Page 228 - Cultural Theory

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••• Feminist Knowledge and Socio-cultural Research •••

Focusing upon the small scale, the minutiae of life can often surprise, inspire and throw
light on broader social structures and processes.
Following Adorno, ‘mimesis’ does not simply mean naïve imitation, or mimicry,
but rather feeling, sensuousness, spirit – a sensuous knowing. The concept of mime-
sis (as sensuous knowing) must be understood in tension with what Adorno calls
‘constructive rationality’, reason, instrumental rationality, the ‘out there’ sense of our
being in the world. Taussig understands mimesis as ‘both the faculty of imitation and
the deployment of that faculty in sensuous knowing’ (1993: 68).
By re-presenting ethnographic data (life story interviews) in artistic form (via
ethno-mimesis) we can access a richer understanding of the complexities of lived
experience which can throw light on broader social structures and processes. Such
work can also reach a wider population, beyond academic communities, facilitating
understanding/interpretation and, maybe, action/praxis in relation to certain social
issues. The multiplicity of oppression and fractured notion of ‘woman’, challenges
3
from postcolonial and Third World feminisms, queer theory, and the performative
nature of sexual identity help to map out the ongoing production of feminist theory
and practice. Experimentation in the handling and disseminating knowledge pro-
duction has led to a range of possible ways of visualizing feminist praxis.

Interpretive Ethnography and Women’s Lives:
Visualizing Feminist Praxis

Hillis Millar draws upon Walter Benjamin’s work to illustrate

how works of art bring something new into the world rather than reflecting
something already there. This something new is constitutive rather than being
merely representational or, on the other hand, reveals something already there
but hidden. Works of art make culture. Each work makes different the culture it
enters. (1992: 151).

Figure 11.1 Stills from the video of the performance ‘Not all the time …
but mostly …’
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