Conclusions
Moving onto the structural side of this experiment requires some background information as to the significance of the more abstract and implicit elements of using Scalar. As mentioned on the Scalar page, Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray both provided essential theory in the construction of the research narrative. To understand the obsessive nature of this project in deconstructing phallogocentric discourse, we turn first to Cixous who explains the historic oppression of phallogocentrism, stating, “Western philosophy after Plato was centered around the…search for a fundamental Truth or Logos. Derrida calls this search ‘logocentrism’…logocentric structures were organized through a series of binary oppositions (mind/matter, light/darkness, presence/absence…etc.), the first term of each being desirable and the other shunned” (Cixous 1939-1940). This term is then joined with phallocentrism, that is, a “description of sexual difference as a difference between having and lacking the phallus” (Cixous 1940), creating the portmanteau of phallogocentrism. Within the binaries of this discursive structure which privileged the logical and masculine, methods of understanding and communicating in alternative forms–such as the emotional or feminine–were either silenced, discredited, or dismissed. As a result, women have had to modify their ontologies, adhering to the tenets of discursive structures which Other them, in order to have their voices be legitimized.
Irigaray builds upon this notion, stating that “women’s social inferiority is reinforced and complicated by the fact that woman does not have access to language, except through recourse to ‘masculine’ systems of representation which disappropriate her from her relation to herself and to other women” (Irigaray 85). One such system can be found in the doctrine of research writing itself, the linear, logical format, and the objective voice necessary for qualified academic or scientific writing. And yet, for woman to “write and thus to forge for herself the antilogos weapon. To become at will, the taker and initiator, for her own right, in every symbolic system, in every political process” (Cixous 1947), Irigaray entreats the “need to proceed in such a way that linear reading is no longer possible” (Irigaray 80). Using Freudian theory to differentiate between the structural communication of men and women, Irigaray notes that the style and writing of women “tends to put the torch to…well-constructed forms. This ‘style’ does not privilege sight; instead, it takes each figure back to its source, which is among other things tactile. It comes back in touch with itself in that origin” (Irigaray 79).
My use of Scalar then, has attempted to live-out these discursive desires on multiple levels. One such example is the format in which the information is presented–the nested pages embedded with connections and held together by the central “homepage” which may be accessed at any time. Secondly is the subjective voice I have used in presenting my research. I have refused to speak as if the work I am presenting was made without a human element. My self and body are embedded in my work, regardless of the digital medium being used. Posthumanist N. Katherine Hayles “warns against dematerialized definitions of information and corporeality, which she condemns as ill-advised philosophical extensions of the Cartesian separation of mind and body” (Hayles 2162). To defy the aforementioned binary as well as that of human and machine, articulating connection between the opposing elements, I have ensured that my readership is well aware that “Information, like humanity, cannot exist apart from the embodiment that brings it into being as a material entity in the world; and embodiment is always instantiated, local, and specific” (Hayles 2187).
Tanya Clement relates these theoretical issues to Scalar explicitly stating that we “often use data visualization…without explicit statements about how the use of these technologies might impact larger theoretical concerns. Scalar for example, was designed as a publishing platform for making multimedia scholarship more accessible, allowing for textual and audiovisual materials to be read in nonlinear sequence” (Clement 163). Clement goes on to say that “Digital humanists must articulate these methods to ourselves and to others, because to do so is to understand where we can build bridges across diverse discourse communities, where we can learn from each other” (Clement 166). Therefore, the inclusion of both methodology and theoretical background has been essential in the presentation of my research, and has, hopefully, succeeded in changing the “narrative functionality” (Hayles 2186) involved in discussing feminist research, aiding in the production in “a new kind of reader” (Hayles 2186). I hope this project has instilled in you, dear reader, a mindfulness in tackling any research with the enticing tools of the digital age. I hope it has provoked you to question: “who is [my] work for? If [I am building worlds] by extracting and reassembling bits of what [I] know, then whose world [am I] building?” (Posner 38-39).
It is important to deconstruct narrative forms so we may develop a better understanding of how structures oppress or privilege certain voices or epistemologies. In doing so, I am hoping we can continue to develop a polyphonic narrative where all voices and perspectives can be understood as equal in value. With any luck, the narrative possibilities provided by digital tools in scholarship can continue to realize the reassurances Irigaray first shared with us decades ago: “Don’t cry. One day we’ll manage to say ourselves. And what we say will be even lovelier than our tears. Wholly fluent” (Irigaray 216).