Dear All: I thought the following article concerning construction & reconstruction of "knowledge" and imperialism might spark some discussion on the list. I also thought some of you might find it applicable to your research. Any thoughts on this? Apologies for its length, but I thought it was worth reproducing in its entirety. Stefanie Rixecker ECOFEM coorinadtor ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- > >here's an interesting article. as this cutting and pasting might be >annoying, you can find it at: >http://www.igc.apc.org/dissent/archive/winter97/nanda.html > > >_______________________________________________________________________________ >_ > The Science Wars in India > > Meera Nanda > >What do left intellectuals do when they know that they are too marginalized >to change the world? They get busy >interpreting the world, of course. And interpreting how we interpret the >world, and how the non-Western "Others" interpret >it, and how we interpret others' interpretations . . . and ad infinitum. The >interpretive turn allows the left to create in discourse >what it is unable to realize in the rough and tumble of real politics: a >world where all ideologies have been deconstructed, >revealed, and readied for overthrow; a world where all can live by their own >lights. The inverse relationship between an >explosion of high theory and a decline in political efficacy appears to be >as true today as it was when Perry Anderson first >observed it nearly two decades ago in his Considerations of Western Marxism. > >What follows here is an appeal by an "Other," in whose name many >contemporary left theorists justify their interpretive turn, >to think about how their epistemological egalitarianism affects the urgent >task of transforming oppressive social structures and >cultural values in non-Western societies. I will argue that the recent rise >in political and cultural visibility of the religious right >(the Bharatiya Janata party, or BJP, and its affiliates) in my native India >should give pause to all those academics in the West >and in the third world who describe the rationality of "Western" science >itself as a source of imperialism and racism. > >Hindu nationalists have heeded the call for "decolonizing" science, and >responded with aggressive propaganda for "Hindu >ways of knowing," which they present as the locally embedded alternative to >the alien and colonizing Western science. The >two examples of the right's "Hinduization" of science and politics that I >will discuss -- the introduction of Vedic mathematics in >public schools and the spread of "Vastu shastra" (ancient Indian material >science) -- do indeed meet the criteria of >decolonized science advocated by left theorists: both are opposed to >"Eurocentric Northern" ways of knowing; both are >"situated knowledges" of non-Western people. The question I want to pose in >the light of the BJP's victory is whether such >knowledge is a step forward for women, minorities, and the desperately poor >in non-Western societies. Does the project of >de-Westernizing science deserve the support of my fellow progressive >intellectuals? > >As a one-time biologist, science writer, and a partisan of >science-for-the-people movements in India and in the United States, >I have watched with increasing unease the transnational alliance that has >emerged around the idea that the rationality of >modern science encodes Western and imperialistic social-cultural values, and >is therefore inimical to the interests of >non-Western peoples. The alliance brings together some of the most >avant-garde scholars in U.S. universities with the >neopopulist, cultural-nationalist, "postcolonial" intellectuals from the >third world, most notably India. > >Indeed, the cluster of ideas that postmodernist intellectuals deploy to >deconstruct the supposedly Eurocentric assumptions of >modern science appears with high frequency in the discourse of Hindu >fundamentalist parties. The Hindu right has proclaimed >the twenty-first century a "Hindu century" on the theoretical grounds made >respectable by left critics of science. These >reverse Orientalists who glorify whatever the Western powers devalued are >walking through the door that the critics of >Orientalism opened for them. The tools that deconstruct also construct. > >Constructivist theories of science have cleared a discursive and political >space that the nationalistic right is only too eager to >move into. Indeed, the right could not have wished for a more fashionable >neighborhood to pitch its own tent in. Making the >content and rationality of science an epiphenomenon of the wider cultural >and social structures is no doubt useful for exposing >the play of power in supposedly objective accounts of the world. But when >science is joined to culture at the hip in the >constructivist fashion, it also opens the door to the so-called >"ethno-sciences" -- "Hindu science," "Islamic science," "third >world women's science" -- wherein scientific rationality is subordinated to >the "forms of life" of different communities. When >the existing social values are allowed to decide the validity of knowledge, >knowledge loses whatever power it has to critique >these often oppressive values. It is this deference to the existing "forms >of life" that makes the project of constructing different >ethno-sciences for different peoples so hospitable to all kinds of >conservative social forces. > >Thus, when the secular and mostly left-inclined critics claim -- in the >language and tone that Alan Sokal managed to feign so >convincingly in his Social Text hoax of last year -- that scientific facts >cannot be judged as objectively true or false, but only >from within the "regime of truth" established by social power, the religious >right reads in it a justification for its demand that the >validity of Hindu science be judged only on its "own terms." When the >academic critics argue that scientific rationality must be >subordinated to cultural instrumentalities, the religious right finds in it >an affirmation of its own cultural chauvinism. One cannot >avoid a shock of recognition when one reads, for instance, the BJP's recent >Humanistic Approach to Economic >Development, which insists that the cultural ethos of the Hindu Rashtra >(nation) must become "a light onto itself," and have >the final authority over what aspects of "foreign" science and technology >are admitted into schools and other institutions. >Hasn't one encountered similar appeals for integration of values and >politics in knowledge-seeking activities in more >academic, self-described "progressive" critiques of science? If the critics >see science as a dystopian, arrogant and "God's-eye >view of the world," supposedly transcending the material lives and beliefs >of people, the BJP is only too happy to offer a >supposedly humbler and more situated "Mother India's view of the world." If, >as the critics charge, the very logic of modern >science is a cultural expression of a Western "will to power," then the >Hindu nationalists justifiably consider it their patriotic >duty to resist modern science, and to replace it with ways of knowing >informed by the imagined Hindu values of holism, >communitarianism, and androgyny. Interestingly, the ruthlessness with which >the critics interrogate "Western" science is >matched in intensity only by their charity and solicitousness toward >non-Western, pre-scientific ways of knowing. > >I do not for a moment believe, and neither should I be read as claiming, >that the cultural critics of science knowingly speak >for the Hindu right. In fact, both from personal association and from their >written works, I know these critics to be motivated >by deeply egalitarian, radically democratic, and staunchly antiracist >sentiments. I know that they have no sympathy >whatsoever for the anti-Muslim and anti-Christian platform of the Hindu >right. But their personal politics and good intentions >are not the issue here. What is an issue is the unintended impact of their >theories on the lives of distant strangers. It is time the >left critics of science ask: why is it that the religious right in India >(and to a far more dangerous extent in Islamic countries) has >been able to appropriate the theoretical language and conclusions of their >intellectual labors? Isn't this appropriation reason >enough to rethink some of their basic assumptions regarding science as >social "all the way down"? > >What fuels the antipathy of science critics toward those who wish to defend >the traditional virtues of scientific realism, >including the idea that although not free from cultural biases, scientific >reasoning does incrementally lead to knowledge that >corresponds to the actual state of affairs in the world? There was a time, >not so long ago, when popularizing science was >considered a progressive cause, and science was seen as a weapon against >ancestral authority. (The flowering of a vigorous >people's science movement in India through the seventies and the eighties, >which openly advocated "Western" science for >social revolution, motivated me to give up a career in biotechnology and >become a science popularizer instead.) How has the >left become so alienated from the institutional practices of natural science >that it can find no use for them, in their present >form, for progressive politics? > >Limiting myself only to the recent battles in the "science wars," I believe >I have a rough diagnosis of the left's disenchantment >with science. The key word of my diagnosis is "empathy." As even a cursory >reading of their work will show, the left >academics who defend some variant of cultural relativism as "liberatory" >believe that claims of universality of modern science >prevent Westerners from fully empathizing with the moral and cognitive >logics of others. Andrew Ross, for instance, seems to >believe that supporting popular beliefs, say, in alternative medicine (his >example) is a sign of "democratization from below," >while those who demand that the popular beliefs be scientifically tested are >elitist. According to Ross, only when we attenuate >the claims of empirical rationality -- and recognize "different ways of >doing science, ways that downgrade methodology, >experiment, and manufacturing in favor of local environments, cultural >values, and principles of social justice" -- can we begin >to move toward true diversity of knowledge systems. > >Sandra Harding extends the empathy argument to non-Western "Others" when she >claims that modern science is an >"ethnoscience" of the West, with no more global purchase than any other >culturally specific, local knowledge system. Because >the West's ethnoscience has been molded on the twin templates of capitalist >greed and imperialist expansion, she believes that >it is "incapable of producing the kinds of knowledge needed for sustainable >human life under democratic conditions," >especially in societies with different natural and social orders. The need >to empathize with other cultures in a multicultural >world, Harding insists, requires that we give up the dream of a "one true >science," and begin to live with a "borderland >epistemology" -- an epistemology that "values the distinctive understandings >of nature that different cultures have resources to >generate." Knowers in different cultures can pick and choose sciences and >combine them in a "knowledge collage" that >serves whatever particular goal might be of interest to them at any given >time. Thus, in Harding's "borderlands," the >appropriation of modern science by other cultures can only be defended for >pragmatic or political reasons, not on >epistemological grounds. > >For Harding, as for many other advocates of multicultural science, the >impulse to empathize with non-Western "Others" >requires that knowledge systems not be rank-ordered in terms of better or >worse accounts of reality. They are "different" >accounts that different social orders produce in order to cope with their >culture- and language-bound perceptions of reality. >And yet, cultural critics of science continue to deny that they have erased >the line between science and nonscience. Such >denials are surprising, for it has been shown many times over that any >account of knowledge that makes the standards of >validity (for example, logic, experiment, and evidence) internal to a >culturally conditioned consensus cannot escape >epistemological and judgmental relativism. But constructionists simply >refuse to play ball with philosophers -- one more >symptom, I presume, of the skepticism toward all abstractions that has come >to define the post-all academy. > >No doubt this empathy with the long-oppressed Others is liberatory for >Western outsiders. But I contend that those insiders >whose interest in a fuller, freer life has long been frustrated by the >oppressive elements of local, "situated" knowledge -- >women, the "lower castes," and working people -- need a richer kind of >empathy that includes respect, but also critique; >love, but also anger. The oppressed Others do not need patronizing >affirmations of their ways of knowing, as much as they >need ways to challenge these ways of knowing. They do not need to be told >that modern science is no less of a cultural >narrative than their local knowledges, for they need the findings of modern >science, understood as transcultural truths, in >order to expose and challenge local knowledges. > >I submit that the moment the Indian left began to talk the language of >cultural constructionism, it lost the battle to the Hindu >nationalists. Those of us associated with the people's science movements of >the 1970s and the 1980s could use modern >scientific knowledge to contest the dominant, largely Hindu world views on >caste and women, precisely because we could >claim that the content of science was not Western in any substantive way, >and that it gave us a picture of the natural world >that was as true for us in India as it was for anyone living anywhere on >this planet. But when a small but highly influential >group of Indian intellectuals, borrowing heavily from Western critics of the >Enlightenment, began to argue that scientific >rationality itself is a colonial construct, the people's science movements >were left with no principled defense against >accusations that popularization of modern science means internal >colonization. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the old, bold >slogans of "science for social revolution" gave way to a parochial, almost >obsessive compulsion to search and destroy any >contaminating traces of the Western/colonial "episteme." Correspondingly, >the cosmopolitan vision of socialism and >secularism gave way to communitarian fantasies of Gandhian village republics >-- which sound much more egalitarian than they >have ever been in reality. > >In this context, is it any surprise at all that the Hindu nationalists have >been able to position themselves as the true defenders >of non-Western ways of knowing? Themselves leading the charge for >"decolonizing knowledge," what principled argument >could the alliance of left-leaning and neo-Gandhian critics of modern >science have offered when the Hindu fundamentalist >parties began to replace modern mathematics with so-called "Vedic >mathematics" in public schools? One of BJP's first acts >after coming to power in the state of Uttar Pradesh in 1992 was to make the >study of Vedic mathematics compulsory for high >school students. Explicitly stating an interest in "awakening national >pride" among students, the government-approved >textbooks replaced standard algebra and calculus with sixteen Sanskrit >verses proclaimed by their author, Jagadguru Swami >Shri Bharati Krishna Tirathji Maharaj, the high priest of Puri, to be of >Vedic origin. Prominent Indian mathematicians and >historians who have examined these verses believe that there is nothing >Vedic about them, and that the Jagadguru has tried to >pass off a set of clever formulas for quick computation as a piece of >ancient wisdom. But that has not stopped BJP and other >revivalist cultural movements in India from equating Jagadguru with >Ramanujan in their hagiographies of Indian knowledge >systems. > >The problem with introducing supposedly indigenous and ancient knowledge is >not that it is indigenous and ancient: there can, >of course, be instances of ancient lore that can help us see a contemporary >problem in a new light. The real issue is that the >supposed Vedic mathematics, as many progressive Indian mathematicians and >critics have argued, offers students mere tools >for computation in place of the allegedly "Western" algebraic equations of >which they are instances. In the name of national >pride, students are being deprived of conceptual tools that are crucial in >solving the real-world mathematical problems they >will encounter as scientists and engineers. > >Hinduization is not limited to mathematics alone. History curricula have >always been favorite targets of religious nationalists. >Under the growing influence of religious nationalists in the state and >central governments, the earlier emphases on secularism >is being reversed. New history textbooks celebrate all things Hindu >(including even the caste system), propagate the myth of >India as the original home of the "Aryan race," and deplore all >"foreigners," including the Muslims. The history of Indian >science and technology is not exempt. It is described as an unfolding of the >Hindu genius, although material accomplishments >(ancient technologies, for example) are emphasized over the penchant for >critical inquiry that exists in some Indian traditions. > >I have not come across any critique of Vedic mathematics from any of the >intellectuals who have been so vocal in their >criticism of "Western" science. The only opposition to the communalization >of education has come from scientists, >mathematicians, and other intellectuals associated with the people's science >movements. It is quite likely that when confronted >with the blatant nationalism driving such attempts, those who criticize >modern science as a "Western" implant often try to >distance themselves from the BJP's zeal for institutionalizing Vedic >knowledge. But the fact remains that the BJP is not doing >anything that those who see modern science as "inherently Western" have not >themselves clamored for in the past. A good >example is the well-known "Penang Declaration on Science and Technology" >signed by prominent proponents of >ethno-sciences in 1988. Among many other demands, the declaration calls for >a system of education that "appreciates the >value of indigenous scientific and technological culture. . . . the teaching >of science should never be divorced from the >value-system of the indigenous civilization. The students should also >develop a critical faculty so that they may judge the >cultural and ideological bias of western science and technology." (The >declaration is silent on the biases of indigenous >civilizations.) > >The BJP may be on the wrong side of the egalitarian ideals espoused by >science critics, but it is by no means on the wrong >side of their constructivist logic. The irony is that the largely academic >critics who offer sophisticated theoretical justifications >for indigenous sciences have the material resources and the opportunities to >escape being grounded in them. Vedic >mathematics and other projects for Hinduization of education does not >personally affect most of the academic critics of >science, for their own children hardly ever attend the state-run schools >that cater to the poor or the BJP-run schools that >cater to small businesses. Those who are most ardent about locally situated >knowledges are the least embedded locally: most >of them have one foot in the transnational academic world to which they >regularly escape. > >Another illustration of the co-option of the left's advocacy for indigenous >knowledges by the powers-that-be is the recent >craze for Vastu Shastra, the Sanskrit name for the ancient Vedic rules that >govern the construction of sacred buildings on the >basis of the "auspiciousness" of space. If the practice of this Hindu >science were limited to the nouveau riche in Delhi and >Bombay, who build their houses to maximize the "positive energy" that comes >with spatial correctness, one could ignore it. >But last June we witnessed how cultural ideas can play a role in politics. >N. T. Rama Rao, the late chief minister of the >southern state of Andhra Pradesh, sought the help of a traditional Vastu >Shastri to help him out of some political rough >weather, and was told that his troubles would vanish if he entered his >office from an east-facing gate. But on the east side of >his office there was a slum through which his car could not pass. The chief >minister ordered the slum to be demolished. > >If the Indian left were as active in the people's science movement as it >used to be, it would have led an agitation not only >against the demolition of people's homes, but also against the superstition >that was used to justify it. In a case like this, >modern science and social justice were clearly pulling in the same >direction, and the left could easily have made the pure >irrationality of Vastu Shastra an opportunity for consciousness raising. A >left movement that was not so busy establishing >"respect" for non-Western knowledge would never have allowed the >power-wielders to hide behind indigenous "experts." > >I tried out this case on my social constructionist friends here in the >United States. Although they see the injustice of the >situation, they do not see why I am so exercised about the irrationality >that led to it. We have our superstitions in the West, >they tell me. Did not Nancy Reagan consult astrologers? As for my suggestion >that if we want justice, we must challenge the >irrationality of ideas that lead to injustice, I am told that there is no >need for proving that Vastu Shastra is wrong and modern >science correct. I am told that seeing the two culturally bound descriptions >of space at par with each other is progressive in >itself, for then neither can claim to know the absolute truth, and thus >tradition will lose its hold on people's mind. I am told that >this desire to prove that traditional knowledge is an incorrect >representation of nature is a sign of a scientistic mind-set, a >hangover from my training in biology that I must overcome if I do not want >to re-engineer the society of my birth on >technocratic lines. Finally, I am told that I am an incorrigible modernist >if I believe that Western science has any >democracy-enhancing potential in my part of the world. > >After all this, I should hardly be surprised when I hear my position labeled >as that of the "antidemocratic right," as it often is >within the radical circles of science critics. I plead guilty to believing >that modern science is not something to be deconstructed >and overcome. It must have an active role in progressive politics. The >alternative is staring us all in the face. It is called >religious fundamentalism, and it is not pretty. > > Meera Nanda has worked as a science writer in India and the >United States. > ************************************ Dr. Stefanie S. Rixecker Division of Environmental Management & Design Lincoln University, Canterbury PO Box 56 Aotearoa New Zealand E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fax: 64-03-325-3841 ************************************
