: Orientalismo (tra
Gramsci e Foucault)
1) Pratiche significanti: stereotipo e feticismo (Fanon e la
venere ottentotta)
1) Contro-strategie della rappresentazione
1. L’importanza della differenza
‘…from many different directions, and within many
different disciplines, this question of ‘difference’
and ‘otherness’ has come to play an increasingly
significant role. Secondly, ‘difference’ is
ambivalent. It can be both positive or negative.
It is both necessary for the production of
meaning, the formation of language and
cukture, for social identities and a subjective
sense of the self as a sexed subject – and at the
same time, it is threatening, a site of danger, of
negative feelings, of splitting, hostility and
aggression towards the ‘Other’.’ (Hall p. 238)
1. L’importanza della differenza:
per la linguistica_:
a. Il significato emerge da una struttura di differenze binarie (Saussure) Per il
decostruzionismo però (Jacques Derrida), le opposizioni binarie non sono
neutrali:
‘One pole of the binary, he argues, is usually the dominant one which includes
the other within its field of operations. There is always a relation of power
between the poles of a binary opposition. We should really write,
white/black, men/women, masculine/feminine, upper class/lower class,
British/alien to capture this power dimension in discourse.’ (Hall p. 235)
b. Il significato è stabilito attraverso il dialogo, è fondamentalmente dialogico
(Mikhail Bakhtin). Il significato sorge attraverso la differenza tra i
partecipanti in un dialogo.
Per l’antropologia (Mary Douglas) : la cultura si
basa su un sistema classificatorio che ordina e
organizza le cose (l’ordine culturale è
disturbato da ciò che trasgredisce i confini, è
fuori posto, è mescolanza)
Per la psicoanalisi
Importanza della ‘differenza’ per la nostra vita
psichica (Freud/Lacan)
‘The argument here is that the ‘Other’ is
fundamental to the constitution of the self, to
us as subjects, especially in relation to the
stage of early development which he called
the Oedipus complex.’ (Hall p. 237)
2. intertestualità e regimi di rappresentazione
‘Images do not carry meaning or ‘signify’ on their own.
They accumulate meanings, or play off their meanings
against one another across a variety of texts and
media. Each image carries its own specific meaning.
But at a broader level… we can see similar
representational practices and figures being repeated,
with variations, from one text or site of representation
to another, or has its meaning altered by being ‘read’ in
the context of other images, is called inter-textuality.
We may describe the whole repertoire of imagery and
visual effects through which ‘difference’ is represented
at any one historical moment as a regime of
representation.’ (Hall p. 232)
Come si è formato il regime di
rappresentazione della differenza
razziale?
L’incontro dell’ ‘Occidente’ con i
popoli neri e l’inizio del regime di
rappresentazione razzializzato:
XVI secolo primi contatti tra
commercianti europei e regni
dell’Africa occidentale (inizio del
commercio degli schiavi)
XIX secolo colonizzazione europea
dell’Africa
XX secolo Le migrazioni dal ‘terzo
mondo’ verso l’Europa e il Nord
America
Es. Le immagini della
differenza razziale nella
pubblicità inglese del XIX
secolo. Le merci acquisite
tramite il colonialismo
formano delle connessioni
tra spazi domestici e
pubblici, tra imperialismo
e la sfera domestica
‘The gallery of imperial heroes and their
masculine exploits in ‘Darkest Africa’ were
immortalized on matchboxes, needle cases,
toothpaste pots, pencil boxes, cigarette
packets, board games, paperweight, sheet
music. Images of colonial conquest were
stamped on soap boxes… biscuit tins,
whisky bottles, tea tins and chocolate bars…
No pre-existing form of organized racism
had ever before been able to reach so large
and so differentiated a mass of the
populace.’ (Anne McClintock in Hall p. 240)
es. Il sapone come ‘oggetto
feticcio’ (purezza/bianco,
sporco/nero etc)
Le pubblicità del sapone
Pears (echi di Calimero)
Gli Stati Uniti e la schiavitù: la formazione di
un discorso razzializzato in risposta al
movimento abolizionista:
‘Heavily emphasized was the historical case
against the black man based on his
supposed failure to develop a civilized way
of life in Africa. As portrayed in pro-slavery
writing, Africa was and always had been
the scene of unmitigated savagery,
cannibalism, devil worship, and
licentiousness… real or imagined
physiological and anatomical differences…
explained mental and physical inferiority…
finally there was…. fears of widespread
miscegenation… and the degeneracy of the
race’ (Fredrickson in Hall p. 243)
I due temi principali della
significazione della differenza
razziale durante lo schiavismo:
la ‘pigrizia innata’ dei neri ‘nati
per e buoni a servire’ e allo
stesso tempo ostinatamente
restii al lavoro per i padroni;
secondo il ‘primitivismo
innato’ dei neri e la loro
mancanza di cultura.
Naturalizzazione della
‘differenza razziale’.
Il sentimentalismo del
movimento abolizionista
I quattro stereotipi
dell’afroamericano nel
cinema americano
(Donald Bogle 1973
Toms, Coons, Mulattos,
Mammies, and Bucks:
an interpretative history
of blacks in American
Film)
Spike Lee Bamboozled
(2000)
I primi cambiamenti nel
regime razzializzato
della rappresentazione:
il movimento per i
diritti civili degli anni
60; la popolarità della
musica nera negli anni
’80 e 90 (rap, hip hop) e
nuova presenza di
attori afroamericani nel
film e nella televisione.
3. Potere e formazioni discorsive:
‘Power has to be understood here, not only in
terms of economic exploitation and physical
coercion, but also in broader cultural or
symbolic terms, including the power to
represent someone or something in a certain
way – within a certain ‘regime of
representation’. It includes the exercise of
symbolic power through representational
practice. ‘ (Hall p. 259)
3. Potere e formazioni
discorsive:
es. Edward Said Orientalism
(1979): ‘the discourse by
which European culture was
able to manage – and even
produce- the Orient
politically, sociologically,
militarily, ideologically,
scientifically and
imaginatively during the
post-Enlightenment period.’
(p. 259)
3. Potere e formazioni
discorsive:
Orientalismo come ‘forma di
sapere razzializzato
dell’altro, profondamente
implicato nelle operazioni
del potere’ (imperialismo)
(Edward Said)
3. Potere e formazioni discorsive:
Il potere per Gramsci e Foucault: non è solo
repressione e coercizione, ma è anche
seduzione, sollecitazione, consenso. Non può
essere pensato come se un gruppo che ha
tutto il potere lo esercita verso il basso, ma è
un circuito che include dominanti e dominati.
Non c’è luogo al di fuori del potere (rete di
relazioni mobili)
4. Pratiche significanti:
stereotipo e
feticismo (Fanon)
La differenza tra
‘tipizzare’ e
‘stereotipizzare’
(Richard Dyer)
4. Pratiche significanti:
stereotipo e feticismo
(Fanon)
‘Stereotypes get hold of the
few ‘simple, vivid,
memorable, easily grasped
and widely recognized
characteristics about a
person, reduce everything
about the person to those
traits, exhaggerate and
simplify them, and fix them
without change or
development to eternity’
(Hall p. 258)
4. Pratiche significanti: stereotipo e
feticismo (Fanon)
‘Secondly, stereotyping deploys a strategy of
‘splitting’. It divides the normal and the
acceptable from the abnormal and the
unacceptable. … Stereotyping, in other
words, is part of the maintenance of
social and symbolyc order. It sets up a
symbolic frontier between the ‘normal’
and the ‘deviant’… between ‘insiders’
and ‘outsiders’, ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. It
facilitates the ‘binding’ or bonding
together of all of Us who are ‘normal’
into one imagined community’; and it
sends into symbolic exile all of Them –
the Others – who are in some way
different…’ (Hall p. 258)
4. Pratiche significanti: stereotipo e feticismo
(Fanon)
‘The third point is that stereotyping tends to
occur where there are gross inequalities of
power. Power is usually directed against the
subordinate or excluded group. One aspect of
this power… is ethnocentrism, ‘the application
of the norms of one’s own culture to that of
the others’’ (Hall p. 258)
4. Pratiche significanti: stereotipo e feticismo
(Fanon)
Gli stereotipi lavorano su due livelli diversi: conscio
e inconscio
‘The important point is that stereotypes refer as
much to what is imahined in fantasy as to what is
perceived as ‘real’. And what is visually produced,
by the practices of representation is only half the
story. The other hald – the deeper meaning – lies
in what is not being said, but is being fantasised,
what is implied but cannot be shown.’ (p. 263)
4. Pratiche significanti: stereotipo e feticismo
(Fanon)
Gli stereotipi lavorano su due livelli diversi: conscio
e inconscio
‘The important point is that stereotypes refer as
much to what is imahined in fantasy as to what is
perceived as ‘real’. And what is visually produced,
by the practices of representation is only half the
story. The other hald – the deeper meaning – lies
in what is not being said, but is being fantasised,
what is implied but cannot be shown.’ (p. 263)
4. Pratiche significanti: stereotipo e feticismo
(Fanon)
• Lo stereotipo si basa nella fantasy e nella
proiezione e implica il feticcio (la sostituzione di
un ‘oggetto’ per qualche forza pericolosa e
potente, ma proibita, es. la sessualità); feticismo
come una forma di conoscere misconoscendo
•
• Es, Saartje (o Sarah) Baartman la Venere
Ottentotta (1789-1815)
• Es. Franz Fanon Pelle nera, maschere bianche.
(1952)
• Leni Riefenstahl The Last of the Nuban (1976)
• Es, Saartje (o Sarah) Baartman la Venere
Ottentotta (1789-1815)
• Es. Franz Fanon Pelle nera, maschere bianche.
(1952)
• Leni Riefenstahl The Last of the Nuban (1976)
4. Contestare il regime razzializzato della
rappresentazione
‘Let me remind you that, theoretically,
…meaning can never be finally fixed…
ultimately, meaning begins to drift, or be
wrenched, or inflected in new directions. New
meanings are grafted onto old ones. Words
and images carry connotations over which no
one has complete control.’ (p. 270)
4. Contestare il
regime razzializzato
della
rappresentazione
Trans-coding: taking
an existing meaning
and reappropriating
it for new meanings
(f.e. Black is
Beautiful)
4. Contestare il regime
razzializzato della
rappresentazione
a. rovesciare gli stereotipi.
Il cinema della
blaxpoitation: Sweet
Sweetback’s Baadasss
Song (Martin Van
Peebles, 1971; Gordon
Parks Shaft, 1971); critica
non esce fuori dalla
struttura binaria
4. Contestare il regime
razzializzato della
rappresentazione
b. immagini negative e positive. ‘It
inverts the binary opposition,
privileging the subordinate trm,
sometimes reading the negative
positively: Black is beautiful. It
tries to construct a positive
identification with what has
been abjected.’ (p. 272) Es.
Sidney Poitier; the Cosby Show (I
Robinson); la fotografia di David
A. Bailey
4. Contestare il regime razzializzato
della rappresentazione
3. La politica della rappresentazione
‘The third counter-strategy locates
itself within the complexities and
ambivalences of representation
itself and tries to contest it from
within. It is more concerned with
the forms of racial representation
than with the content.’ (p. 274)
es. Isaac Julien Looking for Langston
(1989); Black Audio Film
Collective; John Akomfrah.
Suggestioni finali:
La razzializzazione del
meridionale
Il napoletano come
metonimia del sud
Antonio Petrillo (a cura di)
Biopolitica di un rifiuto: le
rivolte anti-discarica a
Napoli e in Campania.
Verona: Ombre Corte, 2009
Suggestioni finali:
Il regime razzializzato della
rappresentazione italiano: il nero,
il migrante, il musulmano
Alessandro del Lago Non persone.
Milano: Feltrinelli, 1999
Miguel Mellino (a cura di) Libeccio
d’oltremare. Il vento delle
rivoluzioni arabe si estende
all’Occidente. 2011
Michaela Quadraro e Tiziana
Terranova ‘Cultura visuale e
razzismo. Politiche della
rappresentazione e dell'affetto da
Isaac Julien a Wafaa Bilal ‘ in Studi
Culturali, n. 2, Agosto 2011