Complexity and materiality in representations of reality

ABSTRACT The article proceeds from the assumption that poststructuralism contains an ethical dimension despite contrary claims by many of its critics. This ethics can be seen in the poststructuralist refusal of representation and, importantly, allows for representative interventions when their benefits are assumed to outweigh any conceivable harm. As an elaboration of this ethics, the aim is to defend a representational strategy of complexity. Such a use of complexity parallels modernist and postmodern artistic representations advocating alienation or defamiliarization but is here examined specifically in relation to referential representations like history writing. The key ethical argument is that complexity in such representations can foreground the existence of radical alterity and foster an attitude of respect toward it. Hence, the central goal is not for representations to maximize presentational effectiveness as much as for them to provide a means of subverting representation in its oppressive, colonizing aspect, sometimes even at the cost of presentational appeal. In addition to discussing the general conditions for this subversion, the article outlines some potential means for constructing such representations, including the presentation of referential materials as disruptive elements; the way in which these disruptions foreground the sense-making nature of daily experience; and the related and desirable shift of investments of meaning and attributions of significance from author to reader.