By Gary Kinsman
I did my graduate work at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) in Toronto. There were many influences on me there including Mary O’Brien, Ruth Roach Peason, and especially Dorothy E. Smith, George Smith and Philip Corrigan. These were exciting times for students and activism at OISE and in Toronto and in bridging the divides between activism/organizing and the university world. For me it was bridging the divide between Gay Liberation Against the Right Everywhere (GLARE), and the Right to Privacy Committee (RTPC) in which I was actively involved outside the university and figuring out how to produce knowledge for social movements and for transforming the world. Key to this for much of the 1980s in my life was the passion and dynamism of Philip Corrigan (the author with Derek Sayer of The Great Arch: English State Formation as Cultural Revolution) and so much more! Earlier today former students and colleagues of Philip got together at a pub/restaurant in Bristol, England, and through a zoom call for people on Turtle Island and Europe. Below are some remarks I prepared for the event in tribute to Philip’s influences on me.
1) First memory: At the very beginning of his successful job talk for the position in Sociology at OISE in the early 80s he declared — “I am one of the last unreconstructed Maoists in the world.” One might not think this would be the start of a brilliant talk about social forms, human capacities and cultural revolution but it certainly was!
2). Second memory: Intersecting with other developments among students and activism in Toronto Philip facilitated a mini-cultural revolution from below at OISE while he was there from 1983-1989. This included the large 1850-1950 historical sociology group; his courses and emphasis on cultural production which got me studying gay porn as cultural production; his course critically interrogating masculinities, including Philip’s own masculine formations, and courses on state formation. For many of his students we were pushing at the boundaries of what was possible, and even though I am not a Maoist it was a bit like “dare to struggle, dare to win!” and “bombard the HQs!”
Learnings that I continue to carry with me in my activism, practice and writing include most importantly not reifying “the state” but instead talking/writing/thinking about state formation or state relations in which social forms, people’s doings and human capacities became visible. The learnings also included
- An emphasis on social forms, on the social as not natural or ahistorical but instead on opening up the taken-for-granted for critical social and historical interrogation.
- On identity and what would become identity politics. In taking apart identity we needed to start with the interrogation of identities/figures in dominance/hegemony like Canadianness, whiteness, masculinities, heterosexualites, cis-genderness, ableism, and more. This is still not done by the mainstream left today so instead they focus on undermining the ability of oppressed peoples to name their/our own experiences and struggles.
- There was a constant capitalist cultural revolutions from above and we needed to open up the terrain of how to meet this with cultural revolutions from below.
- As already hinted at we needed to challenge the state social form – we needed a revolution against state formation/relations themselves and not to get trapped within state relations.
All, of these insights/learnings shaped my perspectives and practice from the 1980s until now.
Thanks Philip!!!!