kristin's ethnocentric reading of erotic justice
yay! erotic justice is written in a way that helped me grasp aspects of postcolonial theory that i couldn’t understand before! (now i guess i should go back and read mignolo.)
as interesting as it is to me to learn about different cultures and as important to be reminded not to fall into ethnocentric thinking, i think this book helped me most by giving me a situation that i can compare with political struggles in the u.s. i think the circumstances in india are, in some ways extremely similar to our own in the u.s.: the religious right appropriating leftist ideas and controlling the discourse (the definition of patriotic, whose values are acceptable family values). yes, these tactics are infuriatingly effective in convincing people that legislation is necessary to control what many people consider private.
however, i do recognize the very important complicating layer of postcolonial struggle to define national identity. if i’m not mistaken, the u.s. has never had to do that. even with independence, all the “founding fathers” were culturally brits. so it makes sense that indians would want to control the construction of their national identity—but what is authentically indian? if culture isn’t stagnant, the impossible task of separating western influence to resurrect a pure indian culture doesn’t even make sense. a critical dialogue about what makes sense for india *today*, regardless of the concepts’ origins or (lack of) identification with indian culture, could mean recuperating indian traditions without holding onto obsolete ideas. if the hindu right is insisting on particular laws/practices in the name of protecting indian culture, yet ignores other practices also found in indian culture (eg: in the kama sutra), what is *really* motivating them??
this book makes obvious that the need for an interrogation of the religious right’s attempts to control others’ sexuality is a worldwide issue. (grr! why do they care?!?) are there other so called family values in u.s. traditions that the religious right would rather bury? if so, feminists and other proponents of sexual (and reproductive) freedom could pull the “family values” platform out from under the religious right and ask them again to justify interfering in aspects of the private lives of some individuals when married heterosexuals would never be subject to such interference.