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Strategic Essentialism

April 2016

In book: The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies

Authors:

OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University

Strategic essentialism is a strategy by which differences (within a group) are temporarily downplayed and unity assumed for the sake of achieving political goals. In political practice, its usage in opposing and fighting against gender oppression, is recommended, be it for judicial or social rights; but so is opposing and fighting against theories and discourses that imprison groups within unifying categories, which necessarily must be narrowing.

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Strategic Essentialism

ELISABETH EIDE

Oslo and Akershus University College, Norway

In postcolonial and feminist studies “strate-

gicessentialism”haslongbeenadisputed

concept in connection with both feminism

and minority representation. e same holds

for essentialism; or as Fuss (1990) claims, we

need to speak about “essentialisms.” At some

occasions,GayatriSpivak,whoissaidtohave

introduced the phrase (Spivak 1988, 1996),

has been regarded as being representative

of “ird World Women,” as if this was an

easily apprehensible category, or as if billions

of women share an essence of sorts. is

way of grouping together people from vast

areas with a diversity of experiences, still

oen occurs in public sphere representations.

Modern history, not least with its patriarchal

and colonialist discourses, is full of related

examples.

Essentialism is the assumption that groups,

categories, or classes of objects have one

or several dening features exclusive to all

membersofthatcategory(Ashcro,Grif-

ths, and Tin 1998). Essentialist studies

of race or gender have promoted binaries

of superiority or inferiority, of the colonial

subject or women as inferior, and such dis-

courses were vital for the perseverance of

patriarchal and colonial hegemony. is

hegemonypracticedoppressionbyassigning

theroleofsubaltern to its subjects, whose

identity became their dierence. Essentialism

simplies and reduces human identity, which

is more justly seen as multifaceted (see, for

example, Maalouf 2000). Assuming a certain

“nature” of one group of human beings, be

it through ethnication, culturalization, or

sexism, is strongly related to essentialism.

e Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies, First Edition. Edited by Nancy A. Naples.

DOI: 10.1002/9781118663219.wbegss554

Categorization of women in general – as

Simone de Beauvoir has also eloquently docu-

mented – as the “second sex” entails granting

more diversity to the “rst sex” while at

least to a degree depriving the members of

the “other” sex of their individualities and

abilities to transcend their assigned places in

society, and she recommends radical strate-

gies for overcoming this otherness. On the

other hand, throughout history, women’s

organizations have at times emphasized a

female essence, such as, for example, nur-

turing and caring abilities while demanding

parental leave or specic work protection,

in their struggle for human rights and rep-

resentation. us, a struggle for equal rights

and to escape the “other” position, may at

times conict with demands for special rights

for women in need. In addition, minorities

within the “women” category (lesbians, trans-

sexuals, ethnic and religious minorities) may

feel estranged by majority discourses and

priorities.

Gayatri Spivak discusses the experiences of

the Subaltern Studies Group, whose aim it is

to rewrite the history of India with a perspec-

tive from below (subaltern), deconstructing

the imperial version. She reads their work as

“a strategic use of positivist essentialism in a

scrupulously visible political interest” (Spivak

1996, 214). She compares the application

of strategic essentialism to deconstruction,

arguing that although she uses deconstruc-

tion, it does not make her a deconstructivist.

A reasonable interpretation is that strategic

here can be read as pragmatic,sinceSpivak

sees this essentialism as having little to do

with theory, it rather denes a certain politi-

cal practice: “I think we have to choose again

strategically, not universal discourse, but

essentialist discourse …In fact I must say I

am an essentialist from time to time” (Grosz

2STRATEGIC ESSENTIALISM

1984). An illustrative example is that we

may imagine ghting for more visibility for

women artists in concrete cultural-political

situations, but simultaneously be ercely

opposed to notions such as “women litera-

ture,” “girl bands,” and so on. ese examples

clearly demonstrate the dilemmas inherent

in promoting certain group rights, although

oen justied and necessary.

Spivak, while stating that she is at times

an essentialist, warns against the application

of the concept, as other theorists also do,

since strategic essentialism may encourage

the survival of frozen identities and deepen

dierences. In the same interview with Grosz,

Spivak urges the “need to take a stand against

the discourses of essentialism …but strategi-

cally we cannot. Even as we talk about feminist

practice, or privileging practice over theory,

we are universalizing – not only generalizing

but universalizing.” She recommends being

“vigilant about our own practice and use it as

muchaswecanratherthanmakethetotally

counterproductive gesture of repudiating it”

(Grosz 1984).

Strategic essentialism may thus be seen as a

political strategy whereby dierences (within

a group) are temporarily downplayed and

unityassumedforthesakeofachievingpolit-

ical goals. In political practice, its usage in

opposing and ghting against gender oppres-

sion is recommended, be it for judicial or

social rights; but so is opposing and ghting

against theories and discourses that imprison

groups within unifying categories, which

are by necessity narrowing. Strategic essen-

tialism may help bringing down oppressive

structures and diminish suering, but should

not be allowed to aect world views and

encourage reductive views against the human

dignity. us “the ideal that we may have

to ‘take the risk of essence’ in order to have

any political purchase remains an impor-

tant theme in feminist theory and politics”

(Phillips 2010). On the other hand strategic

essentialism is theoretically unviable.

Essentialism may be used to subjugate or

liberate, but strategic essentialism ought to be

seen as a temporary political strategy and not

as a universalizing theory or as a universal

way of conducting political struggle.

SEE ALSO: Essentialism; Feminism,

Postcolonial; Gender Analysis

REFERENCES

Ashcro,Bill,GarethGriths,andHelenTif-

n. 1998. Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies.

London: Routledge.

Fuss, Diana. 1990. Essentially Speaking: Feminism,

Nature & Dierence. London: Routledge.

Grosz, Elizabeth. 1984. “Criticism, Feminism and

e Institution” [intervie w with Gayatri Spivak].

esis Eleven, 10(11): 184.

Maalouf, Amin. 2000. On Identity. London: Harvill

Press.

Phillips, Anne. 2010. “What’s Wrong with Essen-

tialism?” Distinktion: Scandinavian Journal of

Social eory, 11(1): 47–60.

Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?”

In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture,

edited by Larry Grossberg and Cary Nelson,

66–111. Houndmills: Macmillan.

Spivak, Gayatri. 1996. “Subaltern Studies: Decon-

structing Historiography?” In e Spivak

Reader,editedbyDonnaLandryandGerald

MacLean, 203– 237. London: Routledge.

Identity and ELF: (Re-)envisioning being, becoming, and belonging in theory, research, and teaching

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“Identity” has always been a concept centrally situated, implicitly and explicitly, in dialogue in the “field” of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) (Jenkins 2018). The problematization of essentialized and idealized “nativeness,” and corresponding ways of knowing, being, and doing in ELF scholarship, serves as an epistemic rebuke of the colonial roots of English language-related theory, inquiry, and practice. The field of English language teaching (ELT) emerged as a vehicle through which overlapping binaries of identity and community membership (“colonizer/colonized”; “native/non- or not-native”; in most cases “White”/Other”) were imposed and perpetuated with the idea of creating and controlling colonial subjects and their resources, first in and around modern England and then beyond. Violence was done to alternate forms of knowing, being and doing, and to the communities and contexts in which people lived, and this has by no means ended. 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Following this overview, I will discuss two concerns I have pertaining to these trends and trajectories, both of which I believe can do, and have done, epistemic and other forms of harm: 1) the focus on “(non-/not-)nativeness in English” is conceptually myopic (Hammine and Rudolph 2023), as it fails to account for the contextualized, sociohistorical complexity of negotiated identity and/in interaction within and transcending communities, and leaves the origin and nature of manifested injustice partially or wholly unaddressed, 2) scholarship attending to identity, experience and (in)justice is increasingly at risk of functioning as a source of epistemic colonialism, wherein dominant ontologies, epistemologies, and ideologies pertaining to (in)justice are imposed, potentially excluding individuals and communities in and beyond academia. I will briefly argue, in contrast, for approaches to being, becoming and belonging, and to (in)justice, to be grounded in listening, dialoguing, relationship and trust-building, reflecting and (un-)learning, with patience and humility, and in love; for an approach that is community-based and transdisciplinary (Hammine and Rudolph in press). I will then conclude by presenting readers one context with which to engage and reflect upon, when pondering the complexity of negotiated being, becoming and belonging in educational spaces and the communities in which they are located, and how injustice might be accounted for and addressed in ELF scholarship (and other justice-oriented work). Readers will note that throughout the chapter, in order to provide more concrete examples of scholarly trends and dialogue -past, present and potential- I draw on examples from “Japan,” where I live, research and teach.

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Full-text available

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Anne Phillips

This paper identifies and discusses four distinct meanings of essentialism. The first is the attribution of certain characteristics to everyone subsumed within a particular category: the ‘(all) women are caring and empathetic’, ‘(all) Africans have rhythm’, ‘(all) Asians are community oriented’ syndrome. The second is the attribution of those characteristics to the category, in ways that naturalise or reify what may be socially created or constructed. The third is the invocation of a collectivity as either the subject or object of political action (‘the working class’, ‘women’, ‘Third World women’), in a move that seems to presume a homogenised and unified group. The fourth is the policing of this collective category, the treatment of its supposedly shared characteristics as the defining ones that cannot be questioned or modified without undermining an individual's claim to belong to that group. Focusing on these four variants enables us to see that the issue is sometimes one of degree rather than a categorical embargo.

Subaltern Studies:~Deconstructing Historiography

Chapter

Jan 1988

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature & Difference

Article

Oct 1991
FEMINIST REV

Post-Colonial Studies: The Key Concepts

Book

Jan 2000

Can the Subaltern Speak?

Article

Jan 1988

Gayatri Chakravory Spivak

The original title of this paper was “Power, Desire, Interest.”1 Indeed, whatever power these meditations command may have been earned by a politically interested refusal to push to the limit the founding presuppositions of my desires, as far as they are within my grasp. This vulgar three-stroke formula, applied both to the most resolutely committed and to the most ironic discourse, keeps track of what Althusser so aptly named “philosophies of denegation.”2 I have invoked my positionality in this awkward way so as to accentuate the fact that calling the place of the investigator into question remains a meaningless piety in many recent critiques of the sovereign subject. Thus, although I will attempt to foreground the precariousness of my position throughout, I know such gestures can never suffice.

“Criticism, Feminism and The Institution” [interview with Gayatri Spivak]

Jan 1984
184

Grosz Elizabeth

In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture

Jan 1988
66-111

Gayatri Spivak

Spivak, Gayatri. 1988. "Can the Subaltern Speak?" In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Larry Grossberg and Cary Nelson, 66-111. Houndmills: Macmillan.

Criticism, Feminism and The Institution

Jan 1984

Elizabeth Grosz

Grosz, Elizabeth. 1984. "Criticism, Feminism and The Institution" [interview with Gayatri Spivak].

Strategic Essentialism

Abstract

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