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- 16 Mapping

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BOX BETWEEN INTRO AND CHAPTER I (or include in intro)

Writing on intercultural art, looking for a satisfying verbal context in which to provide a vehicle for the visual self-naming process, I find myself caught in a web of ungainly, pompous, condescending, unsatisfying, even ugly language. The terminology in which an issue is expressed is indicative of the quality of the discourse, and the fact that there are no euphonious ways to describe the participants in the cross-cultural exchange taking place today reflects the deep social awkwardness underlying that exchange. Much has been tried and found wanting.

A vital, sensible, and imaginative vocabulary is only likely to emerge from the process of self-naming. Even then there is unlikely to be any consensus. Inevitably, there is division in the ranks because frustration, contradiction, and growth are the gears by which the continuing cross-cultural education grinds ahead. From the inside, artists get restless, beginning to feel imprisoned or ghettoized by the simplistic aspects even of self-imposed categories. ("Black Art" is so far the most examined example.) On the outside, after an initial period of surprise and dislike, the same categories begin to seem convenient places to keep the image of women, or black people, or Asian Americans. Yet the naming process must continue, if it is to mean anything deeper than internal or external name-calling.