communicating in order to reach out to the diversely fragmented selves in order to awaken them in
favor of integrative personal and broader human development. Gurdjieff also significantly
experiments with at times quite odd modes of writing, of inventing new terms, concepts, etc.,
simply to draw the reader out of her or his habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and sensing.
Gurdjieff’s pedagogy, however, is only partly done through writing, and given his emphasis on
the “threebrained” nature of human organism, he employs not only mental exercises, but also
physical exercises and movements, and emotionallyevocative dances in order to engage all
dimensions of the organism in favor of its allrounded awakening and development. Gurdjieff,
among others, was a highly skilled teacher of esoteric dances, and also composed, via one of his
musically accomplished pupils (Thomas de Hartmann), various musical pieces to engage the
emotional center as part of his pedagogy.
In Gurdjieff, the fragmented reality of human organism and multiple selfhood is much more
consciously problematized and brought to the center of the liberatory efforts than appears to be in
Anzaldúa’s writing. This is not to say that Anzaldúa is not aware of the problem of multiple
selfhood and the challenge the human inner fragmentation poses for inner and broader social
transformation. For this reason, it is important to explore further the diverse ways in which
Anzaldúa approaches the problem of the self in her writing.
Approaches to the Self in Anzaldúa’s Writing
Significant in Anzaldúa’s sociological imagination is her openness to conceive of the self in
its multiplicity as well as its hybrid nature. For her, our “psyches resemble the bordertowns and
are populated by the same people” (1987:87); as much as one lives among populations without,
one’s inner life is characterized by populations of selves within that pose similar challenges to
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Convention