Voices of Feminist Community Activists Plunging Through Neoliberal Times
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THE MERMAIDS DIVE FOR FREEDOM: VOICES OF FEMINIST COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS PLUNGING THROUGH NEOLIBERAL TIMES Volume I of II Siobhán Madden PhD in Adult and Community Education NUI Maynooth Department of Adult and Community Education Faculty of Social Science Head of Department: Dr Tony Walsh Supervisor: Dr Anne B. Ryan February 2017 i This thesis is dedicated to John Joe Rabbitte of Dalystown, Kylebrack, Loughrea, Co. Galway. ii VOLUME I iii Table of Contents Abstract ix Acknowledgements x 1 Introduction: Of All the World‘s Passionate Women 1 Part I D’fhág sé ar snámh mé idir dhá uisce/He left me swimming between two waters 2 Women’s Community Education and Neoliberal Rationalities 28 Flower Power: Situating Women‘s Community Education 28 Voices and Stories 28 WCE and Feminism 31 WCE and Political Tensions 35 Neoliberalism Proper 36 Neoliberalism and Women‟s Lives 36 Gender Equality Policy 38 Policy Role under Threat 41 Neoliberal Rationalities 43 Government at a Distance 43 National Women‟s Strategy as Government at a Distance 46 Voice Divided: The Subject of Women‘s Community Education 49 The Personal Voice 49 The Policy Voice 53 Towards a Counter-Rationality 59 Feminist Knowledge Claims 59 Ní Dhomhnaill‟s Mermaid 63 3 The Narratable Self as a Counter-Rationality to Neoliberalism 67 Cavarero‘s Narratable Self 68 Uniqueness in Plurality 68 The Narratable Self 70 The Narratable Self as a Counter-Rationality to the Neoliberal Subject 73 Implications for WCE 79 iv Devocalisation of the Logos 83 The Platonic Legacy 83 The Binary Economy 86 WCE and a Devocalised Logos 87 Feminist Times and the Political 89 Limitations of Cavarero 92 What/Who as Ideological Struggle 95 The Vita Activa and the Rise of Homo Faber 97 The Life Cycle Again 97 The Vita Activa 98 Homo Faber and the Making and Remaking of Women 102 The Smallest Act 105 4 Countering Neoliberal Biographies: The Narratable Self Through Neoliberal Times 108 The Biographical Project of Neoliberal Subjects 108 The Equality for Women Measure 108 Self-Esteem 110 Structures 111 Collective Action 114 Narrative Questions 116 Subjugated Knowledges and Narrative Practices 118 Storying Knowledge 118 Unique Outcomes 120 Absent but Implicit 121 Re-Membering Practices 124 Implications and Applications 125 Feminist Counter-Rationalities Through Neoliberal Times 126 Narrative and the Body 126 Narrative Times 129 Language 131 Emotion 132 The Nomadic Narratable Self 134 v Part II Bhí trioblóidí speisialta aici i gcónaí i dtaobh teoranna/ She always had special troubles with boundaries 5 Listening to the Voices 139 Becoming the Listening ‗Me‘ of ‗Tell Me a Story‘ 140 Ethics 143 Reflexivity 146 Listening to the Voices of Three of All the World‘s Passionate Women 149 Conversations 152 Effects of Dominant Discourses 154 Alternative Stories and Resistance 155 Relationality/Remembering Practices 156 Relational Language 156 Absent but Implicit 157 Deconstructing Ideas 157 Historicising 158 Talk that Sings 158 Custodians of the Space for Voice: Resistance Knowledge 159 Focus on Violence against Women 163 How Many is Enough? Towards Infinity 164 ‗Data‘ and Time 168 6 Writing Voices/Troubling Thesis 175 The Power of Writing 175 Disciplinary Writing 175 Written Language and the Vocal 178 Novelisation and Heteroglossia 181 The Manifesto Genre 185 Manifesto as a Document of Modernity 185 Manifesto as Collective Narrative Document 189 The Poetic Narrative and Tran-Scribing with an Ear 191 In the Kitchen 191 Transcription Dilemmas 192 Emily Dickinson‟s Punctuation 194 And Being, but an Ear 198 Silence and Time 200 My Transcription Practices 203 vi The Letters 208 Why Letters? 208 A „Letter?‟Really? 210 Troubling Knowledge: A Political Pact 215 Thesis as Novelising Heteroglossia 217 7 Dear Lady Gaga, Dear Alice, Dear Clare, 220 Dear Lady Gaga, 220 Dreaming 220 What‟s the Point in Telling Me? 222 Boundaries of Uncomfortableness 228 Canteen and Classroom 228 Between Community and College 232 Feminist Herstories 237 Reclaiming Feminism for GrassRoots Women 242 Dear Alice, 250 Things that would Make You Question 255 The Box 259 Coping 263 Waters 265 There are Other Worlds 267 There‟s Something about When You Name Something as a Human Rights Issue 275 Not Chasing Windmills 276 Anger and Drive 278 Structures in Place to Silence 280 Dear Clare, 284 Refusing the World as Given 294 Stamina and Passion 302 Standing Together with Other Lone Parents 308 Thoughts, Language and Writing 313 Feminist Activism 322 vii 8 Of Mermaid Turnings: Trauma Knowledge and Women’s Community Education 328 Na Murúcha a Thriomaigh/The Assimilated Merfolk 328 How Does Pain Enter Politics? 333 Turning into ‗Mental Health‘ 337 Living Outside the Norm 345 Linearised Time and the Politics of Memory 354 Women‘s Community Education and Women in Action 360 Glossary 371 viii Abstract This thesis is based on a narrative inquiry with three feminist community activists. Its purpose is to provide a resource to support the radical praxis of feminist community educators in a neoliberal context which has appropriated both community education and feminism for a labour market agenda. It foregrounds listening to the voices and stories of women‟s community education, placing the women‟s voices at the heart of „the political‟. This involves a critical shift away from a politics of „gender equality‟ defined through policy rationalities. This shift is accomplished through a theoretical synthesis of Michel Foucault‟s neoliberal governmentality and Adriana Cavarero‟s feminist philosophy of the narratable self. This double analytic is framed through Hannah Arendt‟s distinction between the discursive registers of „what‟ and „who‟, linked to Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill‟s poetic imaginary of the mermaid in exile on dry land who must forget about water. Time is a central theme here: the time of „what is‟ is the neutral linear time of closure and endings; the time of „who are you?‟ is a time of beginnings and becomings, where past, present and future are intermingled. The question posed is this: Whose political voices can become possible through neoliberal times? It brings forward delegitimised critical pedagogical knowledges of narrative processes, in response to the invitation to „Tell me a story of voice that has some significance to you as a feminist community activist‟. Based on these dialogues, the thesis contests state responses to violence against women as part of a disciplinary project of producing neoliberal subjects. The methodology is a critical intervention in the politics of representation, producing a heteroglossic text which interrogates policy rationalities through oral narratives. The thesis provides an account of neoliberal governmentality as enacting ontological, epistemic and political violence. It simultaneously opens onto the mermaid‟s sea worlds, discovering a fluid world of the „in-between‟ which creates boundless possibilities for radical feminist futures. ix Acknowledgements This thesis would not have happened without the inspiration and support of many people in my life. To name all would need another volume. I can but mention some in a page. Lady Gaga, Alice and Clare, thank you. You dived into this process with me in a huge act of trust. You moved, encouraged, supported, fed me, kept me honest, and connected me to a tide of critique and a feminist ocean of possibilities. This thesis is as much yours as it is mine. Dr Anne B. Ryan, you have been a kindred spirit as much as my supervisor. You believed in me from the beginning, ‗held the space‘, and encouraged me to find my own voice. Your insight and intelligence has ranged from nuanced dialogues to the treasured gift of your painting and its title, The Mermaid Dives for Freedom. My thesis could not have been realised into existence without you. Dr Fergal Finnegan, undaunted, you took on the task of reading long drafts of this thesis. Thank you for such astute questions and comments. Thanks especially for your affirming expressions of pleasure and excitement and the generosity of your ongoing support. Mary Madden, having you as my mother has definitely been the making of my thesis. Your care and support, expressed in millions of gestures in all shapes and forms, has helped keep me together in body and soul. Thanks too for the sheer pleasure of your company – how luckyam I to have such a great story-telling Mam. Tom Madden, my beloved father, who passed away during the writing of this thesis, has left a legacy of wisdom, wit, and eloquence I can only aspire to. Dad, you will always be with me. Fionnuala Spillane, words cannot begin to express how the constancy of your love and friendship has fortified me on this long journey. Whether in Ireland or Australia, you are always with me. John Joe Rabbitte, you have inspired and encouraged me in ways you cannot imagine. Thank you for your spirit of resistance, sense of history, political insights, and many considerate acts, including the briquettes to keep the house warm for Mrs Moriarty to finally go swimming with the mermaids. Daniel Madden, you have been a terrific and supportive brother. Thank you for your invaluable tech support, the mighty chats, and driving a bleary- eyed me many a time to deliver drafts to Maynooth. Margaret Madden, your sisterly friendship has been precious to me. You have sustained me in both practical and emotional ways through years of thesis-writing. Thank you. Thanks also to Catherine, William, Judith, Anita, Thomas and Sarah Godfrey for your amazing scrapbook. It inspired me to get through the last difficult days of preparing my thesis. For you and all my other fabulous nieces and nephews I can now be an aunty with more time for play and long, long chats! Thanks to friends and co-conspirators in feminist and community activism over many years, from Galway to Dublin, to Longford to Clare, Limerick, Maynooth and beyond.