Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2004 Be-coming subjects: reclaiming a politics of location as radical political rhetoric Catherine Olive-Marie Fox Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Political Science Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Fox, Catherine Olive-Marie, "Be-coming subjects: reclaiming a politics of location as radical political rhetoric " (2004). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 775. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/775 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Be coming subjects: Reclaiming a politics of location as radical political rhetoric by Catherine Olive-Marie Fox A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Rhetoric and Professional Communication Program of Study Committee: Carl Herndl, Co-Major Professor Diane Price-Herndl, Co-Major Professor Mary Sawyer Amy Slagell Dorothy Winsor Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2004 Copyright © Catherine Olive-Marie Fox, 2004. All rights reserved. UMI Number: 3136308 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 3136308 Copyright 2004 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ii Graduate College Iowa State University This is to certify that the doctoral dissertation of Catherine Olive-Marie Fox has met the dissertation requirements of Iowa State University Signature was redacted for privacy. Co-Major Professor Signature was redacted for privacy. Co-Major Professor Signature was redacted for privacy. For the Major Program iii Table of Contents Acknowledgments v Abstract vi Introduction 1 CHAPTER ONE Third-Space Feminism and the Politics of Postmodern (Illegitimate) Subjectivity: Interrupting the Normative Subject of Feminism 9 "New" Rhetorics/Feminist Rhetoric(s) 13 A View from Elsewhere: Engaging the Question of 'Difference' in Feminism 18 The Subject of Differential Consciousness 30 Historicizing a Politics of Location, Standpoint Theory, and Identity Politics 38 Standpoint Theory and A Politics of Location 44 Identity Politics and A Politics of Location 47 CHAPTER TWO Illegitimate Subjects of Rhetoric: Theorizing a Politics of Location as Interruption of the Normative Subject of Rhetoric 52 Defining the Normative Subject of Rhetoric 58 Illegitimate Speaking Subjects: Interrupting the Normalized Subject of Rhetoric 65 A Politics of Location and the Question of Difference and Community 67 A Politics of Location and the Question of "Story-Telling" and Experience 74 A Politics of Location, Differential Consciousness, and the Hermeneutics of Love 82 CHAPTER THREE Analytical Framework: Cognitive Mapping, Semiotics and Refusal of the Self 87 Refusal of the Self 96 CHAPTER FOUR Mapping Resistant Subjects: OutsidersAVithin 101 Audre Lorde's Politics of Location as Sister/Outsider 103 Locating Emotion 104 Locating Identity Positions 108 Mapping Social Memberships 114 Gloria Anzaldua's Politics of Location in the Borderlands 122 Locating Home 124 Mapping Memberships: Material, Cultural, Spiritual, Linguistic Borderlands 127 Locating Change in Mestiza Consciousness 135 Conclusion 138 iv CHAPTER FIVE Mapping Resistant Subjects: Insiders/Without 140 Minnie Bruce Pratt's Politics of Location in "Blood Skin Heart" 144 Mapping Material and Psychic Spaces 148 Locating, Mapping and Excavating Identities 152 Locating and Excavating "Safe" Spaces 157 Marilyn Frye's Politics of Location in Whitely Feminism 160 Mapping Privileged Memberships 162 Locating and Mapping Whiteliness 167 Conclusion 173 CHAPTER SIX Beyond Outsiders and Insiders 176 Dorothy Allison's Politics of Location in Skin 178 Locating Context 180 Mapping and Excavating Poverty 181 Mapping and Excavating Contempt 186 Locating Accountability 193 Locating "Safe" Spaces in the Future 196 Implications of Reclaiming a Politics of Location 198 Works Cited 206 V Acknowledgements While many aspects of this dissertation were created in solitude and isolation, I could not have envisioned, started, and completed this project without the guidance and encouragement of friends. First, without Carl and Diane I would not have been able to pursue this project. Thank you for coming to Iowa, for believing in me, and for supporting me as professors and as friends. Thanks to Susan for endless conversations full of intensity, seriousness, laughter, and joy, and to Melissa for putting things into perspective and making me laugh those hard belly laughs that are a sure cure for a heavy head. Megan, thank you for catching me when I fell and helping me find my strength again. And for Connie, an ever fast friend, who said to me in the dark and confusing space of doubt, "let me be your glass, let me show you how special you are." Finally, I could not have traveled this path without Jennifer, a fast friend from our early years pre-Master's studies until the present. vi Abstract In this dissertation I theorize and analyze the rhetorical deployment of a "politics of location" within the context of poststructural theories of discourse, subjectivity, and agency. In her book, Blood Bread and Poetry, Adrienne Rich coins the phrase "a politics of location," which marks an effort to move away from a hegemonic Western feminism that universalizes all women's experiences and constructs a normative (and hence limiting and exclusionary) subject of feminism. Rich forwards a politics of location as a radical materialist political stance that grounds feminist theory in accountability for the situatedness of knowledge production. I extend Rich's phrase to theorize how radical, lesbian feminists have used a politics of location as a signifying practice to construct alternative subjectivities and assert discursive agency. More specifically, in this project I historicize and contextualize a politics of location as it developed within lesbian feminist interchanges during the 1980s and early 90s. This is a significant historical juncture for two reasons. First, the universal concept of "woman" came under radical critique by third-space feminists. Second, feminist publishing houses began to proliferate as a counter-public context for the dissemination of new voices and knowledges, thus allowing for the invention of new discursive strategies within feminist conversations. After historicizing a politics of location, I trace its development as a rhetorical strategy deployed specifically within interchanges between radical, lesbian feminists. Additionally, I use a Foucauldian theory of discursive formations to show how this rhetorical strategy interrupts the normative subject of the rhetorical tradition. Finally, I show how a politics of location contributes to the growing field of research on feminist rhetorical theory. 1 Introduction Chela Sandoval argues that we must reclaim "theory from the halls of the academy where it has been intercepted and domesticated" (7) by looking to the survival skills of marginalized people because the "oppositional consciousness developed by subordinated, marginalized, or colonized Western citizen-subjects who have been forced to experience the so-called aesthetics of 'postmodern' globalization as a precondition for survival...[is the] constituency that is most familiar with what citizenship in this realm requires and makes possible" (9). This dissertation follows the insights of and call forwarded by Sandoval. I contend that a politics of location is a discursive survival strategy used by radical, lesbian feminists working in coalitions to assert discursive agency and to realize new forms of subjectivity. In effect, I believe that these marginalized subjects enact poststructural theory by utilizing a politics of location as a discursive strategy for self-representation. In their writing they theorize multiple, contradictory, non-innocent subjectivities, discover potentials for (constrained) agency, and maintain hope for the possibility of social change by invoking a politics of location. Thus, this project speaks to some of the current theoretical problems of subjectivity and agency (particularly the nihilistic tendencies of discursive determinism) in poststructuralism by looking to one of the survival skills of the oppressed for clues about how marginalized subjects cope in a postmodern world as fragmented, multiple, fluid selves without losing a vision of social transformation. Before I proceed