Place, Community, & Identity

     This week’s readings intertwined the themes of place, community, and identity that I didn’t quite expect. In Massey’s “Global Sense of Place,” she breaks down what it even means to use the word “place” and treats it as an active process that practically possesses a life of its own. She asks, “Is it not possible for a sense of place to be progressive; not self-closing and defensive, but outward-looking?”(1). Massey ultimately concludes that this is not quite possible, especially since the time-space compression of movement and communication is largely controlled by the West. This is significant because Massey acknowledges that capital influences the decisions of time-space compression, but then asks about race and gender. Here, Ulysse would argue that race and gender are their own forms of capital that individuals possess and utilize (or are unable to utilize) for the purpose of social movement.

            Here, of course, we are not talk about just individuals, but specifically non-white, Third World women laborers, and even more specifically, ICI’s in Jamaica. “After all, women’s labor has always been central to the development, consolidation, and reproduction of capitalism in the United States and elsewhere" (Mohanty 146). This reproduction of capitalism in the “elsewhere” of Jamaica, Ulysse argues, results in these women being both invisible yet highly visible, and although their movement along the race and class continuums change according to their physical location, their social and political positioning stays the same. For example, her visible status as a traveling ICI subjects her to stereotypes and scapegoating, thus rendering her invisible both as a black woman and a business woman. As a result of her physical visibility, she is required to register as an ICI and pay duties on the goods that she brings back to Jamaica, yet this policy does nothing to help her, thus marking invisibility yet again. The ironies of the ICIs’ (in)visibility continually plague her existence. Massey points to this when discussing the effects of time-space compression: “…some [social groups] are effectively imprisoned by it [power and mobility]” (3). It is apparent that the ability to physically move does not signify complete agency over one’s societal perception and personal and/or business dealings, so perhaps there needs to be a redefinition of “social mobility” in reference to its current use.

            From these discussions of places and identities, there emerged questions about community. Massey asks if community can really exists and ultimately says no because places and people are too dynamic. Contrastly, Mohanty asserts that building community is “a form of survival” (163). Whether or not community actually exists or seems to exist, the question for me becomes is it necessary? With respect to ICI’s specifically, they exist both within and without the bounds of raced, classed, and gendered identities. They consistently move between positive and negative ideological notions of their profession depending on their physical location, and considering all of their hardship and obstacles, they remain fiercely independent; they exert tuffness, do not sell to personal friends or family for fear of ruining relationships, travel alone, and build a surface-level community with their customers so that they will keep buying from them. They are outspoken, loud, and very intelligent, so perhaps I am asking myself again, is community necessary? Ulysse herself knows that out-of-placeness can result in loneliness, for she is both “regional native and local outsider” (113). Perhaps Ulysse addresses this in chapter six, which I have not finished yet, but for the most part, it seems that in this manner, ICI’s experience the utmost version of duality: they exist as a monolithic, collective whole (hundreds vending in one area, one stereotype “true” for all in customs, etc.) yet remain fiercely individualistic, vending so that they can have a better life for themselves and their families only. Monhanty's solution to this would be to organize and revolt, but the risks involved in this might be too great for the ICI's. Does the perception of social mobility, then, marr the reality of one's ability to make longlasting change? This is not to suggest that ICI's are not aware of their oppression as a group, but perhaps they do not want to risk asking or demanding for much more if they feel they are fortunate to be able to do what they do.