governing structure discussion

[anna livia]

I like the idea of scholars to *represent* each category rather than
embodying them, but I wonder how this will work in practice.  Since I am
currently working on French gay men's use of the Minitel, could I represent
scholarship on men's speech? (I am a white Anglo-Irish lesbian professor).

If I was a straight  man looking at the sexual vocabulary of male prison
guards, could I represent langauge and sexuality research?

If I was a white researcher comparing the discourse of Acadian male
religious leaders with that of female nurses, could I represent research in
gender and ethnicity/race? How about if I worked at the Jewish
Rehabilitaiton Hospital in Laval, Quebec and studied bilingual aphasics,
comparing speech recovery in men and women?

Not to trivialize, but I fear we may trip over our feet in our efforts to
be representative and I'm afraid we may not end up with what we want.
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Anna Livia (PhD)
Visiting Assistant Professor, French Department,
UC Berkeley, Fall 1999

UC Berkeley, French Dept, Dwinelle Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720

livia at Cal.berkeley.edu