Comments on: Norm & Emergency

By: influxus

influxus — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 03:14:49 +0000

Hey jackson,

‘course, as you like. It would be great if you could forward or link whatever you put together.

By: jackson

jackson — Wed, 11 Jul 2007 03:26:28 +0000

hey im part of a group scar, safer communities are rasical, we are putting togeter a bunch of responses to the tampa2007 bullshit as a zine, i was wonderibg if we could re publish some of yr post
thanks!
x jackson

By: The Happy Revolutionary

The Happy Revolutionary — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 06:44:26 +0000

Thanks for the link, and keep up the great blog.

By: s0metim3s

s0metim3s — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 12:11:31 +0000

The slip was in the interview I watched. And I think that’s right about the parallels of norm/abnormal.

By: influxus

influxus — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 09:04:01 +0000

Az, the parallels you take up with ‘independence’, ‘autonomy’ and an internalisation of the violences of rule-making localities are important ones. I get that Autonomy in protocol documents like “consideration” in contract law is usually about solidifying a particular arrangement of power or authority, in the name of protecting an arbitrary set of preferences (which subsequently become natural and fixed). But pursuing that critique of autonomy, or the self-possession understanding of it anyways, makes me wonder if that means it is impossible to write Indigenous self-determination in any document except precisely as another nation.
So, the best outcome becomes some Terry Dowling-esque idea of handing sovereignty and territory to the Indigenous peoples and that territory becomes a scarce and valuable commodity for some future-tech reason. Which interestingly enough appears to be at least part of the fear motivating Howard.

By: influxus

influxus — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 08:28:05 +0000

s0metim3s, I didn’t actually watch, only read, that Pearson interview and was half wondering whose slip that was. The main thrust of what I was saying elsewhere (I don’t want to speak for others) was: Pearson in assuming norms as transparent (but missing) things, continues to split norm/dysfunction along cultural and racial lines. So everything wholesome, the way he draws it, exactly aligns with white myths of national law, institutions and culture. And thereby, precisely because he sets up a history/policy binary he can’t follow the continual logic of dispossession, the withdrawal of land and familiar figues of identities and the substition of a foreign taxonomy, which his solution perpetuates. In some respects even 1965-7 follows this formula.
Thanks for the parsing of Benjamin, after some sleep it makes very clear sense. I’m not sure why my inclination was to separate the conditions of law from its practice. That Phillips piece is excellent, I’ll have to track down his work.
Excuse me if I take some time to digest your draft.

By: s0metim3s

s0metim3s — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 05:54:04 +0000

This puts it well.

By: az

az — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 01:50:11 +0000

Thanks for this post. It’s difficult to know — has been difficult to know for a long time, in fact — how to think about Noel Pearson’s interventions into indigenous policy. As you show, perhaps the way to think about that stuff is not through the lense of the media, in which Pearson is always overdetermined as the only recognisable Indigenous Authority and as a personality (I guess I’m talking about the charismatic, slightly theological way he has of doing interviews here) but in terms of CYF documents, the complexity of the text.

Another possible take on the Family Responsibilities Commission suggestion is that it imagines the arbitrary political flows internal to indigenous ‘communities’ as the modulating force capable of policing what you’re calling normfare. Ie, less of a way to imagine some kind of ‘independence’ or ‘autonomy’ than a means to internalise the violences of rule-making within the fabric of local sociality. (Or maybe it’s both at the same time.) Even though it comes from the CYF, and not the government in this case, there are parallels here to how governments have been using the chaotic divisions within indigenous communities (family feuds, splits) to negotiate land use for waste dumps, uranium mining etc. I find that scary. Well, I was finding that scary until the news about ’save the children’ broke, and discovered a whole new level of scary.

By: s0metim3s

s0metim3s — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:23:38 +0000

Well, I don’t hear those offline conversations - but I’d like to know what/where the arguments were.

I’m assuming you’ve seen the interview with Pearson on the 7:30 Report - his slip of the tongue (’convicted’ for ‘convinced’) was quite something.

And yes, the tenancy - land titles, etc - stuff is actually the principal point of the exercise; or the one that will endure. Mortgages and debt servitude as forms of discipline. Thanks for the page ref, btw.

Benjamin’s broader point I think is about the way attempts to impose an abstract equality in law serve to produce (and sustain) concrete inequalities in life - or, for that matter, in the way the law is enforced, as you note. One could cite the law against public drunkeness as an example, particularly insofar as people who have more money are less likely to be drunk in public places, like parks, the gardens of public housing, etc.

And methinks the likely consequence of imposing debt servitude in this instance will be the progressive transfer of native title over to whatever institution the debt will be to - leaving aside the small proportion of those who can service the debt, hold the lease, etc.

Anyway, back to writing …

By: influxus

influxus — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 09:39:38 +0000

Strange, I am critiquing Pearson in my offline convos and seem to wind up defending him here. (Don’t structure a post navigating a topic as though there are two alternatives). I take your point about the way the Pearson’s normativity acts as a filter for between, say, immediate and indirect subjection to violence. I think there are better spaces and cracks to slip in within this structure, but there is no ‘but’ coming. The part of the proposal I didn’t discuss, was a tying of the normfare management not just to law, health and education but also proprietorial norms (tenancy). Page 63, if you’re interested. I think the agenda of both policies is property and territory, with the globe and mail’s report of Howard last year influencing Canada’s stance on the basis of military access to land and existing land contracts says alot (oh I’ve just noticed this article has gone behind a paywall - I wonder if I have a copy?).

I’ll have to read critique of violence properly I’m not sure that Benjamin is right (or I miss his wit) to cite the satirical idea that both poor and rich are forbidden to sleep under bridges. While I agree, with what i assume is his point, that while the poor might need to sleep under a bridge the rich have no such imperative so equal law perpetuates priviliege. I’m not sure the law is ever equally enforced. I think I get what he is saying there about retribution as the breaching of an unwritten law (or norm), but it seems that also in point of fact the rich, even if found may not be moved on from under bridge, precisely because they have else where they could be. In particular I’m thinking of the laws against vagrancy from the 19th century that coincided with official tourism, to precisely regulate the transience of the poor.