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The wolf masks of the Nootka Wolf ritual : a statement on transformation

University of British Columbia

The thesis is an exploration and a critique of the reproduction problematic. The first section explores how three authors --Louis Althusser, Wally Seccombe, and Angela Miles, have constructed epistemologies of production and reproduction. Each author's location of reproduction of the relations of production and reproduction of labour power in base or superstructure, Family or State is explicated and discussed, and the relationship between Family and State suggested by each author is critically explored. In the second section of the paper I argue for a return to Marx's epistemology of production and reproduction-- that reproduction is always concrete production seen in continuous process. The question of what constitutes production in Marxist theory is raised and the works of Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson are explored as alternate and more viable approaches to the problem. The position is advanced that the totality of social production and the totality of social relations must be included in analysis of Capitalist social formations. The final three sections explore some of the problems cf conceptualizing the Family, the State, and the relationship between them, with particular emphasis on their respective roles in reproducing labour power and the relations of production. Two major points of discussion are: 1) that the reproduction of labour power cannot be said to be the link between women's work, and consequently their oppression, in the home and in the State. That link must be found in historically specific processes and relations, rather than in the product (labour power) of the labour process; and 2) the reproduction of the relations of production cannot be assigned to any one 'sphere' of society, such as The Family, The State, or The Superstructure, nor can it be considered either wholey or mostly a matter of ideology. It must be seen as organized practice, which derives from attempts of ruling classes to incorporate and nullify challenges to their domination.

Text

2010-03-17

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/21970

Political Science

University of British Columbia

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