Well you got me there! There's no way I can think straight with this damned AC blasting away in the background. Serves me right for living in Mumbai with its 40+ degree summers. Back in Scotland we don't have AC - maybe I should have waited until moving back to write this.
Perhaps I would have been more coherent.
(If it helps, I can also demonstrate that this canon includes some non-AC perspectives, like this wonderful piece of research by Sabah Mahmood on Islamic feminism https://www.jstor.org/stable/24497360)
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My argument approaches the discussion from an anthropological angle, particularly the critical study of scientific discourse.
It’s about what science does, not about what it says. I have no issue with the scientific method - but we must be critical of the minglings between empirical ideas and social function.
With a few exceptions, the research I cited was ethnographic, a well-developed research methodology. Moreover, the nature/culture debate has long existed in the canon, and feminist epistemology has had a massive impact on how we think about knowledge production today.
Using my example of time, I'm not questioning whether or not it's accurate to represent it as a linear path. Rather, I am arguing that the naturalisation of its natureculture serves as the justification for arbitrary power imbalances.
Empirically speaking, the argument is sound.
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Addressing the racial point, see my arguments about what constitutes a natureculture. Sure, there are physical differences we use to demarcate race - but grouping them heuristically and assigning racial categories is not at all a privileged perspective. Thus, I reiterate, racism is generative of race.
If you would like, I can cite other studies to back this up.
Empire (with a capital E!) in the contemporary sense refers to the persistence of European and American dominance over world order. We take care to demarcate this from other empires of old exactly because we see its systems replicated in the current world order. The systems of capital flow and global ideological subjugation that are characteristic of Empire form the building blocks of today's world.
I doubt it will do much to change your mind, but here are two of the many examples of Empire at play in the contemporary world:
- https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/structural-adjustment.asp
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/23019518
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Your last sentence made me chuckle! I can't really engage with a glib statement about 'physical reality' without retyping my entire argument!
