• Grant (1997)

    Date: 2009.10.20 | Category: Study Reflections, Unit SSK12 | Tags: ,,,

    Reflection (Do not use for the Learning Log)
    Unit: SSK12
    Week: 7 (in Week 8.)
    Date: 20 October 2009

    Grant’s essay Disciplining Students: the construction of student subjectivities is one of ambiguities. I quite enjoyed it, if not purely for the skilful use of these two words that Koral has called out, which bear double meanings, then definitely for the extensive referencing of Michel Foucault. I’ve always been fascinated by Foucault, his understanding of power and how it forms our understanding of self.

    Hobbsy gives a fine definition of ‘discipline’ in her post. I don’t believe I need to add anything to it other than to mention that Grant refers to the double meaning of discipline herself, when she writes, “In the concept ‘discipline’, there is yet another interesting ambiguity in that it both refers to the distinct forms of knowledge as we conceive them and to the action of bringing about obedience”.

    The other word Grant uses that is loaded with ambiguity is of course, subject. The philosophical sense of subject according to The Australian Oxford Dictionary is one of “a thinking or feeling entity; the conscious mind; the ego…” as well as the one that is poignant to Grant’s paper; “a person owing obedience to another”, by which she means a student who is subject to the authority of the university.

    At the risk of being the class prat, I would like to suggest that –ivity is actually the combination of two suffixes: -ive and –ity. As Hobbsy points out, the suffix –ive forms adjectives expressing meanings of “tending to, or having the nature of”, for example, subject becomes subjective and therefore shifts from being “a thinking or feeling entity” to (in a philosophical sense) something “proceeding from or belonging to the individual consciousness”. While the suffix –ity forms nouns “denoting: …quality or condition”. Subjective becomes subjectivity, and again, its meaning shifts from the one stated above to “a condition of being subjective”. This might seem like semantics (well actually it is ;)), but I believe that it is important to make the distinction in order to answer Hobbsy’s question.

    Hobbsy asks, “Why didn’t Grant just use subject?” It’s an excellent question because it also helps us understand Foucault’s worldview. My answer is: although the two words are nouns they are in fact different and therefore bear different meanings. Within the context of this paper, subject means “a thinking or felling entity” (i.e. the student) that is also subjected to, “the technologies of domination, which originate in the [university], and those of the self”. On the other hand, subjectivity means “a condition of being subjective”. I’d rather put it like this: subjectivity is the perception a subject has of the world. Foucault proposes that subjectivity is a product of power. Grant, using references to Foucault, wants to illustrate that the students’ perception of themselves is formed by their subjectedness to the power relations found in the university. This I believe is the construction of student subjectivities.