Social Etymologies

"In a classical philosophical opposition we are not dealing with the peaceful co-existence of a vis-á-vis, but a violent hierarchy. . . . To deconstruct the opposition first of all is to overturn the hierarchy at a given moment."

Social Etymologies (SE) is a site for critical resources dealing with culture--ideas, texts, individuals, and collectives--founded upon the premise that culture is political. The materials offered here may help in the struggle to see culture, in the words of Raymond Williams, as "a whole way of life"; something deserving of political-economic analysis. SE adds to the multitude of internet spaces, some exegetical, some not, where information is exchanged, manufactured, disseminated, and discussed. Perhaps in some small way the site may help to overturn hierarchies of meaning, understanding, and social (economic) relations as they continue to be (re)produced and (re)defined in the North Atlantic.

HOST: LISA ARRASTÍA

Founder and former director of a social reconstructionist high school in Chicago, Lisa has been teaching and leading creative educational programs in independent and public schools for almost fifteen years. Originally from New York City, Lisa is a PhD candidate in American Studies at University of Minnesota and she teaches social science courses in the School of Social Work there. Lisa's research examines liberalism, race, economies of difference, and economies of whiteness. Her dissertation explores the criminalization of Black and American Indian identities, and the political economy of intra-racial disputes in the U.S., particularly between and among African Americans and American Indians.

Lisa has written on race, the neo-liberal development of youth and the political context of schooling, and liberalism and execution for several publications: Lisa's essay “Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?” was included in Pearl Kane's The Colors of Excellence (Teacher's College Press, 2003). Most recently “Capital’s Daisy Chain: Exposing the Chicago Corporate Coalition” was published in Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies; “This is/American and Strange: Mediated Versions of a Native American Child” was published in The Capilano Review; an interview with Tiya Miles, author of Ties that Bind: The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom was published in Monthly Review Zine; a review of Ties that Bind was published in XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics; and the article "Killing the Dark Bodies: Execution as Market Sustainability & State Redemption," was also published in Monthly Review Zine.

Forthcoming are two edited books. With educator and organizer Bill Ayers, Lisa is co-editing White Before We Got Here: Youth and the Hidden Curriculum of Whiteness. This volume represents a collection of essays and visual representations written and designed by white youth between the ages of 18 and 21 who are grappling with the tangled complexities of self, other, difference, and heteronormativity, or whiteness. With educator Marv Hoffman, Lisa is co-editing Starting Up: The New Schools of the Neoliberal Era. This publication brings personal anecdotes by heads of new schools who have re-imagined school start-up and curricular design together with the critical insights of scholars discussing the sociopolitical, cultural, and economic contexts surrounding new school development in the U.S.

*Gaetano Scarpetta, J. L. Houdebine, and Jacques Derrida "Interview: Jacques Derrida," Diacritics 2.4 (Winter 1972): 36.