Talk:Inversion in postcolonial theory

WP:NOR

This article uses sources not directly about inversion in postcolonial theory in order to describe inversion in postcolonial theory. This is a prime example of origional research. This article needs to be rewritten in order to define and discuss inversion in postcolonial theory directly. For instance, the Churchill references are OR because they simply used as an example of a type of inversion theory, not because he discusses it. --Strothra 00:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

The term's widely used in the specialist literature; clearly Churchill is discussing inversion and is a postcolonial theorist, though he uses the term "boomerang" instead (which is a synonym). I've provided some evidence for use of the term; more would be useful but Obviously the reading of OR here is unreasonably strict. It's a matter of fact that every act of speech or writing involves some synthesis, paraphrasing or rewriting. If this were a violation of WP:NOR then every single article would have to be deleted. This article adds nothing to what is already being said by specialists in the area, so cannot possibly be original research on any literal understanding of this. Seriously, this is very dispiriting. I do my best to fill a gap and you turn up and in effect ask for large sections to be cut out, because there's some technical problem with them and they could be done better. I mean really, what's wrong with this? If your objection is simply that some of the claims are unsubstantiated then this is not original research but failure to cite. Or are you saying there shouldn't be examples? There's examples in your mum for goodness sake, none of those even have citations; that's protected and somewhat contested, but nobody has said there shouldn't be examples. I'm trying to summarise a specialist concept and the controversies around it. Really, what more can I do? You seriously think I can remember every single time I've heard this concept used? Or that I have hours on end to spare to re-read all the books and articles I've read on the topic, or to hunt down new ones to check they accord with my claims? Surely this is the advantage to having multiple editors - other people can either confirm or alter the article later.Do you seriously think I'm the first person making these claims? Or that these claims have not been made by verifiable sources? Can you seriously say that this concept is not used in the sense I've described it in the relevant specialist literature? If not then using the label of OR is pedantry of the worst kind.If I had time to spend then I'd clean up this article and expand the coverage of critical theory further; unfortunately I keep getting dragged into silly bureaucratic feuds about minor technicalities because other people prefer to use administrative means rather than to improve articles. Actually this kind of thing is a death by a thousand cuts which no doubt drives away many potential contributors. People have a problem with my style of writing. True, I have a background in critical theory, I don't always write in the best style for Wikipedia. But that's just a matter of style. Things can be rephrased to bring them more into line with Wikipedia style. But people here are too prone to make leaps from issues of style to issues of substance - such as crying "OR" at something that clearly is not original in the slightest. This creates an unfriendly environment instead of contributing to improvements.Wikipedia is desperately short of contributors on critical theory subjects, even the core article on postcolonial theory has a rewrite template and ongoing project.

Update: There are 2,580 hits for the combination "inversion" and "postcolonial" on Google scholar search. There are 21 with "inversion" and "suicide bombing", 40 with "inversion" and "anti-white", 92 with "inversion" "Zimbabwe" "land reform", 26 with "inversion" and "Ward Churchill". A few of these are no doubt false hits, and others might not be saying what I'm taking the literature to say - then again it's hard to check when I can't directly access all the articles. I'd take it as a strong indication this isn't "original" at all.-Ldxar1 05:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Why exactly did you undo that?It's uncited (usually because generic), it isn't original research.-Ldxar1 06:09, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I never stated that the core concept was OR. If I had believed that, I would have put it up for AfD a long time ago. However, the article can be written much better in compliance with content guides. That Churchill is referencing inversion theory is your conclusion, hence the OR. Wikipedia attempts to be an encyclopedia - thus it attempts not to reflect the views of those who edit it. This also creates certain restrictive style and content requirements. The article's content needs to be directed toward including works as references which directly discuss inversion in postcolonial theory. Right now, the article is not encyclopedic. Rather, it attempts to define inversion based on examples and thus lacks actual substance - that is OR. For instance, arguments made by Churchill cannot be used to prove a point made in the article. The article can, however, describe what Churchill argues. Thus, you can't say, or imply, "Churchill's argument is an example of..." None of the information has been removed, however and I placed the expert tag on the article in order to attract others to make useful contributions to substance. Surprisingly, there is no expert tag for anthropology so I decided to use the sociology one. These tags do not drive away editors. In fact, they attract editors to improve the article - that's what they're for. One editor cannot build a perfect article by him/herself so don't take offense. You've created a decent framework, it just needs additions. Don't expect immediate results. --Strothra 06:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I still think the use of the term "original research" is grossly unfair and excessive here, that it's incredibly unclear, and that the way you're using it is not really serving to make things more encyclopedic because it's about minor technicalities and things which aren't really out of place in an encyclopedia. Take for instance the statement: "The term can be used with positive, negative or neutral value-connotations". Are you seriously saying that an encyclopedia could not note such a thing, if it can be verified from the literature that the term is used in all three senses? Are you just objecting that I haven't verified it properly, that one or more of the senses is missing from the article? In which case why not just put "citation needed"? Or are you saying that even if it was clearly demonstrable that all three connotations of the term were present in verifiable uses of the term within the literature, this could not be noted because it would be an inference? That just seems absurd - encyclopedias contain these kinds of generic claims, Wikipedia contains a lot of them especially in opening sections; it's just noting an observable, verifiable fact.

Similarly with Churchill etc - the claim I've made is that people working in postcolonial theory would describe Churchill's thesis as inversion - as someone who knows how the term is used in the field I find it very likely that somebody out there will have described Churchill's thesis as an instance of inversion; I just don't have the time or resources to find an instance - presumably if it had a reference it would be acceptable; so why not tag it as "citation needed"?

You say "attempts to define inversion based on examples" - what about the actual quotes from postcolonial theorists showing that they have used the concept and how they have used the concept?

What you're implying by using the term "original research" is that there's something fundamentally wrong with particular content. Now there may be something technically wrong - things which could be written better or cited better - but to elevate a technical criticism into a fundamental policy violation is a huge leap in scale.

I'm actually surprised there doesn't seem to be a critical theory portal. There's a terrible lack of critical theory material on Wikipedia - a lot of topics have no article (e.g. several key Deleuzian concepts), others are very generic and lack details of the authors' contributions, others are stubs. For some reason critical theory specialists do not contribute in the same numbers as specialists in other areas. My suspicion is that this kind of treatment is the reason. I constantly feel that time which could have been spent improving and adding material is sucked into interminable disputes about technicalities. The process reeks of passive-aggression - being accused of a serious policy violation like original research, simply for not citing something as well as someone else would like, creates a sense of being unwelcome or even that the entire area is being rejected; and terms like "original research" are stretched so far from their ordinary meaning by over-zealous interpretations of policy as to give the impression that Wikipedia is a secret society with its own secret language inaccessible to outsiders. It makes editing feel like hard work, and I think few people will spend free time on hard work.

-82.19.9.132 07:16, 1 February 2007 (UTC)