Agency, Representation, Space, and Tactics and Strategies in Relation to "The Writer"

In Jane Juffer's Single Mother and Naomi Klein's No Logo, both authors portray, explain, deconstruct and expose, in their respective fields of interest (single mothers for Juffer; brands, logos, and marketing for Klein), agency, representation, space, neoliberalism, and tactics and strategies. But what do these themes mean in relation to us as writers and/or English majors?

Agency is the power or operation of action: the ability to do something.  A writer is someone who has agency to represent those who cannot represent or advocate for themselves, such as single mothers who do not have the space, the time, or the energy. And such as 15 year old girls working in factories along the U.S.-Mexico border where they are too young, uneducated, and poor to quit their jobs and so they suffer the abuse and long hours for little pay in order to survive. Writers have the ability to write and use language in order to make our point understood in the most clear and succinct way possible, or to be verbose in order to "show our intellect," or to be creative and to set a tone and pace that fits our agenda. As writers who are able to be published in scholarly outlets, we also have agency due to "credibility" and "authority" in our field of study or research. The point of agency is not just to have all of this ability, we need to take action and do something about it! Klein is a great example of this as she is a journalist and uses her agency to write books such as No Logo that deconstruct a system in society that a lot of people are not aware of or don't care about because they don't realize its agency and what the effects are.

Representation often produces and reinforces complicated and hegemonic stereotypes which can either empower or dis-empower certain people or groups. This often becomes a tricky problem for English majors and writers because while we are deconstructing representations of people and groups in many different types of spaces and communities, thereby becoming knowledgeable and credible on these topics, we are often dis-empowered by the public sphere because we are represented as idealists, flowery poets, experts in the humanities but novice or impractical about our expectations and ideas for the "real" world. So while we may be represented as smart, we are often looked at by other departments or majors as "useless." While we all know this is highly false and kind of stupid, it does sadly affect our power of agency, especially in the public sphere and government. Especially when the representation of fictional writing and films scripting is determined as "Oh, it's not a big deal, it is only entertainment." Wow.  This literature is not just entertainment, it can have and has had HUGE affects on cultural work and changing society(i.e. Uncle Tom's Cabin--Challenged Slavery, The Scarlet Letter--Promoted Feminism (at least in opposition to The Coquette), The Godfather--Thin line between right and wrong, 1984-Exposes totalitarian regimes....and the list goes on indefinitely.)

Space is something that I have briefly mentioned already in this post because in many ways it relates to all of my other topics. It makes sense that events in our lives and our agency is very dependent on spaces; spaces we inhabit, work, study, play, think, etc.... For us in the university, we have a space in which we can freely discuss and challenge "the outside" world, politics, government policies, social norms, representation, and so much more. This physical space opens up a metaphorical "safe" space to do all of this. Also, journalists have the work space in order to research and write. But for those who work, have children, socialize casually but do not have a space, such as the university, to openly discuss and challenge the constructs of society around them. How can they challenge their government if they don't have a space to meet with others, nor the energy and time to put into it? They can't because they need to keep their jobs and their livelihood. How can they challenge their employer, who used factories overseas to eliminate the cost of production labor? They can't or they will be canned. Although they may disagree with certain things, it would be irrational for them to put that before their livelihood, especially if they have others to care for. Juffer does a great job of exposing this for single mothers, who need to be concerned with the well-being of their child in addition to themselves. We've also discussed space as it involves the government, public, and private spheres. The public sphere is supposed to be the connection between the other two spheres, but there is always a great division between what is real and what is ideal in all of these. This lack of communication between them causes definite problems for those not adhering to the Nuclear family (i.e.The Golden Girls), especially those of us who are able to see the benefits and practicality of alterity to the nuclear family in many circumstances.They use legal structures such as tax cuts and health-care laws to promote marriage and having children. By promoting this, they are in many ways illegitimizing any other sort family or familial-type support center. So even though this could be workable and beneficial to many different people, including those of us (English majors) who can recognize it, most of us will still get married because of the market incentives to do so and the "rational"-ness of it. (Not saying that the Nuclear family isn't what might work best for some people, but it excludes the needs of a great portion of the population).

Tactics and Strategies sometimes seem to mean the same thing, but they are actually different. Tactics are ways in which a writer can respond to and operate within the spaces that they are given to create, but also those that limit them. In literature we can layout the problem, expose it, deconstruct it, pose solutions and alternatives, much like Juffer does in the case of representations, space, and agency of single mothers. She also does this by demonstrating, in her example of the Puerto Rican mothers, the effectiveness of forming networks and groups for help. They are finding a way to work within the system. Strategies are different from tactics in that they actually reorganize space rather than just responding within it, like Naomi Klein's example of re-organized sweatshops "taken" from the bosses by the workers. With strategies you don't only pose an alternative, but you create one that no longer works within the system. In relation to literature I think that writers are able to be strategic and tactical by not only writing their ideas down but using their agency and putting them into ACTION.