classen and representational acess

One of the things about Watching Jim Crow that I liked most was Classen's meta-awareness about his own process of authoring a history. As we discussed in class, if there is any problem with the text, it is, I think, more about the context in which the text works than anything Classen has much control over. His subjects' reliance on him to restructure and distribute their knowledge seems to play into the lingering issues of representational access to Jacksonians of color he discusses. The goal of representational equality is, after all, to be taken seriously on one's own terms, and not those of others, however accurate their depictions may be. I wonder if in this case the prestige afforded knowledge conveyed in academic language allows accounts of experience from Jackson residents to be taken seriously by ears that they otherwise might not reach. With his own discussion of Jackson's history, Classen structures a frame in which these accounts become intelligible. Ostensibly this frame reflects the perspective of those interviewed. Whether this narrative frame is necessary to legitimate perspectives from Jackson's African-American community or not, it is also worth asking a few questions about the process of framing, and what is framed.

Historiography offers a seemingly attractive space of meta-history in which the tactical inscription of experience into silencing narratives can be, if not avoided, then at least acknowledged. Classen nevertheless, although he gives a consideration of his own positioning within racialized struggles to author history, undertakes a process of constructing a narrative of events from gathered evidence. While his work is certainly valuable, I wonder about the possibility for the perspectives from which he borrows to be accessible through other means, in the way that textual archives of more ‘official’ knowledge exist. (UCT’s centre for popular memory comes to mind http://www.popularmemory.org/) It seems somewhat problematic that Classen’s work exists without a similar resource. Finally though I wonder about this notion of experience-as-text, represented through interview, the question of what is being framed. As Classen acknowledges, all knowledge is produced within and structured by a discourse, and all discursive frameworks function to reproduce a politics. His initial conception of the representational politics of television in Jackson as a discreet object, he reveals, fell apart during his process of research, and he began to think about his topic in a new way. Ultimately, the ‘knowledge’ of a community, always constructed in new and different ways, will appear in different ways within different discourses. This body of experience, practice, and history, continually being read and rewritten, cannot be thought of like a photograph or printed text. Impossible to be ever fully articulated, this knowledge must be continually related to new ways of looking by those for whom it structures daily life. New ways of thinking, looking, and speaking continually emerge, and the ability of a community to perform these allows them control over the way they relate themselves to other groups of people. So while Classen’s work is good to have, and certainly does valuable work, it makes me also think about what it indicates to be absent, and the ways in which it may function to replace self-presentation worry me.