Cultural studies has taken much inspiration from postcolonial studies, and adopted critique as its main strategy. Critiquing,
although a powerful tool, especially in creating counter discourses, whether
it is to counter colonial historiography or neoliberal consumerist
logics, it is basically a tool in the hands of the literate intellectuals
having abilities to express the critique eloquently. How does then cultural
studies relate to the indigenous struggles and everyday lives of people? How
does the project of cultural studies change
the material conditions that facilitate neoliberal capitalism? As Pezzulo (2011)
contends, drawing inspiration from Grossberg, that there is a need for pragmatic
practices of social change (p.127). A necessary shift from postcolonial
studies, according to me is to engage not in historical narratives, but with
the contemporary ones, where change can be effected in the present. Cultural
studies stands to offer important guidance for this agenda, because of its
conception of power as multimodal and its understanding of contemporary culture
as its relation to everything else that is not culture (Pezzulo, 2011 citing
Grossberg). Speaking on the basis of case studies of three consumer-based
movements in the US, Pezzulo suggests that cultural studies needs to engage
with consumer based advocacy campaigns, such as boycotts and buycotts, that seek
to change consumption patters, even though it doesn’t mean overthrowing the
logics of free-market capitalism. The impact of such campaigns is significant
on the basis that they change the relationships of production within a given company. I believe that acknowledging that power exerts itself
not in a monolithic fashion, but through micro-practices such as relationships
of production, the change could begin with un-doing these relations. As Pezzulo
suggests ranking the success of these campaigns from least to most successful
is immaterial, but the new agendas they set for theorization of cultural
studies is significant, as is their impact in bringing about change.
In a post made in response to the changes to how my discipline operates made by the Executive Committee of the largest organization of the discipline, the National Communication Association (NCA), one of the editors of a disciplinary journal Rhetoric and Public Affairs (RPA), Professor Martin J. Medhurst, a Distinguished Scholar of the discipline, calls out what he sees as the threat of identity (see below for his full piece published in the journal that he has edited for 20+ years, with 2019 SJR score of 0.27). In what he notes is a threat to the "scholarly merit" of the discipline, Professor Medhurst sets up a caricature of what he calls "identity." In his rhetorical construction of the struggles the NCA has faced over the years to find Distinguished Scholars of colour, he shares with us the facts. So let's look at the facts presented by this rhetor. It turns out, as a member of the Distinguished Scholar community of the NCA, Mr. Medhurst has problems wit...