Networks, Language, and Homogenization

Composing our exploratory for this week made me confront some of my own implicit assumptions about what networks are, and how they function. In my initial sketching of our network, I presented key concepts as hierarchical in nature, proceeding out of a top down understanding of how individuals (and individual terms) function in a larger society. But as we continued to draft our exploratory, I came to see that networks have the capacity to fundamentally destabilize hierarchies, to present an understanding of the world as far more rhizomatic. It reminds me of what Manuel Castells writes, when he refers to a network society as one “constructed around personal and organization networks powered by digital networks and communicated by the internet” (136). This network society creates a culture of autonomy, encouraging individuation on both personal and larger economic organizational levels. Our own networked map shows this to a certain degree—key concepts are represented in their own individual terms, linked by influences or textual elements. While our map shows the connections between the ideas of identity, representation, non-essentialism, and many more terms expressed in the readings, it also shows variation in the relationships between terms through the system of changing arrows.

But what our network doesn’t do as effectively is illustrate differences and gaps between the readings and terms. And because the majority of our connections are the same style of arrow, we can’t represent the differences between certain nodes. Our map moves outwards in many directions, but it lacks a certain depth or layering that the “real” relationships between the terms have. This reminds me of another conception (and critique) of networks: in Actor-Network Theory and After, John Law and John Hassard argue that actor network theory exists as a semiotics of materiality and so applies to the relationships of concepts to all materials, not simply language. Law and Hassard note that actor-network theory imposes a certain perspective on the character of these links and connections—one that homogenizes and limits them. It “wages war on essential differences” (Law and Hassard 7). We are reminded, as so many rhetors have argued, that language is not inherently neutral. While I’m no expert in actor network theory, the idea of war on “essential differences” seems similar to the challenge of globalization of rhetoric and composition to fight essentialism in our scholarship and pedagogy.

Arnold might agree with Law and Hassard’s assessment of language—she argues that “while languages inevitably carry with them the traces of their originating cultures, they are at the same time flexible enough to accommodate new ideas, values, and beliefs” (Arnold 286). Language has the ability to bend to accept new values, but also can act as a force for homogenization. Cooper notes this, writing “the integrity of the nation-state and cultural unity are often equated in arguments for the importance of a common or standard language, perhaps because threats to the nation inspire a more immediate reaction than threats to cultural unity” (Cooper 95). Maintaining a state with “unified” cultural identity often includes the privileging of one specific language over others, as many of our past readings have pointed out. Essentializing gives the mythical “nation-state” power—and this is just what Fatima has experienced in her daily life as a Muslim-American. She argues, “This more complex affective response guards against those who would attempt to essentialize our self into a singular identity, to rally for particular political purposes” (Fatima 354). I’m still wondering how we could truly represent the conflicts between these readings as well as the similarities through a network without eliding differences or assuming equal relationships between nodes. My other readings into networks suggest that they too have power—our representations of the world shape it to some degree.  And ultimately, we’re left to ponder Cooper’s claim: "Is our goal to enable students to write in their own voices or to instill in them common cultural values?" (Cooper 88) To what extent does language instruction facilitate the expression of difference, and to what extent does it encourage homogenization?

Castells, Manuel. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 

 1996. Print.

Law, John, and John Hassard, eds. Actor Network Theory and After. Oxford: Blackwell,  

1999. Print.