Deconstruction and Postcolonialism

On February 2nd, 2021, we meet to discuss Gayatri Spivak's 2003 Critique of Postcolonial Reason. We began with the first section, which is entitled "Philosophy" and concerns itself with a reading of the concept of the "Native Informant" in the work of Immanuel Kant and his inheritors. Zeinab lead us through a discussion of the opening pages of this chapter, and touched upon Spivak's mode of reading texts as a primarily Deconstruction-oriented one. 

Zeinab moved on to discuss Spivak's reading of Kant, which located the Native Informant in the constitutive outside, or foreclosure, to be found in Kant's first Critique. This is to say that the Native Informant is defined by its absence, as though its presence is a forethought such that it cannot not be present in its absence. To put it another way, the Native Informant is assumed to be already known and defined, such that actually defining it or including it would be unnecessary. 

Discussion lead to questions about Deconstruction and its status as one mode of critique among others. Kate drew connections to George Lamming's novel The Emigrants, and this lead to a discussion of the Native Informant and whether it has an essence or is defined by its lack thereof. We took up the context of German history that Spivak is focused on, which is key for its own concern with narrating the nation of Germany as a late-comer to Europe. Puja pointed out that Spivak thematizes our own status as Native Informants within academia and the problems this leads to in our own research.