maría lugones

Playfulness, "World"·Travelling,
and Loving Perception

A paper about cross-cultural and cross-racial lovmg that emphasizes

the need to understand and affirm the plurahty m and among women
as central to fem1mst ontology and ep1stemology Love 1s seen not as
fus1on and erasure of d1fference but as mcompatible w1th them Love
reveals plural1ty Umty-not to be confused w1th sohdanty-1s under­
stood as conceptually t1ed to dommation

Lus paper weaves two aspects of hfe together My commg to

consc1ousness as a daughter and my commg to consc10usness as a
woman of color have made th1s weavmg poss1ble Th1s weavmg reveals
the poss1b1hty and complexity of a plurahst1c ferrumsm, a fem1msm that
afflrms the plurahty m each of us and among us as richness and as
central to fem1mst ontology and ep1stemology
The paper describes the experience of 'outs1ders' to the mamstream
of, for example, Wh1te/Anglo orgamzation of hfe m the U S and
stresses a particular feature of the outs1der's existence the outsider has
necessanly acqmred flexib1hty m shlftmg from the mamstream construc­
t1on of hfe where she 1s constructed as an outsider to other construc­
tlons of hfe where she 1s more or less 'at home ' Th1s flex1bihty 1s
necessary for the outsider but 1t can also be wtllfully exerc1sed by the
outsider or by those who are at ease m the mamstream I recommend
th1s w1llful exerc1se which I call ''world' '-travelhng and I also recom­
mend that the wdlful exercise be ammated by an attitude that I describe
as playful
As outs1ders to the mamstream, women of color m the U S practice
"world" -travelhng, mostly out of necessity I affum thls pract1ce as
a skdlful, creative, rich, enrichmg and, given certam cucumstances, as
a lovmg way of bemg and hvmg I recogmze that much of our travell­
mg is done unwdlfully to hostile White/Anglo "worlds " The hostihty
of these "worlds" and the compulsory nature of the "travellmg" have
obscured for us the enormous value of this aspect of our hvmg and
1ts connect1on to lovmg Racism has a vested mterest m obscuring and
devalumg the complex sk1lls mvolved m 1t I recommend that we af­
firm this travelhng across "worlds" as partly constitutive of cross-

Hypatla vol 2, no 2 (Summer 1987) © By María Lugones

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 hypat/a

cultural and cross-racial lovmg Thus I recommend to women of color

m the U S that we leam to love each other by learmng to travel to
each other's "worlds "
On the other hand, the paper makes a connection between what
Manlyn Frye has named "arrogant percept1on" and the fallure to 1den­
t1fy w1th persons that one v1ews arrogantly or has come to see as the
products of arrogant percept1on A further connect1on 1s made between
th1s fallure of 1dent1ficat1on and a fallure of love, and thus between
lovmg and 1dentifymg w1th another person The sense of love 1s not
the one Frye has 1dent1fied as both cons1stent w1th arrogant percept1on
and as promotmg uncond1t1onal serv1tude "We can be taken m by th1s
equat1on of serv1tude w1th love," Frye (1983, 73) says, "because we
make two m1stakes at once we thmk, of both serv1tude and love that
they are selfless or unself1sh '' Rather, the 1dent1ficat1on of wh1ch I
speak 1s const1tuted by what I come to charactenze as playful ''world' ' -
travelhng To the extent that we leam to perce1ve others arrogantly or
come to see them only as products of arrogant perception and contmue
to perce1ve them that way, we fad to 1dent1fy with them-fall to love
them-m thls part1cularly deep way

ldent1f1cat1on and Love

As a chlld, 1 was taught to perce1ve arrogantly I have also been the
obJect of arrogant perception Though I am not a Whlte/Anglo woman,
1t 1s clear to me that I can understand both my childhood trammg as
an arrogant perce1ver and my havmg been the obJect of arrogant percep­
t1on w1thout any reference to Wh1te/Anglo men, wh1ch 1s sorne md1ca­
t1on that the concept of arrogant perception can be used cross-culturally
and that Wh1te/Anglo men are not the only arrogant perce1vers I was
brought up m Argentina watchmg men and women of moderate and
of considerable means graft the substance' of their servants to
themselves I also learned to graft my mother's substance to my own
It was clear to me that both men and women were the VIct1ms of ar­
rogant percept1on and that arrogant percept1on was systemat1cally
orgamzed to break the spmt of ali women and of most men I valued
my rural 'gaucho' ancestry because 1ts ethos has always been one of
mdependence m poverty through enormous lonelmess, courage and self­
rehance I found msp1rat1on m th1s ethos and comm1tted myself never
to be broken by arrogant percept1on I can say ali of th1s m th1s way
only because I have learned from Frye's "In and Out of Harm's Way
Arrogance and Love '' She has g1ven me a way of understandmg and
art1culatmg somethmg important m my own hfe
Frye 1s not part1cularly concemed with women as arrogant perceivers

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 maria lugones

but as the obJects of arrogant percept1on Her concern 1s, m part, to

enhance our understandmg of women "untouched by phallocrat1c
machmatlons" (Frye 1983, 53), by understandmg the harm done to
women through such machmatlons In th1s case she proposes that we
could understand women untouched by arrogant perceptlon through
an understandmg of what arrogant percept1on does to women She also
proposes an understandmg of what 1t 1s to love women that 1s mspired
by a v1s1on of women unharmed by arrogant percept1on To love women
1s, at least m part, to perce1ve them w1th lovmg eyes "Toe lovmg eye
1s a contrary of the arrogant eye" (Frye 1983, 75)
I am concerned with women as arrogant perce1vers because I want
to explore further what 1t 1s to love women I want to explore two
failures of love my failure to love my mother and Wh1te/Anglo
women's fallure to love women across racial and cultural boundanes
m the U S As a consequence of explonng these fallures I wdl offer
a lovmg solut1on to them My solut1on mod1f1es Frye's account of lov­
mg percept1on by addmg what I call playful "world" -travel
lt 1s clear to me that at least m the U S and Argentma women are
taught to perce1ve many other women arrogantly Bemg taught to
perce1ve arrogantly 1s part of bemg taught to be a woman of a certam
class m both the U S and Argentina, 1t 1s part of bemg taught to be
a Wh1te/Anglo woman m the U S and 1t 1s part of bemg taught to
be a woman m both places to be both the agent and the obJect of ar­
rogant perceptlon My love for my mother seemed to me thoroughly
1mperfect as I was growmg up because I was unwdhng to become what
I had been taught to see my mother as bemg I thought that to love
her was consistent w1th my abusmg her (usmg, takmg for granted, and
demandmg her serv1ces m a far reachmg way that, smce four other peo­
ple engaged m the same graftmg of her substance onto themselves, left
her httle of herself to herself) and was to be m part constituted by my
1dent1fymg w1th her, my seemg myself m her to love her was supposed
to be of a p1ece w1th both my abusmg her and w1th my bemg open to
bemg abused It 1s clear to me that I was not supposed to love servants
I could abuse them without 1dent1fymg with them, without seemg myself
m them When I carne to the U S I learned that part of rac1sm 1s the
mternahzat10n of the propnety of abuse without 1dent1ficat1on I learned
that I could be seen as a bemg to be used by Wh1te/ Anglo men and
women w1thout the poss1b1hty of 1dent1ficat1on, 1 e w1thout their act
of attemptmg to graft my substance onto theirs, rubbmg off on them
at ali They could remam untouched, w1thout any sense of loss
So, women who are perce1ved arrogantly can perce1ve other women
arrogantly m their turn To what extent those women are respons1ble
for their arrogant percept1ons of other women 1s certainly open to ques-

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 hypatia

t1on, but I do not have any doubt that many women have been taught
to abuse women m th1s particular way I am not mterested m ass1gnmg
respons1b1hty I am mterested m understandmg the phenomenon so as
to understand a lovmg way out of 1t
There 1s somethmg obv10usly wrong w1th the love that I was taught
and somethmg nght w1th my failure to love my mother m th1s way
But I do not thmk that what 1s wrong 1s my profound deslíe to 1dent1fy
with her, to see myself m her, what IS wrong IS that I was taught to
1dent1fy w1th a v1ct1m of enslavement What 1s wrong 1s that I was taught
to pract1ce enslavement of my mother and to learn to become a slave
through th1s practlce There 1s somethmg obv1ously wrong w1th my hav­
mg been taught that love 1s cons1stent w1th abuse, cons1stent w1th ar­
rogant perceptlon Not1ce that the love I was taught 1s the love that
Frye (1983, 73) speaks of when she says "We can be taken m by this
equat1on of serv1tude w1th love " Even though I could both abuse and
!ove my mother, 1 was not supposed to love servants Th1s 1s because
m the case of servants one 1s and 1s supposed to be clear about thelf
serv1tude and the "equation of serv1tude w1th love" 1s never to be
thought clearly m those terms So, 1 was not supposed to love and could
not love servants But I could love my mother because decept10n (m
particular, self-decept10n) 1s part of th1s "lovmg " Serv1tude 1s called
abnegation and abnegat1on 1s not analyzed any further Abnegat1on
1s not mst1lled m us through an analys1s of 1ts nature but rather through
a heraldmg of 1t as beautiful and noble We are coaxed, seduced mto
abnegat1on not through analys1s but through emot1ve persuas1on Frye
makes the connect10n between decept1on and th1s sense of "lovmg"
clear When I say that there IS somethmg obviously wrong w1th the lov­
mg that I was taught, 1 do not mean to say that the connect10n bet­
ween th1s lovmg and abuse 1s obv10us Rather I mean that once the
connect1on between th1s lovmg and abuse has been unveiled, there 1s
somethmg obv1ously wrong w1th the lovmg g1ven that 1t 1s obv1ous that
1t 1s wrong to abuse others
I am glad that I did not learn my lessons well, but 1t 1s clear that
part of the mechamsm that perm1tted my not learnmg well mvolved
a separat1on from my mother I saw us as bemgs of qmte a d1fferent
sort lt mvolved an abandonmg of my mother while I longed not to
abandon her I wanted to love my mother, though, g1ven what I was
taught, "love" could not be the nght word for what I longed for
I was disturbed by my not wantmg to be what she was I had a sense
of not bemg qmte mtegrated, my self was m1ssmg because I could not
1dent1fy w1th her, 1 could not see myself m her, 1 could not welcome
her world I saw myself as separate from her, a d1fferent sort of bemg,
not qmte of the same spec1es Th1s separation, th1s lack of love, 1 saw,

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 maría lugones

and I thmk that I saw correctly as a lack m myself (not a fault, but
a lack) 1 also see that 1f th1s was a lack of lave, lave cannot be what
I was taught Lave has to be rethought, made anew
There 1s somethmg m common between the relat10n between myself
and my mother as someone I d1d not use to be able to lave and the
relat1on between myself or other women of color m the U S and
Wh1te/Anglo women there 1s a failure of !ove I want to suggest here
that Frye has helped me understand one of the aspects of th1s fallure,
the d1rectly abus1ve aspect But I also thmk that there 1s a complex
failure of !ove m the failure to 1dent1fy w1th another woman, the failure
to see oneself m other women who are quite d1fferent from oneself
I want to begm to analyze th1s complex failure
Not1ce that Frye's emphas1s on mdependence m her analys1s of lovmg
percept1on 1s not part1cularly helpful m explammg th1s failure She says
that m lovmg percept1on, ''the obJect of the seemg 1s another bemg
whose ex1stence and character are log1cally mdependent of the seer and
who may be pract1cally or empmcally mdependent m any particular
respect at any particular time" (Frye 1983, 77) But th1s 1s not helpful
m allowmg me to understand how my failure of !ove toward my mother
(when I ceased to be her paras1te) left me not quite whole It 1s not
helpful smce I saw her as log1cally mdependent from me It also does
not help me to understand why the rac1st or ethnocentnc fadure of lave
of Wh1te/ Anglo women-m particular of those Wh1te/ Anglo women
who are not pained by theu failure-should leave me not quite substan­
tive among them Here I am not part1cularly mterested m cases of Wh1te
women's paras1t1sm onto women of color but more pomtedly m cases
where the failure of 1dent1f1cat10n 1s the mamfestat10n of the "rela­
t1on " 1 am particularly mterested here m those many cases m wh1ch
Wh1te/Anglo women do one or more of the followmg to women of
color they ignore us, ostrac1ze us, render us mv1S1ble, stereotype us,
leave us completely alone, mterpret us as crazy Ali of th1s whzle we
are in thezr mzdst The more mdependent I am, the more mdependent
I am left to be Theu world and theu mtegnty do not require me at
ali There 1s no sense of self-loss m them for my own lack of sohd1ty
But they rob me of my sohd1ty through md1fference, an md1fference
they can afford and wh1ch seems somet1mes stud1ed (Ali of th1s pomts
of course toward separatism m commumties where our substance 1s seen
and celebrated, where we become substantive through th1s celebrat1on
But many of us have to work among Wh1te/ Anglo folk and our best
shot at recogmtlon has seemed to be among Wh1te/ Anglo women be­
cause many of them have expressed a general sense of bemg pamed
at the1r fallure of love )
Many times Wh1te/ Anglo women want us out of theu field of v1s1on

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 hypatla

Theu lack of concern 1s a harmful fadure of love that leaves me m­

dependent from them m a way similar to the way m whlch, once I ceased
to be my mother's paras1te, she became, though not mdependent from
ali others, certamly mdependent from me But of course, because my
mother and I wanted to love each other well, we were not whole m
th1s mdependence Wh1te/Anglo women are mdependent from me, 1
am mdependent from them, 1 am mdependent from my mother, she
1s mdependent from me, and none of us loves each other m th1s
mdependence
I am mcomplete and unreal w1thout other women I am profoundly
dependent on others w1thout havmg to be theu subordmate, the1r slave,
the1r servant
Frye (1983, 75) also says that the lovmg eye 1s "the eye of one who
knows that to know the seen, one must consult somethmg other than
one's own w1ll and mterests and fears and 1magmat10n "Th1s is much
more helpful to me so long as I do not understand Frye to mean that
I should not consult my own mterests nor that I should exclude the
poss1b1hty that my self and the self of the one I love may be 1mportant­
ly tied to each other m many comphcated ways Smce I am emphasmng
here that the fadure of love hes m part m the fadure to 1dent1fy and
smce I agree w1th Frye that one "must consult somethmg other than
one's own wdl and mterests and fears and 1magmat1on," 1 wdl pro­
ceed to try to explam what I thmk needs to be consulted To love my
mother was not poss1ble for me whde I retamed a sense that 1t was fme
for me and others to see her arrogantly Lovmg my mother also re­
qmred that I see w1th her eyes, that I go mto my mother's world, that
I see both of us as we are constructed m her world, that I w1tness her
own sense of herself from w1thm her world Only through thls travelhng
to her "world" could 11dent1fy with her because only then could I cease
to ignore her and to be excluded and separate from her Only then could
I see her as a subJect even 1f one subJected and only then could I see
at ali how meanmg could anse fully between us We are fully depen­
dent on each other for the poss1b1hty of bemg understood and w1thout
th1s understandmg we are not mtelhg1ble, we do not make sense, we
are not sohd, v1S1ble, mtegrated, we are lackmg So travellmg to each
other's "worlds" would enable us to be through lovmg each other
Hopefully the sense of 1dent1ficat1on I have m nund 1s beconung clear
But 1f 1t 1s to become clearer, 1 need to explam what I mean by a
"world" and by "travellmg" to another "world "
In explammg what I mean by a "world" 1 w1ll not appeal to travell­
mg to other women's worlds Rather I w1ll lead you to see what I mean
by a "world" the way I carne to propose the concept to myself through
the kmd of ontological confus1on about myself that we, women of color,

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 maría lugones

refer to half-Jokmgly as "schizophrema" (we feel sch1zophremc m our

gomgs back and forth between d1fferent "commumt1es") and through
my effort to make sorne sense of th1s ontolog1cal confus1on

"Worlds" and "world" travellmg

Sorne time ago I carne to be m a state of profound confus1on as I
expenenced myself as both havmg and not havmg a particular attnbute
I was sure I had the attnbute m question and, on the other hand, 1
was sure that I d1d not have 1t I remam convmced that I both have
and do not have th1s attnbute The attnbute 1s playfulness I am sure
that I am a playful person On the other hand, 1 can say, pamfully,
that I am not a playful person I am not a playful person m certam
worlds One of the thmgs I d1d as I became confused was to call my
fnends, far away people who knew me well, to see whether or not I
was playful Maybe they could help me out of my confus1on They sa1d
to me, "Of course you are playful" and they satd 1t w1th the same con­
v1ct1on that I had about 1t Of course I am playful Those people who
were around me sa1d to me, "No, you are not playful You are a senous
woman You Just take everythmg senously " They were Just as sure
about what they sa1d to me and could offer me every bit of ev1dence
that one could need to conclude that they were nght So I said to myself
"Okay, maybe what's happemng here 1s that there 1s an attnbute that
I do have but there are certain worlds m wh1ch I am not at ease and
1t 1s because l'm not at ease m those worlds that I don't have that at­
tnbute m those worlds But what does that mean ? " 1 was worned both
about what I rneant by "worlds" when I sa1d "m sorne worlds I do
not have the attnbute" and what I meant by saymg that lack of ease
was what led me not to be playful m those worlds Because you see,
1f 1t was Just a rnatter of lack of ease, 1 could work on 1t
I can explam sorne of what I mean by a "world " 1 do not want the
fix1ty of a def1mt1on at th1s pomt, because I thmk the terrn 1s suggestlve
and I do not want to close the suggest1veness of 1t too soon I can offer
sorne charactenst1cs that serve to d1stmgmsh between a "world," a
utop1a, a poss1ble world m the phdosoph1cal sense, and a world v1ew
By a "world" 1 do not mean a utop1a at ali A utop1a does not count
as a world m rny sense The "worlds" that I am talkmg about are poss1-
ble But a poss1ble world 1s not what I mean by a "world" and I do
not mean a world-v1ew, though somethmg hke a world-v1ew 1s mvolved
here
For somethmg to be a "world" m rny sense 1t has to be mhab1ted
at present by sorne flesh and blood people That 1s why 1t cannot be
a utop1a It may also be mhab1ted by sorne 1magmary people 1t rnay

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 hypatla

be mhab1ted by people who are dead or people that the mhab1tants of

th1s "world" met m sorne other "world" and now have m th1s "world"
m 1magmat1on
A "world" m my sense may be an actual soc1ety g1ven 1ts dommant
culture's descnpt1on and construct10n of hfe, mcludmg a construction
of the relat1onsh1ps of product10n, of gender, race, etc But a "world"
can also be such a soc1ety g1ven a non-dommant constructlon, or 1t can
be such a soc1ety or a soc1ety g1ven an 1d1osyncrat1c construct1on As
we w1ll see 1t 1s problemat1c to say that these are ali construct1ons of
the same soc1ety But they are d1fferent "worlds "
A "world" need not be a construct1on of a whole soc1ety It may
be a construct10n of a tmy port1on of a particular soc1ety It may be
mhab1ted by Just a few people Sorne "worlds" are b1gger than others
A "world" may be mcomplete m that thmgs m 1t may not be
altogether constructed or sorne thmgs may be constructed negat1vely
(they are not what 'they' are m sorne other "world ") Or the "world"
may be mcomplete because 1t may have references to thmgs that do
not qmte ex1st m 1t, references to thmgs hke Braztl, where Braztl 1s not
qmte part of that ''world '' G1ven lesbian femimsm, the constructlon
of 'lesbian' 1s purposefully and healthdy stdl up m the air, m the pro­
cess of becommg What 1t 1s to be a H1spamc m th1s country 1s, m a
dommant Anglo construct1on purposefully mcomplete Thus one can­
not really answer quest1ons of the sort "What is a H1spamc ? ", "Who
counts as a Hispamc ? ", "Are Latmos, Chicanos, Hispanos, black
dom1mcans, white cubans, korean-colomb1ans, 1tahan-argentimans
hispamc ? " What it 1s to be a 'h1spamc' m the vaned so-called hispamc
commumties m the U S 1s also yet up m the air We have not yet decided
whether there 1s somethmg hke a 'h1spamc' m our vaned "worlds "
So, a "world" may be an mcomplete v1S1onary non-utop1an construc­
t1on of hfe or 1t may be a trad1t10nal construction of hfe A traditional
Hispano construction of Northern New Mexican hfe 1s a "world " Such
a trad1t10nal construct1on, m the face of a racist, ethnocentnst, money­
centered anglo construction of Northern New Mexican hfe is highly
unstable because Anglos have the meaos for 1mpenahst destruct1on of
trad1t1onal Hispano "worlds "
In a "world" sorne of the mhab1tants may not understand or hold
the particular construct1on of them that constructs them m that
"world " So, there may be "worlds" that construct me m ways that
I do not even understand Or it may be that I understand the construc­
tlon, but do not hold 1t of myself I may not accept 1t as an account
of myself, a construct1on of myself And yet, 1 may be ammatmg such
a construct10n
One can "travel" between these "worlds" and one can mhab1t more

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 maría lugones

than one of these "worlds" at the very same time I thIDk that most
of us who are outs1de the maIDstream of, for example, the U S dom1-
nant construct1on or orgamzatlon of hfe are "world travellers" as a
matter of necess1ty and of surv1val It seems to me that IDhab1tIDg more
than one "world" at the same time and "travellIDg" between "worlds"
1s part and parcel of our expenence and our s1tuat1on One can be at
the same time ID a "world" that constructs one as stereotyp1cally latID,
for example, and ID a "world" that constructs one as latID BeIDg stereo­
typ1cally latID and beIDg s1mply latID are d1fferent s1multaneous con­
structions of persons that are part of d1fferent "worlds " One ammates
one or the other or both at the same time w1thout necessanly confus­
IDg them, though s1multaneous enactment can be confusIDg 1f one 1s
not on one's guard
In descnbIDg my sense of a ''world, '' 1 mean to be offenng a descnp­
t1on of expenence, somethIDg that 1s true to expenence even 1f 1t 1s on­
tolog1cally problematic Though I would thIDk that any account of 1den­
t1ty that could not be true to th1s expenence of outs1ders to the
maIDstream would be faulty even 1f ontolog1cally unproblemat1c Its
ease would constraID, erase, or deem aberrant expenence that has WithID
1t s1gmf1cant IDs1ghts IDto non-1mpenahst1c understandIDg between
people
Those of us who are "world"-travellers have the d1stIDct expenence
of beIDg d1fferent ID d1fferent "worlds" and of havIDg the capac1ty to
remember other "worlds" and ourselves ID them We can say "That
1s me there, and I am happy ID that "world " So, the expenence 1s of
beIDg a d1fferent person ID d1fferent "worlds" and yet of havIDg
memory of oneself as d1fferent w1thout qmte havIDg the sense of there
beIDg any underlyIDg "1 " So I can say "that 1s me there and I am so
playful ID that "world " 1 say "That 1s me ID that "world" not because
I recogmze myself ID that person, rather the first person statement 1s
non-IDferential I may well recogmze that that person has ab1ht1es that
I do not have and yet the havIDg or not havIDg of the ab1ht1es 1s always
an "1 have " and "1 do not have ", 1 e 1t 1s always expenenc­
ed ID the f1rst person
The sh1ft from beIDg one person to beIDg a d1fferent person 1s what
I call "travel " Th1s sh1ft may not be w1llful or even consc1ous, and
one may be completely unaware of beIDg d1fferent than one 1s ID a d1f­
ferent "world," and may not recogmze that one 1s ID a d1fferent
"world "Even though the sh1ft can be done w1llfully, 1t 1s not a matter
of actIDg One does not pose as someone else, one does not pretend
to be, for example, someone of a d1fferent personahty or character or
someone who uses space or language d1fferently than the other per­
son Rather one 1s someone who has that personahty or character or

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 hypatla

uses space and language m that particular way The "one" here does
not refer to sorne underlymg "1 " One does not expenence any underly-
1ng "I "

Bemg at ease m a "world"

In mvestlgatmg what I mean by ''bemg at ease m a ''world'','' 1 w1ll
descnbe d1fferent ways of bemg at ease One may be at ease m one
or m ali of these ways There 1s a max1mal way of bemg at ease, v1z
bemg at ease m ali of these ways I take th1s max1mal way of bemg
at ease to be somewhat dangerous because 1t tends to produce people
who have no mclmat1on to travel across "worlds" or have no expenence
of "world" travelhng
The first way of bemg at ease m a particular "world" 1s by bemg
a fluent speaker m that "world " 1 know ali the norms that there are
to be followed, 1 know ali the words that there are to be spoken I know
ali the moves I am conf1dent
Another way of bemg at ease 1s by bemg normatlvely happy I agree
w1th ali the norms, 1 could not love any norms better I am asked to
do JUSt what I want to do or what I thmk I should do At ease
Another way of bemg at ease m a "world" 1s by bemg humanly bond·
ed I am w1th those I love and they love me too lt should be not1ced
that I may be w1th those I love and be at ease because of them m a
"world" that 1s otherw1se as hostde to me as "worlds" get
Fmally one may be at ease because one has a h1story w1th others that
1s shared, espec1ally dady history, the kmd of shared history that one
sees exemphf1ed by the response to the "Do you remember poodle
sk1rts?" quest10n There you are, w1th people you do not know at ali
The question 1s posed and then they all begm talkmg about theu poodle
skirt stones I have been m such Situations w1thout knowmg what poo­
dle skirts, for example, were and I felt so di at ease because It was not
my h1story The other people did not particularly know each other lt
IS not that they were humanly bonded Probably they did not have much
pohttcally m common e1ther But poodle skuts were m the1r shared
h1story
One may be at ease m one of these ways or m ali of them Not1ce
that when one says meanmgfully "Th1s 1s my world," one may not be
at ease m 1t Or one may be at ease m 1t only m sorne of these respects
and not m others To say of sorne "world" that It IS "my world" 1s
to make an evaluation One may pnv1lege one or more "worlds" m
th1s way for a vanety of reasons for example because one expenences
oneself as an agent m a fuller sense than one expenences "oneself"
m other "worlds " One may disown a "world" because one has fust

12
 maria lugones

person memones of a person who 1s so thoroughly dommated that she

has no sense of exerc1smg her own wdl or has a sense of havmg senous
d1fflcult1es m performmg act1ons that are w1lled by herself and no d1f-
f1culty m performmg actlons w1lled by others One may say of a
"world" that 1t 1s "my world" because one 1s at ease m 1t, 1 e bemg
at ease m a "world" may be the basis for the evaluat10n
G1ven the clanficat1on of what I mean by a "world," "world" -travel,
and bemg at ease m a "world," we are m a pos1tion to return to my
problemat1c attnbute, playfulness It may be that m th1s "world" m
which I am so unplayful, 1 am a different person than m the "world"
m wh1ch I am playful Or It may be that the "world" m wh1ch I am
unplayful 1s constructed m such a way that I could be playful m 1t
I could pract1ce, even though that "world" 1s constructed m such a
way that my bemg playful m 1t 1s kmd of hard In descnbmg what I
take a "world" to be, 1 emphas1zed the first poss1bihty as both the one
that Is truest to the expenence of "outs1ders" to the mamstream and
as ontolog1cally problematic because the "I" IS Ident1fied m sorne sense
as one and m sorne sense as a plural1ty 1 1dent1fy myself as myself
through memory and I retam myself as d1fferent m memory When
I travel from one "world" to another, 1 have th1s 1mage, th1s memory
of myself as playful m th1s other "world " 1can then be m a particular
"world" and have a double 1mage of myself as, for example, playful
and as not playful But this IS a very famihar and recogmzable
phenomenon to the outsider to the mamstream m sorne central cases
when m one "world" 1 ammate, for example, that "world's" cancature
of the person I am m the other ''world '' 1 can have both 1mages of
myself and to the extent that I can matenahze or ammate both 1mages
at the same time I become an ambiguous bemg This IS very much a
part of tnckery and foolery lt 1s worth remembenng that the tnckster
and the fool are s1gmficant characters m many non-dommant or out-
sider cultures One then sees any particular "world" w1th these double
edges and sees absurd1ty m them and so mhab1ts oneself d1fferently
Given that latms are constructed m Anglo "worlds" as stereotyp1cally
mtense-mtensity bemg a central charactenst1c of at least one of the
anglo stereotypes of latms-and g1ven that many latms, myself mclud-
ed, are genumely mtense, I can say to myself "I am mtense" and take
a hold of the double meamng And furthermore, 1 can be stereotypically
mtense or be the real thmg and, 1f you are Anglo, you do not know
when I am wh1ch because I am Latm-Amencan As Latm-Amencan
I am an amb1guous bemg, a two-1maged self I can see that gnngos
see me as stereotyp1cally mtense because I am, as a Latm-Amencan,
constructed that way but I may or may not mtentlonally ammate the
stereotype or the real thmg knowmg that you may not see 1t m anythmg

13
 hypatia

other than m the stereotypical construction This ambigmty IS funny

and Is not Just funny, It IS survival-nch We can also make the picture
of those who dommate us funny precisely because we can see the dou-
ble edge, we can see them doubly constructed, we can see the plurahty
m them So we know truths that only the fool can speak and only the
tnckster can play out Without harm We mhabit "worlds" and travel
across them and keep ali the memones
Sometimes the "world"-traveller has a double Image of herself and
each self mcludes as Important mgredients of Itself one or more at-
tnbutes that are mcompatlble with one or more of the attnbutes of the
other self for example bemg playful and bemg unplayful To the ex-
tent that the attnbute IS an Important mgredient of the self she IS m
that "world," I e , to the extent that there IS a particularly good fit
between that "world" and her havmg that attnbute m It and to the
extent that the attnbute Is personahty or character central, that "world"
would have to be changed If she 1s to be playful m 1t lt IS not the case
that If she could come to be at ease m It, she would be her own playful
self Because the attnbute IS personahty or character central and there
Is such a good fit between that "world" and her bemg constructed with
that attnbute as central, she cannot become playful, she IS unplayful
To become playful would be for her to become a contradictory bemg
So I am suggestmg that the lack of ease solutlon cannot be a solut1on
to my problemat1c case My problem 1s not one of lack of ease I am
suggestmg that I can understand my confus10n about whether I am or
am not playful by saymg that I am both and that I am different per-
sons m different "worlds" and can remember myself m both as I am
m the other I am a plurahty of selves This IS to understand my confu-
s1on because 1t 1s to come to see 1t as a p1ece w1th much of the rest of
my expenence as an outsider m sorne of the "worlds" that I mhab1t
and of a p1ece w1th s1gmficant aspects of the expenence of non-dornmant
people m the "worlds" of theu dornmators
So, though I may not be at ease m the "worlds" m which I am not
constructed playful, It Is not that I aro not playful because I am not
at ease The two are compatible But lack of playfulness 1s not caused
by lack of ease Lack of playfulness 1s not symptornatlc of lack of ease
but of lack of health I am not a healthy bemg m the "worlds" that
construct me unplayful

Playfulness
I had a very personal stake m mvest1gatmg th1s top1c Playfulness
1s not only the attnbute that was the source of rny confus1on and the
att1tude that I recornmend as the lovmg att1tude m travellmg across

14
 maría /ugones

"worlds," 1 am also scared of endmg upa senous human bemg, some-

one w1th no mult1-d1mens1onahty, w1th no fun m hfe, someone who
1s JUSt someone who has had the fun constructed out of her I am
senously scared of gettmg stuck m a "world" that constructs me that
way A world that I have no escape from and m wh1ch I cannot be
playful
I thought about what 1t Is to be playful and what It IS to play and
I did this thmkmg m a "world" m wh1ch I only remember myself as
playful and m which ali of those who know me as playful are Imagmary
bemgs A "world" m which I am scared of losmg my memones of
myself as playful or have them erased from me Because I hve m such
a "world," after I formulated my own sense of what It Is to be playful
and to play I decided that I needed to "go to the hterature " I read
two classics on the subJect Johan Hmzmga's Horno Ludens and Hans-
Georg Gadamer's chapter on the concept of play m his Truth and
Method I d1scovered, to my amazement, that what I thought about
play and playfulness, If they were nght, was absolutely wrong Though
I will not provide the arguments for this mterpretatlon of Gadamer
and Hmzmga here, 1 understood that both of them have an agomstic
sense of 'play ' Play and playfulness have, ultimately, to do with con-
test, with wmnmg, losmg, battlmg The sense of playfulness that I have
m mmd has nothmg to do With those thmgs So, 1 tned to elucidate
both senses of play and playfulness by contrastmg them to each other
The contrast helped me see the attitude that I have m mmd as the lov-
mg attitude m travellmg across "worlds" more clearly
An agomst1c sense of playfulness Is one m which competence IS
supreme You better know the rules of the game In agomstic play there
1s nsk, there IS uncertamty, but the uncertamty IS about who IS gomg
to wm and who IS gomg to lose There are rules that mspITe hostihty
The attitude of playfulness 1s conce1ved as secondary to or denvatlve
from play Smce play IS agon, then the only conceivable playful attitude
is an agomstic one (the attitude does not turn an activity mto play, but
rather presupposes an actIVIty that 1s play) One of the paradigmatic
ways of playmg for both Gadamer and Hmzmga IS role-playmg In role-
playmg, the person who IS a partlcipant m the game has a fixed con-
ceptwn of h1m or herself I also thmk that the players are Imbued with
self-1mportance m agomstic play smce they are so keen on wmmng given
theIT own ments, theIT very own competence
When considenng the value of "world"-travellmg and whether
playfulness IS the lovmg attitude to have whlie travelhng, 1 recogmzed
the agomstic attitude as m1m1cal to travelhng across "worlds " The
agomst1c traveller 1s a conqueror, an 1mpenal1st Hmzmga, m rus classs1c
book on play, mterprets Western c1vihzat10n as play That IS an m-

15
 hypatla

terestmg thmg for Th1rd World people to thmk about Western c1V1hza-
t1on has been mterpreted by a whlte western man as play m the agomst1c
sense of play Hwzmga reviews western law, art, and many other aspects
of western culture and sees agon m ali of them Agomstlc playfulness
leads those who attempt to travel to another "world" w1th th1s att1tude
to failure Agomstic travellers fail cons1stently m the1r attempt to travel
because what they do is to try to conquer the other "world " The at-
tempt is not an attempt to try to erase the other ''world '' That is what
ass1milation is ali about Ass1mdation is the destruct1on of other peo-
ple' s "worlds " So, the agomst1c att1tude, the playful att1tude g1ven
western man's construct1on of playfulness, is nota healthy, lovmg at-
t1tude to have m travelhng across ''worlds '' Notice that g1ven the
agomstic att1tude one cannot travel across "worlds," though one can
kili other "worlds" w1th 1t So for people who are mterested m cross-
mg racial and ethruc boundanes, an arrogant western man's construc-
tion of playfulness is deadly One cannot cross the boundanes w1th 1t
One needs to g1ve up such an att1tude 1f one wants to travel
So then, what is the lovmg playfulness that I have m mmd? Let me
begm w1th one example We are by the nver bank The nver is very,
very low Almost dry Bits of water here and there L1ttle pools w1th
a few trout h1dmg under the rocks But mostly 1s wet stones, grey on
the outs1de We walk on the stones for awhlle You p1ck upa stone
and crash 1t onto the others As 1t breaks, 1t 1s quite wet ms1de and
1t is very colorful, very pretty I p1ck up a stone and break 1t and run
toward the p1eces to see the colors They are beaut1ful I laugh and bnng
the pteces back to you and you are domg the same w1th your p1eces
We keep on crashlng stones for hours, anxious to see the beautiful new
colors We are playmg Toe playfulness of our actlVlty does not presup-
pose that there 1s somethlng hke "crashmg stones" that 1s a particular
form of play w1th 1ts own rules Rather the atlltude that carnes us
through the acllv1ty, a playful atlltude, turns the actlVlty mto play Our
acttv1ty has no rules, though 1t 1s certainly mtent1onal act1v1ty and we
both understand what we are domg The playfulness that g1ves mean-
mg to our activ1ty mcludes uncertainty, but m th1s case the uncertainty
is an openness to surprzse Th1s is a particular metaphys1cal att1tude
that does not expect the world to be neatly packaged, ruly Rules may
fail to explam what we are domg We are not self-1mportant, we are
not fixed m particular construct1ons of ourselves, whlch 1s part of say-
mg that we are open to self-constructwn We may not have rules, and
when we do have rules, there are no rules that are to us sacred We
are not worned about competence We are not wedded to a particular
way of domg thmgs Whlle playful we have not abandoned ourselves
to, nor are we stuck m, any particular ''world '' We are there creatlvely

16
 maria lugones
We are not pass1ve
Playfulness 1s, m part, an openness to bemg a fool, wh1ch 1s a com-
bmatlon of not worrymg about competence, not bemg self-1mportant,
not takmg norms as sacred and fmdmg amb1gmty and double edges
a source of wisdom and dehght
So, pos1t1vely, the playful att1tude mvolves openness to surpnse,
openness to bemg a fool, openness to self-construct1on or reconstruc-
t1on and to construct10n or reconstructlon of the "worlds" we mhab1t
playfully Negatlvely, playfulness 1s charactenzed by uncertamty, lack
of self-1mportance, absence of rules or a not takmg rules as sacred,
a not worrymg about competence anda lack of abandonment to a par-
ticular constructlon of oneself, others and one's relat1on to them In
attemptmg to take a hold of oneself and of one's relat1on to others
m a particular "world," one may study, examine and come to under-
stand oneself One may then see what the poss1b1ht1es for play are for
the bemg one 1s m that "world " One may even decide to mhab1t that
self fully m order to understand 1t better and fmd 1ts creative
poss1b1ht1es All of th1s 1s Just self-reflect1on and 1t 1s qmte d1fferent
from res1gnmg or abandomng oneself to the particular construct1on of
oneself that one 1s attemptmg to take a hold of

Conclusion
There are "worlds" we enter at our own nsk, "worlds" that have
agon, conquest, and arrogance as the mam mgred1ents m theu ethos
These are "worlds" that we enter out of necess1ty and wh1ch would
be foohsh to enter playfully m e1ther the agomst1c sense or m my sense
In such "worlds" we are not playful
But there are "worlds" that we can travel to lovmgly and travelhng
to them 1s part of lovmg at least sorne of theu mhab1tants Toe reason
why I thmk that travellmg to someone's "world" 1s a way of 1dent1fy-
mg w1th them 1s because by travellmg to the1r "world" we can under-
stand what 1t 1s to be them and what 1t 1s to be ourse/ves m the1r eyes
Only when we have travelled to each other's "worlds" are we fully sub-
Jects to each other (1 agree w1th Hegel that self-recogmt1on reqmres
other subJects, but I d1sagree w1th hts cla1m that 1t reqmres tens1on or
host1hty)
Knowmg other women's "worlds" 1s part of knowmg them and
knowmg them 1s part of lovmg them Not1ce that the knowmg can be
done m greater or lesser depth, as can the loVIng Also notice that travell-
mg to another's "world" 1s not the same as becommg mt1mate w1th
them Int1macy 1s const1tuted m part by a very deep knowledge of the
other self and ''world'' travelhng is only part of havmg thts knowledge

17
 hypatla

Also not1ce that sorne people, m particular those who are outs1ders to
the mamstream, can be known only to the extent that they are known
m severa! "worlds" and as "world"-travellers
W1thout knowmg the other's "world," one does not know the other,
and without knowmg the other one 1s really alone m the other's presence
because the other 1s only d1mly present to one
Through travelhng to other people's "worlds" we d1scover that there
are "worlds" m wh1ch those who are the v1ct1ms of arrogant percep­
tion are really subJects, hvely bemgs, res1stors, constructors of v1s1ons
even though m the mamstream construction they are ammated only
by the arrogant perce1ver and are phable, foldable, flle-awayable,
class1f1able I always 1magme the Anstotehan slave as phable and
foldable at mght or after he or she cannot work anymore (when he or
she d1es as a tool) Anstotle tells us nothmg about the slave apart from
the master We know the slave only through the master The slave 1s
a tool of the master After workmg hours he or she 1s folded and placed
m a drawer t1ll the next mormng My mother was apparent to me mostly
as a v1ct1m of arrogant percept1on I was loyal to the arrogant perce1ver's
construct1on of her and thus d1sloyal to her m assummg that she was
exhausted by that construct10n I was unwdhng to be hke her and
thought that 1dent1fymg w1th her, seemg myself m her necess1tated that
I become hke her I was wrong both m assummg that she was exhausted
by the arrogant perce1ver's construct1on of her and m my understand­
mg of 1dent1f1cat1on, though I was not wrong m thmkmg that 1den­
t1f1cation was part of lovmg and that 1t mvolved m part my seemg myself
m her I carne to reahze through travellmg to her "world" that she
1s not foldable and phable, that she 1s not exhausted by the mamstream
argentm1an patnarchal construct1on of her I carne to reahze that there
are "worlds" m wh1ch she shmes as a creat1ve bemg Seemg myself
m her through travellmg to her "world" has meant seemg how d1f­
ferent from her I am m her "world "
So, m recommendmg "world"-travellmg and 1dent1f1cat1on through
"world"-travelhng as part of lovmg other women, 1 am suggestmg
d1sloyalty to arrogant perce1vers, mcludmg the arrogant perce1ver m
ourselves, and to the1r constructions of women In reveahng agomst1c
playfulness as mcompat1ble w1th "world"-travelhng, 1 am reveahng
both 1ts affm1ty w1th 1mpenahsm and arrogant percept1on and 1ts m­
compat1b1hty w1th lovmg and lovmg percept10n

18
 maría lugones

notes
1 Graftmg the substance of another to oneself 1s partly const1tut1ve of arrogan!
percept10n See M Frye (1983, 66)

references
Frye, Manlyn 1983 The pollt,cs of reahty Essays m fem1mst theory
Trumansburg, N Y Crossmg Press
Gadamer, Hans-George 1975 Truth and method New York Seabury
Press
Hmzmga, Johan 1968 Homo /udens Buenos AJ.res, Argentma Emecé
Editores

19