Woman, Native, Other

by Minh-Ha, Trinh T.

• ISBN13: 9780253205032
• ISBN10: 0253205034
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1989-06-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

"... methodologically innovative... precise and perceptive and conscious... " -- Text and Performance Quarterly"Woman, Native, Other is located at the juncture of a number of different fields and disciplines, and it genuinely succeeds in pushing the boundaries of these disciplines further. It is one of the very few theoretical attempts to grapple with the writings of women of color." -- Chandra Talpade Mohanty"The idea of Trinh T. Minh-ha is as powerful as her films... formidable... " -- Village Voice"... its very forms invite the reader to participate in the effort to understand how language structures lived possibilities." -- Artpaper"Highly recommended for anyone struggling to understand voices and experiences of those 'we' label 'other'." -- Religious Studies Review

Author Biography

Trinh T. Minh-ha is a writer, filmaker, and composer. Her works include the books: The Digital Film Event (Routledge 2005); Cinema Interval (Routledge 1999); Drawn from African Dwellings (in coll. with Jean-Paul Bourdier, Indiana University Press 1996); Framer Framed (Routledge 1992); When the Moon Waxes Red. Representation, gender and cultural politics (Routledge 1991); Out There: Marginalisation in Contemporary Culture (Co-editor with Cornel West, R. Ferguson & M. Gever. New York: New Museum of Contemporary Art and M.I.T. Press, 1990); En minuscules (book of poems, Edition Le Meridien 1987); African Spaces - Designs for Living in Upper Volta (in coll. with Jean-Paul Bourdier, Holmes & Meier 1985); En art sans oeuvre, International Book Publishers, Inc

Table of Contents

The Story Began Long Ago	1	(5)
Commitment from the Mirror-Writing Box	5	(42)
The triple bind	6	(1)
Silence in time	6	(2)
Rites of passage	8	(1)
The Guilt	9	(2)
Freedom and the masses	11	(1)
For the people, by the people, and from the people	12	(3)
Vertically imposed language: on clarity, craftsmanship, and She who steals language	15	(5)
A sketched window on the world	20	(2)
The infinite play of empty mirrors	22	(6)
Writing woman	28	(19)
The Language of Nativism: Anthropology as a Scientific Conversation of Man with Man	47	(32)
The reign of worn codes	47	(2)
The positivist dream: We, the natives; They, the natives	49	(6)
A Western Science of man	55	(4)
A Myth of mythology	59	(5)
What ``man'' and which ``man''?	64	(3)
Gossip and science: a conversation on what I love according to truth	67	(3)
Nativist interpretation	70	(3)
See them as they see each other	73	(6)
Difference: ``A Special Third World Women Issue''	79	(40)
The policy of ``separate development''	80	(6)
The sense of specialness	86	(3)
The question of roots and authenticity	89	(1)
Infinite layers: I am not i can be you and me	90	(5)
The female identity enclosure	95	(2)
Third World?	97	(3)
``Woman'' and the subtle power of linguistic exclusion	100	(2)
Subject-in-the-making	102	(1)
Ethnicity or womanhood: whose duality?	103	(4)
The Gender controversy	107	(12)
Grandma's Story	119	(34)
Truth and fact: story and history	119	(2)
Keepers and transmitters	121	(2)
Storytelling in the ``civilized'' context	123	(2)
A regenerating force	125	(3)
At once ``black'' and ``white'' magic	128	(1)
The woman warrior: she who breaks open the spell	129	(6)
A cure and a protection from illness	135	(6)
``Tell it the way they tell it''	141	(2)
``The story must be told. There must not be any lies''	143	(10)
Notes	153	(8)
Selected Bibliography	161	(8)
Index	169