Cultural Identity-Explosives

Technologies of the Self

Weekly Blog-12

11.8.11

Pat Bc

There is so much in each of the articles I too am grasping new insights not only into others but within self. The voice of the other takes many turns throughout history and is framed by many aspects of society, quite noticeably neoliberalism and politicized multiculturalism (Comaroff, 2009).   Could it be that Tucson Meet Yourself is just such a venture that serves both as an economic enterprise and celebration of cultural identity?   It is ironic that the visitors come to view ethnic groups through the commodification of the self and not just as individuals within society.  For example, the foods prepared by different collectives embody  technology of the self (Goldstein, Foucault’s Technologies of the Self and the Cultural History of Identity, 1998) yet in many ways these parts of the self are still marginalized through race (Cheng, The Melancholy of Race:  Psychoanalysis, Assimilation and Hidden Grief, 2001).  The foods are acceptable at this time within this space due to the process of assimilation which disguises the aspect of colorblindness commodified within the boundaries of the festival.

As an other sometimes you become so conditioned to colorblindness developed through laws and policies that neutralize race that it lulls you into a false consciousness about white privilege and preference (Cheng, The Melancholy of Race: Psychoanalysis, Assimilation and Hidden Grief, 2001). Thus the festival while a celebration serves to acknowledge those technologies that call out their existence through their cultural identity (Comaroff and Comaroff, Ethnicity, Inc. 2009) as embodiment of self in arts and crafts made acceptable through time due to neoliberalism shaped by the new political definition of multiculturalism.