Theoretical constructs

The

Theories I enjoy thinking through: Trinh T. Minh-Ha - No Master Territories

When writing for this proposal, what draws the conversation forward are to break down what Massey writes, the “power geometry,” the distinct relations to the flow and movements of different people. But a boundary is now a contested notion - it demarcates not only land, but also the centre and periphery, the inside and outside. The social production of space, is held by so many points that seem to require definition.

Instead of delineating every held point, or in this case, we can describe them as actors in an inter-relational network.

Trinh T Minh-ha suggests that identity is constructed out of difference - and this reinforces the structures of society such as classification of how culture is documenting and organised. That arts collectives themselves although seen as marginal to the institutional frameworks, offers a centre for many communities. By Minh-ha warning us of the act of boundary-making, in itself excludes

“The margin, our sites of survival, become our fighting grounds and their site for pilgrimage… to use margins as a starting point rather than an ending point is also to cross beyond it towards other affirmations and negations…The centre itself is marginal… How possible is it to undertake a process of decentralization without being made aware of the margins within the centre and the centre within the margin? (p215-216) ”

How do we begin to understand the process of dialectical discussion between the centre and margin, the inside and outside, as an action of post-colonial studies? In the case of collectives, how can we hold multiple centres and boundaries when unveiling their community-centric cultural production? Through their practice, the social production of space configures the multiple actors needed to even consider the construction of the physical form of space, let alone the meaning-making with the everyday processes that invigorate and activate the space.

In cities, the time-space compression ties spatial conditions to market forces. in this case, the market assigns values to spatial conditions, perhaps not explicitly interconnected, but ties distinctly to the forces of constructing and designing spaces for consumption. For arts collectives, they attempt to subvert such forces for a bigger piece of the pie of activating civil society. By pooling resources for forces otherwise, such as mutual aid, activating civic spaces that tend to affective architectures.

on a larger scale, the regional scale, the embodied experience of building a new post-colonial nation and selecting, discerning and naming cultural practices that should or shouldn’t represent the nation simply, but can account for the lived experiences. Cultural influences and community building, imaginary or not, (abindin kusno)

• thinking about the production of space as a way of reflecting cultural forces of identity building during a post-colonial moment

Government, Market and Civil society

We hold onto layers and sedimentary cultural understanding