Epistemic witnessing: theoretical responsibilities, decolonial attitude and lenticular futures

Abstract

Pillow explores complexities of witnessing in research linking theoretical oppression to inadequate, arrogant witnessing. Weaving narrative and reflection, Pillow considers what is engrained in theoretical oppression and reviews trauma studies engagement with witnessing as a case example. Thinking with feminist, queer and decolonial scholars, Pillow argues for epistemic witnessing based on ethical onto-epistemological responsibility driven by decolonial attitude and reparative reading. The essay is written in five phrasings, which may be read consecutively or randomly, and concludes with ideas for epistemic witnessing as reparative lenticular archives for past–present–futures.

Keywords:

• Epistemic privilege
• witnessing
• decolonial
• ontology

Notes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank external reviewers for comments on a very messy text; the suggestions were generous and helpful. Appreciation and admiration to Cindy Cruz, Cynthia Dillard and Sofia Villenas for their sustained modeling of engaged decolonial loving praxis. Warmth and gratitude to Wanda Alarcon for insights on early drafts. Sincere respect to Cindy Cruz for initiating the panel leading to these papers. Cruz encouraged my participation even though on first invite I stated: ‘I don’t do love.’ Cruz saw love in my work and for that I am fortunate. Special thanks to Matt Bryan and Jason Taylor for providing shelter, support and comfort at a crucial time. This essay is dedicated to Emilio whose entrance to the world reminded me why we write.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 RUN-DMC 1993, Can I get a witness? (Yes you can!). Album “Down with the King”, Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

2 Two examples as this essay went to press: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/nyregion/woman-calls-police-black-boy-brooklyn.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/us/hilary-brooke-apartment-patty-st-louis.html

3 Marvin Gaye 1963 single “Can I get a Witness” released by Motown USA Records. Motown Trio – Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier & Eddie Holland – wrote the song and provided back-up vocal with The Supremes and instrumentation by the Funk Brothers.

4 The 1804–1806 Corps of Discovery Expedition was commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to map territory west of the Mississippi. Meriwhether Lewis and William Clark led the Corps made up of over thirty men including several boatmen and two translators – one who brought his Shoshone servant, Sacajawea. York, Clark’s personal slave and Seaman, Lewis’ dog were also on the expedition (see Pillow, 2012).

5 Gaye ‘Can I get a Witness.’

6 Paratactic from parataxis, meaning side by side; no subordinating connectives. Paratactic phrasings allow this essay to be read linearly – from beginning to end – or entering randomly into any phrasing.

7 Various authors have diagnosed the post-post ontological turn (see Lather, 2016; Lather & St. Pierre, 2013). Here, post-post is what comes after/with postmodernity, poststructuralisms, post-colonial recognizing post-theorizing remains beholden to colonial models of being and knowing (Pillow, 2016).

8 ‘Research’ is used to refer to all forms of research – quantitative, mixed methods, qualitative, ethnographic.

9 This essay does not take up important questions about socially mediated technologies of witnessing such as: How are mobile phones or other platforms witnessing? Where does this witnessing go? What does it produce? How do these platforms provide credibility to some subjects?

10 For review of ontological and epistemological, see Barad (2007).

11 ‘Of color’ and ‘Women of Color’ are used in this essay as a designation to signify solidarity across intersections of systemic oppression.

12 Although in this paper I think with Barad’s (2007) ‘ethico-onto-epistemological’ Pérez and Saavedra note their use of onto-epistemological is not intended to connect to Barad’s theorizing.

13 For a condensed genealogy of witnessing, see Givoni (2014).

14 While I would trouble Oliver’s use of the term ‘victim’ Oliver’s articulation of how seeing/not seeing in a ‘color blind society’ (p. 158) as well as that those who experience forms of dehumanization ‘are not merely seeking visibility and recognition, but they are also seeking witnesses to horrors beyond recognition’ (p. 7) are valuable points for this essay.

15 Vizenor (2008) defines survivance as ‘an active sense of presence’ (p. 1) and notes ‘Native survivance stories are renunciations of dominance, tragedy, victimry’ (Vizenor, 1999, p. vii).

16 Citational practices do matter and I support attention to decolonize citational practices. However, citations in themselves will not be enough to shift epistemic oppression.

17 Brown changed the gender in the lyrics and set a music video in a courtroom while SonReal uses the title but changes the lyrics.

18 #BlackLivesMatter formed in 2012 by three ‘Black Queer women’ – Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi – shares a radical understanding of Baldwin’s diagnosis of the disease a society must possess in order to create and sustain hatred of Black lives at such levels that insidiously practiced forms of state violence, depriving persons from human rights and life, are allowable (http://blacklivesmatter.com/guiding-principles/).

19 The exception was Dr. Patti Lather, without whom my dissertation would not have been possible or passed.

20 Re-readings of ‘Sedgwick after Sedgwick’ (Hanson, 2011) suggest both forms may be necessary (see Flatley, 2010; Love, 2010).

21 As well as a new relationship to academia. Flatley (2010) writes Sedgwick’s ‘description of the logic of paranoia, with its special attunement to the moods of academic departments, helped me to understand why I have found the behavior of paranoid colleagues so disorienting and depressing… Sedgwick’s description of the contagiousness of paranoia, the way that it tended to grow like a crystal in a ‘hypersaturated solution’ and inexorably pulled one into its ‘symmetrical epistemologies’” (p. 236).

22 Pertinent to survivance, witnessing has specific meaning to many cultures and in the USA has particular importance in Black spirituality, humor, imagination, and arts as a call of action, resistance and recognition. See: Blount (2005) ‘Can I get a witness? An apocalyptic call for active resistance’ or the film Posse (1993): ‘Redman ain’t got no problem with the Black man. As for you white boy, first you enslave, exploit the Yellow man, and then you kill off the Red man and snatch his land for railroads and such, Can I get a witness, Amen.’ See also: Carrie Mae Weems; Faith Ringgold; Benny Andrews; James Baldwin; Toni Morrison; Cornel West; Brooklyn Museum’s 2014 exhibit ‘Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties’; and Aperture magazine’s 2016 special issue ‘Vision & Justice.’ As well as Stuart Scott’s repeated refrain ‘Can I get a witness from the congregation!’ while Scott was ESPN Anchor 2003–2015. http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/12118296/stuart-scott-espn-anchor-dies-age-49

23 For discussion of feminist standpoint theory, see Harding (1991) and Hartsock (1998).

24 James Baldwin (1987). http://colorlines.com/archives/2014/12/video_james_baldwin_i_cant_afford_despair.html

25 Lugones (1994) clearly marks her work separate from postmodernism noting the ‘hybrid imagination’ of her writing rises ‘from within a recently articulated tradition of latina writers who emphasize mestizaje and multiplicity… All resemblance between this tradition and postmodern literature and philosophy is coincidental, though the conditions that underlie both may well be significantly tied. The implications of each are very different from one another’ (p. 458).

26 RUN-DMC, Can I get a witness? (Yes you can!)

27 See for example, Small’s 2009 study incorporating interviews, quantitative data, and detailed study of routine operations of childcare centers demonstrating inequalities of women’s social networks were determined by everyday organizational mechanisms previously considered inconsequential.

28 Young Mother, NYC focus group 2014.

29 My youngest son U.S. election night 2016.

30 When my son was in despair and rage over the 2016 U.S. presidential election outcome, we called his great-uncle who in addition to telling my son ‘we’ve been here before, we will survive’ utilized humor as survivance.

31 We wrote a letter to the Interpretive Center sharing a critique of absences and misinformation with a few basic ideas about what the Center could do to address these but did not hear back.

32 See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/06/child-abuse-ad_n_3223311.html

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wanda S. Pillow

Wanda S. Pillow is professor in Gender Studies and Education, Culture & Society at the University of Utah and co-editor of the journal Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies.