Words can break bones

(among other things)

While I have read, interacted with and reflected on many different intriguing ideologies and alternative perspectives so far during my time in Peru (like basically 24 hours if we’re being real) I want to chat a bit about Rama’s thinking on the written word versus spoken in “The Lettered City.” Specifically, I want to talk about the legitimization/delegitimization of what counts as valid, orderly or rational with language in this colonial Latin American context.

Language is critical when it comes to creating and maintaining social hierarchies. Rama explores this idea in the context of creating “order” in a physical reality by first constructing imaginings of this order. Legitimizing colonial ideology is strongly linked to language because there needs to be a breaking down of the “before” in order to achieve the “after.” In this context, social order is maintained by simultaneously legitimizing the hierarchy to build and reimagine the functioning of the city within the context of order and delegitimizing previous ideas by framing them as “precarious and uncertain” (6). In an Indigenous context, this might look like the current powers not recognizing the value of oral history which starts to mould past, present and future understandings of identity. Stripping identity through language is a common practice in cultural genocide and colonization. In a very real way language holds the power necessary to rewrite the world.

The idea of permanence being the written word is not only relatively new but deeply European/Western. Many societies and cultures were able to thrive by passing along their knowledge in oral storytelling traditions. Capitalistic cultures have come to value materialistic representations (on a hypocritical self-call out I looooove a physical book) but that does not make the written word any more valuable or real compared to oral imaginings. There was no previous blank slate that written words suddenly sprung out of. There was a rewrite with blacked-out pages and willfully misunderstood sentiments that ultimately translates to erasure and stolen power. That is violence.

On a personal note, I’m very conscious of how words frame understandings in a historical context. From my time working at a museum I was educated extensively on how my interpretation of history would have a real-life effect on the visitors I passed it on to. My choice of how to frame certain events or what context I gave in my tours had tangible impacts on how those people would move through and understand events like the Residential Schools in Canada. One example of this is how museum educators spoke about artifacts. My museum made a point that all Indingous pieces on display within the space were Belongings versus artifacts. The word Belonging really emphasizes the living cultural identity of our Indigenous people. These were not relics of the past, but continuations of a very much alive culture.

So let’s go back to Rama. The power of language in this context is enough to tear down entire groups of people because it works in a way that establishes an “other.” To make an argument against the established authority created by language is to make an argument that is logic versus precariousness at best, illogical or uneducated at worst. The delegitimization is insidious, hidden in language, but the violence remains intact.

I am curious about the idea of concept of an epistemological break in this sort of colonial practice the context of somewhere like Lima. As in obviously now there is deconstruction of different colonial processes that lead to the current “reality” and questioning that went on but what was the catalyst for that and how did it come about?

Anyways, in other news colonialism still astounds me with its layers. Plus Foucalt was mentioned in this reading and that man haunts me so I’m sure I’ll be thinking on this for years to come.

In need of rest (mentally, spiritually, physically),

Orla