From: Peggy Rader <rader004>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 13:36:28 -0600

Angelica Carpenter wrote:

*To restrict writing about a culture to people who can visit it long enough to feel knowledgeable there is to restrict it to the very rich--not a good idea, in my opinion.*

It seems to me that the primary voices of a culture ideally emerge from those indigenous to that culture, not those who visit, regardless of their income. That is not to say that visitors of any stripe should be
*restricted* from writing about the culture, but that talking about restrictions seems strange to me in this context. Who is being restricted? Certainly not those of us from the dominant culture.

I would assume that most of those people who live for an extended time period in a culture not their own are not there as wealthy visitors but go there to live and work. No one is restricted by income from making such a choice.

In these discussions that pop up, especially in the world of children's literature, about who has the *right* or the *authentic knowledge* to write about cultures not their own I have yet to hear or read remarks that suggest that anyone be literally restricted from writing such works. Rather the discussion seems to center on how much such writing can be trusted to truly reflect indigenous experience and feelings. And I think that is always going to be a matter of strong opinion and debate. My personal preference is to read books written by authors from their own cultural background. But I would never argue that any writer be restricted from taking on any topic she chose.


P. J. Rader
Received on Tue 30 Jan 2001 01:36:28 PM CST