Contestation Quotes & Sayings

Since the 1960s, we have seen the failure of the melting pot ideology. This ideology suggested that different historical, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds could be subordinated to a larger ideology or social amalgam which is "America." This concept obviously did not work, because paradoxically America encourages a politics of contestation. — Edward Said

I would say you have to fight in the life of the mind as well as fight in the streets, as well as fight in the courts, as well as fight in congress and the White House. Every site is a sight of contestation. — Cornel West

Theological discourses function in various ways as sites of contestation and resistance, of forming new religious and personal identities, and of building solidarities. Theological discourses that theologians produce, disseminate, and teach in academia are not simply objective interpretations and neutral reflections on the world and the church in it. Instead theological discourses are productions of and for the world and the church that we live in — Namsoon Kang

Witness, for instance, the establishment of settled 'alternative' or 'independent' cultural zones, which endlessly repeat older gestures of rebellion and contestation as if for the first time. 'Alternative' and 'independent' don't designate something outside mainstream culture; rather, they are styles, in fact the dominant styles, within the mainstream. — Mark Fisher

One should regard one's religious or denominational affiliation as a point of departure, a point of entry, not the point of arrival because on cannot confine God to a particular religion or faith tradition, and therefore should not claim one's exclusive ownership of God. Regarding one's religious or denominational affiliation as accidentality; not as inevitability, is important in religious discourse and practice because such a sense of accidentality of one's affiliation allows a space of alterity of reciprocal contestation and challenge, and a space of planetary gaze that sees others as fellow human beings, regardless. — Namsoon Kang

We reach ecstasy by a contestation of knowledge. Were I to stop at ecstasy and grasp it, in the end I would define it. — Georges Bataille

The difficulty that contestation must be done in the name of an authority is resolved this: I contest in the name of contestation what experience itself is. — Georges Bataille

So, I am a b*stard, and the English are b*stards. But the really bad news is that you are too. My vision of Europe would be Europe of b*stards for whom the question of legitimacy was a site of endless struggle and contestation ... — Simon Critchley

Yes, it is true that one generally needs to speak to the members of the key audience for a product or service. But as we are not trying to plumb an individual psyche for psychological motivation, but are rather trying to elucidate the relevant symbolic cultural meanings and practices, information garnered from those who do not like something is also relevant to understanding the cultural picture. In fact, contestation between points of view and meanings is a crucial aspect of the social dynamic. These nodal points of disagreement and different points of view can be precisely the most intriguing domains of cultural movement and thus new opportunities. — Patricia L. Sunderland

One problem for the analyst of ideologies is that many holders of ideology, especially but not solely conservatives, have denied that they are ideological. Instead they have seen themselves as pragmatic, reserving the appellation 'ideology' only for the ideas of those political movements that issue plans for radical and total change. This undoubtedly reflects the problem that open contestation, and consequently the need for justification, have been largely absent in the totalitarian regimes. — Michael Freeden