Diversity in Dialectics: A Methodological Quest for En-gendering Security
| Published date | 01 August 2017 |
| Date | 01 August 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/2347797017710572 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Diversity in Dialectics:
A Methodological Quest
for En-gendering Security
Imtiaz Ahmed1
Abstract
En-gendering security is as much a political exercise as it is a methodologi-
cal one. An earlier paper (Ahmed, 1995) flagged the limits of positivism in
understanding woman’s state of insecurity in a world informed and dictated
by masculinity or what could be referred to as the purush jat. The critique
was done by taking recourse to dialectics, of a kind that had its roots in the
works of Hegel and Marx. However, after two decades, I see the limits of
the effort, particularly when it comes to addressing the dialectic of gender
relationship and the disempowered status of women in South Asia. This is not
because Western dialectical method is at fault (which surely has a tendency of
harbouring determinism) or because the utopias put forward by the Hegelians
and the Marxists, although qualitatively different in nature, have foundered and
transformed into living dystopias, but more because of a serious appreciation
of the diversity in dialectics, including the contributions of the Chinese and
Indian dialectics over the centuries. Put differently, approaching woman’s state
of insecurity from the standpoint of yin-yang relationship and/or prasangika
can make a far more meaningful contribution to the task of demystifying
masculinity and ensuring women’s rights. En-gendering security in South Asia
otherwise requires not only reimagining dialectics in the light of its diversity
but also making the methodological quest local, indeed, related to the lived
experience of the South Asians.
Keywords
Gender, Security, South Asia, Chinese dialectics, Indian dialectics, Western dialectics
Article
1 Professor of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Executive
Director, Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Corresponding author:
Imtiaz Ahmed, Professor of International Relations, Department of International Relations, University
of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
E-mail: imtiazalter@gmail.com
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
4(2) 158–174
2017 SAGE Publications India
Private Limited
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/2347797017710572
http://aia.sagepub.com
Ahmed 159
Introduction
En-gendering security is as much a political exercise as it is a methodological one.
Some two decades back I wrote a paper on feminist methodology with a subtitle:
‘Can Mohilas Speak?’ (Ahmed, 1995).1 Apart from re-addressing Gayatri Spivak’s
earlier query (‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’; Nelson & Grossberg, 1988), the paper
flagged the limits of positivism in understanding woman’s state of insecurity in a
world informed and dictated by masculinity or what could be referred to as the purush
jat. The critique, albeit with the avowed task of transforming woman’s dismal condi-
tion, was done by taking recourse to dialectics, indeed, of a kind that had its roots in
the works of Hegel and Marx. A penchant for causality—‘everything is caused;
whenever this, then that’—could not be avoided (Tian, 2005). And that is where, now
after two decades, I see the limits of the effort, particularly when it comes to address-
ing the dialectic of gender relationship and the disempowered status of women in
South Asia. And this not because Western dialectical method is at fault (which surely
has a tendency of harbouring determinism) or because the utopias put forward by the
Hegelians and the Marxists, although qualitatively different in nature, have found-
ered and transformed into living dystopias, but more because of a serious apprecia-
tion of the diversity in dialectics, including the contributions of the Chinese and
Indian dialectics over the centuries. While the former upheld the dialectic of yin-yang
relationship (i.e., unity of opposites) with ‘continuity through change’ as a style of
thought, the latter ‘developed what is known as the prasangika method—the method
of examining all possible alternative interpretations of the opponent’s proposition,
showing the absurdity of the respective consequences and thus refuting it’ (Solomon,
1978, p. 520). Put differently, approaching woman’s state of insecurity from the
standpoint of yin-yang relationship and/or prasangika can make a far more meaning-
ful contribution to the task of demystifying masculinity and ensuring women’s rights.
En-gendering security in South Asia otherwise requires not only reimagining dialec-
tics in the light of its diversity but also making the methodological quest local, indeed,
related to the lived experience of the South Asians. Let me first outline briefly the
conceptualization of dialectics from three precise geo-civilizational standpoints.
Western Dialectics
Karl Marx was once asked to write a book on his dialectical method. Even after
writing three volumes on capital, four volumes on the surplus value, and scores of
other volumes on philosophy, history and politics, Marx never got the time to
write a page or two on dialectics! Could this be the case? Or, was he wise enough
not to write one? Frederick Engels, on the other hand, made an effort to outline it
in his book, Anti-Dühring, but made a mess of it. In fact, many critics now point
out that Engel’s dialectics is nothing but a representation of positivism with
Hegelian elements. As Jordan maintains:
‘Hegelian positivism’ is an apt expression to designate Engels’s dialectical material-
ism. As presented in Anti-Dühring, dialectical materialism combines the elements of
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