Limitations and liberations experienced through writing the ‘other’

Limitations and liberations experienced through writing the ‘other’

Over the duration of this semester I have felt a soft dynamic shift from oblivion, to understanding around how I write on behalf of another culture. Additionally, I am also learning that separate from my writing practice, the ‘other’ (in a cultural context) is designed by economic, political and social processes. Because the dialogue we shared in class was centered around cultural diversity, I believe this experience has given my writing a greater visibility with deeper substance. I have made clearer distinctions between the external world and my internal one, where I had to work inside the overlap of a ‘coming togetherness’ that was actualized when the ‘other’ materialized before me, alongside a recent understanding of my position as a writer and as the ‘other’ in turn. 

The opposition of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ highlights contemporary national identities as well as images too. I have explored, both consciously and sub consciously the term nationalism and have begun to recognize that these words have different meanings in the face of different individuals. To me, the ‘self’, ‘other’ and ‘the world’ are an intermingling of three main discourses that give access to a greater sense of my being, and operate at differing frequencies. I embrace the approach that diversity should be judged not quintessential as an entity in itself, but as reflected in people’s minds and expressed in their attitudes, perceptions as well as limitations.

When discussing perception in relation to culture I best visualize it now in two duel processes. First being the sensation, the emotive layer that registers thought and effects of culture, then the perceptive layer and process that is a result of the sensation. While the effect of culture on perception is independent of language, language still influences thought and therefore illustrates interrelations of perception, language and thought. And considering my writing in the style of a lyric essay, this combination of content both sensitivity, perception and language is valuably interconnected to form. 

Before this semester, I would have said that writing another culture is about someone else, somewhere else, doing something else. However, now with the expansion of my own sensitivity in writing culture, I became interested in the differences between what cultural expression can do and what individual utterance can. I believe now it is not about us and them, it is about us as a collective. Because the other exists dependent to another, meaning, to the otherwe are alien. Reiterating that the study of writing in this way should be engaged, respective and ultimately moral.

Though I have been discussing the liberation gained through writing the ‘other’, it is important to acknowledge the limitations that surface when engaging with new territories of language and culture. Similar to how language plays a critical role in shaping the perception of culture, language (like a body) evolves into new skins, and takes on different shapes. Prior to this thought, I felt limited by the expansiveness of these topics. As though particular knowledge was out of bounds, or I was not yet equipped with the tools to comment on topics that aroused strong opinion, that the boundary between me and the ‘other’ was too strong and almost that my age and ethnicity was as paralyzing as a blank page. 

However, I believe my habitus made metrust in a cultural competence, so the ability to understand different people’s beliefs, behaviors and communication styles was to look past the edges and into the center of a cultural approach. I better understood then, the relationship between the social and personal. The me and the ‘other’ therefore divulging the gap between the two. 

Both individuals and groups alike rely on the ‘other’ to affirm what they perceive is naturally and uniquely theirs. Through this semester, I have found notions of the ‘self’ being fertile grounds for introspective writing and reflection. By encouraging this introspectiveness, I also have become aware that through the central self, you cannot have a deep appearance without the placement of the ‘other’.  

By writing with the ‘other’ in mind, my awareness of both groups and individuals as the other has increased, where their placement in relation to me has shown me not only who and what we arebut who and what we are not.Upon writing another culture, I have gained a fusion of both politics and poetry within my work, which I now believe would be considered a vital part of my writing practice. Because it draws on an investigative sense of culture and broadens the emotive content of my writing. Because culture is not autonomous nor is it internally determined. Because I can transform through my writing, any social orders that exploit people on the grounds of race, gender or class. It has revitalized my way of thinking about how culture operates and re fashioned my writing practice to be more dynamic and extrospectivly considered.

I have experimented with code switching/word play and as I am largely concerned with images in my writing, instead of questioning, ‘How wellcan I tell someone else’s story?’ I should be asking myself, what am I arousing? Why does their story shimmer? What is my purpose here? And never stop emerging outside my body to critique my work and in that, redefine the meaning of writing culture. 

Often in my work, I am exploring tiny emotional shifts in people, flickers of empathy and microscopic feelings of change. So to intertwine this sensitivity that comes from thelyrical essay I have uncovered my own hidden language, one that is not consumed by the aestheticsof writing culture, but by sensitivities and even political sympathies. These newfound energies open thought around the truth and creativity at my control as the author. Through this course I have been given the opportunity to turn inward and write, for the first time, what I don’tknow. That gives my voice permission to expand, and assures that from this point onwards, the edges of my writing borders are continually extending.