Contents [PDF]

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Contents

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Columbia University Press PublishersSince 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex Copyright @ 1998 Leela Gandhi

Acknowledgments Preface

First published in 1998 by Allen 6c Unwin. in Australia All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gandhi, Leela, 7966Postcolonial theory : a critical introduction I Leela Gandhi. p. cm. Includes bibliographical referencesand index. ISBN 0-231-11272-6(alk. paper).- ISBN 0-231-17273-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Postcolonialism. I. Title. JVs1.G36 1998 97-32402 320.9'09'045-dc27

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Printed in Singapore by KHL Printers p109876543

1 After colonialism o The colonial aftermath o Postcolonial re-membering . Gandhi and Fanon: the slaue's recauery Thinking otherwise: a brief intellectual history o Marxism, poststructuralism and tbe problem of humanism . Wbat is Enlightenment? o Descartes' error o Nietzscbe's genealogy Postcolonialism and the new humanities . Prouincialising Earope o Potuer, knowledge and the humanities o OpPositional criticism and tbe new humanities . Tbe world and the book . Tbe p:ostcolonialintellectual Edward Said and his critics . Enter Orientalism . The Said phenomenon o Rethinking colonial discowrse 5 Postcolonialism and feminism . Gendered subaherns: the (Other) u.,o//ran in the attic o Conflicting loyahies: brothers u. sisters o Betueen men: rethinking the colonial encounter 6 Imagining community: the question of nationalism

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iŇ potltlcs of nationbood . A deriuatiue discourse? 7 o3e world: the vision oÍ postnationalism -'"i'ilobrlitation, hybriditj, diotporo o Mutual twsformptions c Postnational utopias: touard an Stcs of hybridiry 8 Postcolonial literatures .,.ď.extual politics . Postcolonial texts, anti.colonial politics 9 ,The limits of postcolonial theory q,.'The meta-narratiueof colonialism c The end of colonialism Bibliography Index

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I *irh to thank my colleaguesat the School of English, La Trobe University, for their patience and support, and Elizabeth'Weissand othersat Allen Ec Unwin for their advice and enthusiasm. Thanks also to Dipesh Chakrabarry who gave me access to hirwork and helped to shape ideas, to David Lloyd whose writing, likewise, offered crucial insightsinto the 'problem' of anti-colonialnationalisms, and to Ruth Vanita whose polemical and stimulating,resistance to the claims of postcolonial theory finds utterance in the 'critique' aspect of this book. I have gained enormously from conversations with Marion Campbell, Joanne Finkelstein, Raiu Pandey and Saniay Seth, who were generous with their time and friendship. To Bronte Adams I owe profound thanks for her reservoir of faith and encouragement; she brought, as always, both pleasure and perspective to the activity of reading and writing. My-greatest deb,t is to lauline Nestsq wlo read through this manuscript and its drafts with care and patience. I learnt much from her editorial and critical interventions, and her hospitaliry and support considerablyeased the rough passage of this book. vll

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I., ,t. last decade postcolonialism has taken its place with theories such as poststructuralism, psychoanalysis and feminism as a major critical discourse in the humanities. As a consequence of its diverse and interdisciplinary usage, this body of thought has generated an enormous corpus of specialised academic writing. Nevertheless, although much has been written undér its rubric, .postcolonialism' itself remains a diffuse and nebulous term. Unlike Marxism or deconstruction, for instance, it seems to lack an 'originary moment' or a coherent methodology. This book is an attempt to 'name' postcolonialism-to delineate the academic and cultural conditions under which it first emerged and thereby to point to its major preoccupations and areas of concern. There are correspondingly ťwo parts to the book-the first offers an account of postcolonialism's academic and intellectual background, and the second elaborates the themes and

!''g.lryhiqh have m9!!_9lg1É9!lb14tt9!!ionof poq1colqqia! critics. In the main, the intellectual history of postcolonial theory is marked by a dialectic between Marxism, on the one hand, and poststructuralism/postmodernism, on the other. So,

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too, this theoretical codt'estation informs the academic content of postcolonial analysis, manifesting itself in an ongoing debate between the cornpeting-claims of nationalism and internationalism, strategic essentialism and hybridity, solidarity and dispersal, the politics .of structure/totality and the politics of the fragment. Critics on both sidw.of this divide are persuasive in their claims, and compelling in their critique of theoretical opponents. Neither the áísertions of Marxism nor those of poststructuralism, however, can exhaustively account for the meanings and consequences of the colonial encounter. ! hile the poststructuralist critique of Western epistemology and theorisation of cultural alterity/difference is indispensable to postcolonial theory, materialist philosophies, such as Marxism, seem to supply the most compelling basis for postcolonial politics. Thus, the postcolonial critic has to work toward a synthesis of, or negotiation between, both modes of thought. In a sense, it is on account of its commitment to this project of theoretical and political ,integration that postcolonialism deserves academic attention. Finally, there is the question of postcolonialism's constituency-the cultural audience for whom its theoretical disquisitions are most meaningful. In my reading of this field, there is little doubt that in its current mood postcolonial theory 'Western principally addresses the needs of the academy. It attempts to reform the intellectual and epistemological exclusions of this academy, and enables non-Western critics located in the'West to present their cultural inheritance as knowledge. This is, of course, a worthwhile project and, to an extent, its efforts have been rewarded. The Anglo-American humanities academy has gradually stretched its disciplinary boundaries to include hitherto submerged and occluded voices from the non-Western world. But, of course, what postcolonialism fails to recognise is that what counts as 'marginal' in relation to in the-'. the !íbst lras often_leen central andjgundational non-\7est. Thus, while it may be revolutionary to teach Gandhi as political theory in the Anglo-American academy, he is, and has always been, canonical in India. Despite its good inten-

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exchanges Dctween. v^lrrd'lš'ts between, tor for mstance, i Africa and India. tts Ááni festo, if anr is thisi that postcolonialism oo*..1.";"i.-- vlYgl-lry ,- mooe ? diversify rrs its *oa., ol of address and learn to sneať ",,,^-^,.more

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In 1985 Gayatri Spivak threw a 'Western llenge to the race and class blindness of the

; asking 'Can the subalternspeak?' (Spivak 1985). By Itern' Spivak meant the oppressedsubject,the members Antonio Gramsci's .subaltern classes' (see Gramsď 1'978,)' more generally those 'of inferior rank', and her question lowed on the work begun in the early 1980s by a collective intellectualsnow known as the Subaltern Studies group. statedobjectiveof this group was 'to promote a systematic informed discussion of subaltern themes in the field'of h Asian studies' (Guha 1"982,p. vii). Further, they ibed their proiect as an attempt to study 'the general

ute of subordinationin South Asian societv whether this expressedin terms of class, caste, age, gender and office or any other way' (Guha 1982, p. vii). Fully alert to the plex ramifications arising from the composition of subor-

ion, the Subakern St+rdies group,-sketc$eJ--eu+ its nging concern both with the visible 'history, politics,

mics and sociologyof subalternity'and with the occluded itudes,ideologiesand belief systems-in short, the culture ins that

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studies' defined itself as an attempt to ďow the finally to speak within the iealous pages ď'.sJitist ip-gople' hištoriographyand, in so doing, to speak foÍ,;r to solrqd the 4lirted voices of, the truly oppressed. ; ..Tpivak's famous interrogation of the riď