Going ‘global,’ (re)locating privilege: a journey into the borders of whiteness, foreignness, and performativity

Abstract

In this article I draw on my personal experience of partially forced repositioning as a way to advance our understanding of the theoretical and practical contours of whiteness, foreignness, and performativity. In particular, I consider how specific aspects of our identities can get strategically redefined depending on the context where they operate, thus placing the transposed body at a constant risk of being excluded from certain privileges. I also bring foreignness to light as an organizing principle that (re)creates places for belonging and marginalization as it interacts with other dimensions of identity. From here, I propose to emphasize the incontrollable aspects of experience and thus expose the strategic attempts to protect privilege and also, and maybe more importantly, the limitations of such strategies. At a broader level, with this contribution I hope to turn a self-reflexive eye on the politics of language and/as method, and how different assumptions and expectations for particular kinds of writing styles may affect the possibilities for those whose first language is not English to make our voices heard.

Keywords:

• cultural politics
• foreignness
• immigration
• language and identity
• performativity
• whiteness

Notes on contributor

Susana Martínez Guillem is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication & Journalism at the University of New Mexico. Her research interests are in cultural studies and critical discourse studies, focusing mainly on rhetorics of immigration, race, and racism. Her work has appeared in several internationally recognized journals, including Discourse & Society, Journal of Intercultural and Intercultural Communication, Critical Studies in Media Communication, and European Journal of Cultural Studies. Her most recent work examines beliefs and practices related to contemporary cultural keywords such as ‘multiculturalism,’ ‘(anti)racism,’ or ‘tolerance’, with special attention to the European Union and the USA.

Notes

1. This article has benefited tremendously from formal and informal conversations with many colleagues and friends, both at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and at the University of New Mexico, as well as from the insightful comments from both sympathetic and unsympathetic reviewers. To all of them, my most sincere thank you. Previous versions of this essay were presented at the annual meeting of the National Communication Association, November 2011, and at the annual meeting of the Western States Communication Association, February 2013.

2. I chose to keep part of this narrative in the ‘original’ Spanish both as a rhetorical and a political strategy. For a more detailed explanation of the motivations and implications of this move, please see the postcriptum.

3. This is obviously another myth. Different reports show that what Western European countries are calling ‘health care immigration’ barely exists. Moreover, the use that immigrants make of regular health care services is very limited, mostly due to administrative obstacles and/or the lack of any rights as workers (Médicos del Mundo 2009).

4. It is also important to note that, in purely geographical terms, Spain occupies a strategic, Southern border position as the closest state to the African continent. Moreover, part of the Spanish territory – specifically, the cities of Ceuta and Melilla – extends to northern Africa, and the Canary Islands, which also belong to Spain, are much closer to Africa than to the Iberian Peninsula. Therefore, quite literally, when in 1986 Spain joined the then ‘European Economic Community,’ a portion of the African continent became part of Europe, with the expected reticence of other ‘core’ European states (Labany 2002).