In
the readings this week, I was thinking about how existing as a
survivor of sexual assault is an act of resistance, in that it
disruptive to what Marcus refers to as scripts of sexual assault, in
which victims are understood to be consumed, or conquered. Surviving,
on the other hand, renders these experiences unintelligible, thus
disrupting our cultural narratives of what sexual assault, and
victimhood, look like. In this context, we can also think about how
the variety and multitude of voices which share experiences that
don't necessarily comply with these scripts are also inherently
disruptive, in that they force us to consider sexual assault
differently. This is reflected in Alcoff's, "Survivor Discourse:
Transgression or Recuperation," in which she understands
survivor discourse to be necessarily political. I wonder, then,
what this means for those who refuse the identity of "survivor,"
and especially those who recognize themselves as victims. Is victim
discourse not political? Or perhaps it is politically meaningful for
us share and hear the narratives and experiences from which people
are never able to recover, specifically because these deny the
capitalist commodification which Alcoff delineates as pivotal to the
most common forms of survivor discourse.
I
was also thinking about the "exclusion" on which Alcoff
touches briefly. She says,
"the term discourse for Foucault denotes a particular configuration of possibilities for speech acts. Through rules of exclusion and classificatory divisions which operate as unconscious background assumptions, a discourse can be said to set out, not what is true and what is false, but what can have a truth-value at all, or in other words, what is statable."
More
so than simply for the ways in which survivor discourse is
heard/understood, this has implications for the ways that we engage
in discourse within the acts of sexual assault. A few weeks ago in
class (I believe in reference to the Gavey and Hakvag articles), we
discussed the ways that English does not provide us with the capacity
to say no, politely. Within this analytical context, it is the
discourse itself which denotes "no" as an impossibility,
and thus, it is unstatable. This is true of the instances in which
"no" seems to not be an option, as well as in those which it is
unintelligible, like those in which the perpetrator did not
understand, or take seriously, objections.
For this reason, it seems as though being a listener has a politically disruptive power as well. If we are able to hear survivor discourse, and believe survivor narratives, even those which defy sexual assault scripts, perhaps we can disrupt and transform them, too. The worry is in implicating ourselves as "experts" and thus invalidating the narratives as definitively emotional, and thus non-theoretical. From this perspective, the advice given from the sexual assault centre as to how to engage with disclosures of sexual assault becomes politically powerful, in that the acts of listening, believing and trusting survivors are discursively underwrought. Thus, to engage in this sort of discourse is to deny yourself the role of the expert and to enable the survivor to navigate their experiences, and the theory of their experiences, on their own terms.
For this reason, it seems as though being a listener has a politically disruptive power as well. If we are able to hear survivor discourse, and believe survivor narratives, even those which defy sexual assault scripts, perhaps we can disrupt and transform them, too. The worry is in implicating ourselves as "experts" and thus invalidating the narratives as definitively emotional, and thus non-theoretical. From this perspective, the advice given from the sexual assault centre as to how to engage with disclosures of sexual assault becomes politically powerful, in that the acts of listening, believing and trusting survivors are discursively underwrought. Thus, to engage in this sort of discourse is to deny yourself the role of the expert and to enable the survivor to navigate their experiences, and the theory of their experiences, on their own terms.
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ReplyDeleteYou address two interesting points of potential politicalization in survivor discourse: decentralizing the locus of recovery and listening/validating survivor experience without implicating ourselves as the experts. I think these both hold great weight in the way we can transform survivor discourse to better serve survivors, and offer solutions to Alcoff’s suggestion that we must “explore ways in which we can gain autonomy within … the conditions of our discourse.” As Alcoff’s article reveals, it is important to work within our discourse instead of attempting to wield power over it.
ReplyDeleteThe privatization of survivors’ experiences (i.e. magazines, books, and even talk shows) in many ways rely on the centrality of healing in order to both exist and profit. If one were to not define themselves as something to be “worked on,” after all, there would be no role for the “workers” (or, the experts). I think that, as you mention, it would indeed be politically meaningful to circulate discourses which de-centralize the locus of “healing” from the survivor discourse. Many conversations around healing have capitalist undertones, in “getting on with ones’ life” and becoming more “productive” — in other words, becoming a better capitalist participant, instead of challenging the norms that require our productivity.
Second, I like your suggestion of creating space for survivors’ speech as less of a confessional, and more of a place for survivors to connect with their own truth — or as Alcoff would say strips the expert the “power to determine the legitimacy of survivor discourse.” Allowing survivors the space to talk about their experience without placing ourselves as experts both acknowledges speech as a powerful place for organization and allows the survivor to be the “theorist of their own experience.” Being able to talk freely about an experience without attaching it to some sort of treatment plan, I think, is quite disruptive to most survivor scripts.