Woman, Native, Other

Trinh T. Minh-ha is a writer, filmaker, and composer. Her works include the books: The Digital Film Event Cinema Interval; Drawn from African Dwellings (in coll. with Jean-Paul Bourdier); Framer Framed; When the Moon Waxes Red. Representation, gender and cultural politics; Out There: Marginalisation in Contemporary Culture (editor with Cornel West, R. Ferguson & M. Gever.); En minuscules (book of poems); African Spaces - Designs for Living in Upper Volta (in coll. with Jean-Paul Bourdier)); En art sans oeuvre, International Book Publishers, Inc

• The Story Began Long Ago.....I. Commitment from the Mirror-Writing BoxThe triple bindSilence in timeRites of passageThe GuiltFreedom and the massesFor the people, by the people, and from the peopleVertically imposed language: on clarity, craftsmanship, and She who steals languageA sketched window on the worldThe infinite play of empty mirrorsWriting womanII. The Language of Nativism: Anthropology as a Scientific Conversation of Man with ManThe reign of worn codesThe positivist dream: We, the natives; They, the nativesA Western Science of manA Myth of mythologyWhat "man" and which "man"?Gossip and science: a conversation on what I love according to truthNativist interpretationSee them as they see each otherIII. Difference: "A Special Third World Women Issue"The Policy of "separate development"The Sense of specialnessThe question of roots and authenticityInfinite Layer: I am not i can be you and meThe female identity enclosureThird World?"Woman" and the subtle power of linguistic exclusionSubject-in-the-makingEthnicity or womanhood: whose duality?The Gender controversyIV. Grandma's StoryTruth and fact: story and historyKeepers and transmittersStorytelling in the "civilized" contextA regenerating forceAt once "black" and "white" magicThe woman warrior: she who breaks open the spellA cure and a protection from illness"Tell it the way they tell it""The story must be told. There must not be any lie"NotesSelected BibliographyIndex

" ... methodologically innovative ... precise and perceptive and conscious ... " Text and Performance Quarterly "Woman, Native, Other is located at the juncture of a number of different fields and disciplines, and it genuinely succeeds in pushing the boundaries of these disciplines further. It is one of the very few theoretical attempts to grapple with the writings of women of color." Chandra Talpade Mohanty "The idea of Trinh T. Minh-ha is as powerful as her films ... formidable ..." Village Voice " ... its very forms invite the reader to participate in the effort to understand how language structures lived possibilities." Artpaper "Highly recommended for anyone struggling to understand voices and experiences of those 'we' label 'other'." Religious Studies Review