By 1993, in an interview with Ellen Rooney, Spivak had begun warning against «
strategic essentialism» after witnessing its use not as a mobilizing slogan but as a master word, not as a means to an end (a strategy) but as itself justified.
Just as «
strategic essentialism» was perverted by theorists, identity politics became co-opted by museums.
Spivak, always admirably wary of claiming «mastery», would later shift her position on «
strategic essentialism».
These dialectical views on, and history of, the ethics and political efficacy of «
strategic essentialism» are what interest me here, not matters of institutional rights or artistic intentionality.
Reconsidering the ethics and efficacy of «
strategic essentialism» via Adrian Piper, «We Wanted a Revolution» and Juliana Huxtable
The Australian public ethics professor Clive Hamilton has proposed another line of defense named «
strategic essentialism» — stating that the science is indisputable for strategic reasons.