Spivak and Postcolonial Critique

 In the past two weeks, we continued our discussion about Spivak's A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. We discussed her deconstructive reading of European philosophy and the advantages and limits of this form of reading. Additionally, we explored questions about Spivak's understanding of postcolonial critique and its possible differences in relation to decolonial critique. These were some of the highlights of our discussions:

Postcolonial Critique as negotiation: Spivak emphasizes the negotiating nature of postcolonial critique in the sense of critique not breaking apart, dismissing, and accusing the European colonial tradition, but entering a more nuanced and differentiated relationship with it that "suspends accusation" (98). Shouldn't "accusations" be an important part of the critique of canon nevertheless?  We asked ourselves: What are the advantages of the ambivalent approach to colonial thought history? There are also some interesting parallels to Dussel's concept of Transmodernity.

Marxism and Difference: Spivak's deconstructive reading of Marx opens up possibilities for postcolonial marxism. What is the role of difference in that Marxism, and to what degree would postcolonial marxism overcome the dogmas of orthodox Marxism?

Colonialism as "enabling violation": In an interview (The Present as History, Critical Perspectives on Global Power, p.176), Spivak characterizes British colonialism in India as an "enabling violation", arguing that she is not against the British but against "bad colonial policy". This perspective puts Spivak in an opposed position in relation to many anti-colonial and decolonial thinkers that regard colonialism as an absolute evil that has had only harmful effects. To what degree is Spivak's different understanding of colonialism a result of her focus on the Indian experience of colonialism and a result of geopolitical differences that need to be highlighted and analyzed through comparative studies? Her perspective develops a critique of the colonial violation, without denying that certain transformations after colonialism are also cases of progress and growth (for example technological advancements). 

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. 

Praxis and the Philosophy of Liberation

In this meeting we discussed the “Appendix: Philosophy and Praxis” from Enrique Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation. Puja presented a brief overview of this section emphasizing the role of philosophy with ideology and praxis, the influence and relative determination of praxis in shaping a philosophical system, the role of the organic philosopher converting through critical thinking in a philosopher of liberation and Dussel’s use of Nicaragua as a geopolitical example of an affirmation of a political exteriority. The discussion started with the question of the relationship of nationalism in the example of Nicaragua as an exteriority. We asked: In what sense is Nicaragua an exteriority? What is been affirmed? Is exteriority part of dialectic? In what consist the liberation of Nicaragua? How the liberation of Nicaragua expresses a form of analectic affirmation? We asked if this liberation and affirmation was an expression of hope at the beginning of the Sardinista’s Revolution in Nicaragua at the end of the 70s, considering this appendix was an address given in the 1980. In this sense, we discuss the geopolitics of the relationship of Nicaragua and the US, and whether is in this context that one can read a relationship of the new revolutionary movement as a form of political exteriority. Part of the struggle of discussing this section is to understand the relationship between totality and exteriority, and in what degree Dussel differs from Levinas philosophy of alterity.

 

The discussion moved to question Dussel category of utopia, its role, meaning and potential danger of falling in the future in reinstituting a new system of domination of one group over another. Besides the question and the critique, we also attempted to understand the relationship of utopia with Dussel’s Proyecto and praxis. In this sense, utopia can be understood as a necessary moment of affirmation that opens the possibility of working towards a proyecto.

 

One question that arise in the discussion was whether Dussel’s conceptualization of totality is encompassing and universal, or whether one can read Dussel’s metaphysical system as composed of different systems of totality. Is Dussel’s conceptualization of totality undermining the existence of multiple systems of oppressions and their intersections? There is space, however, to interpret Dussel as opening the possibility of a more intersectional analysis of systems of oppression as seen in page 188 when he asserts: “The oppressed are considered historically and socially as a class, geopolitically as a nation, sexually as repressed by macho ideology and practices, pedagogically as alienated and completely enclosed by an idolatrous fetishism.”

 

We close the discussion with questions about the relationship of the organic intellectual with the oppressed, and specifically we questioned Dussel’s claim that an organic intellectual, once converted to the liberation of the oppressed assumes their class. The discussion stem from this passage: “To be ‘organic’ (arrow e) with the historical subject means to resolutely acquire a class position with an oppressed people; it means to become involved in and form part of the popular movement of the working class or of marginal groups […]” (p.190) We questioned: In what sense Dussel means that the organic philosopher assumes the class of the oppressed? Is it in a Marxist sense? Does this requires to give up privileges and what type of commitment, risk and sacrifices this entails? Additionally, we questioned and discussed the relationship of the intellectual with communities and social movements. Does being an organic intellectual means the philosopher needs to belong or be in a committed relationship with the oppressed?

Defining Dialectics and Analectical Moments

    On January 19th, we discussed "Chapter 5: From Science to the Philosophy of Liberation" in Enrique Dussel's The Philosophy of Liberation. Our conversation began with a focus on section "5.3: The Analectical Moment" and how this concept was similar to or different from a dialectical method. We considered the extent to which the analectical moment exceeds dialectical thought and consequently provided a meta-lens through which to examine totality and its exteriority. In doing so, we discussed whether the analectical moment was an affirmation of exteriority in its negation of the negation of the system. 

   This led us to a discussion of the following questions: Why does Dussel frame the analectical moment as a moment and not as a method? To what extent does Dussel seek to distinguish himself from a dialectical method? This conversation about method versus moment drew us back to topics we discussed the previous week about ontology and metaphysics. We discussed how the analectical moment is a kind of metaphysics that goes beyond what is, and that beyond indicates the exteriority through which Dussel establishes a firm commitment to the Other. In contrast to Emmanuel Levinas's universal Other, Dussel sees the Other as particular and as the oppressed against whom the totality defines itself. Members pointed out that the analectical moment disappears in Dussel's later work, to be replaced in part by his concept of transmodernity. This move away from dialectics is in keeping with Adorno and a rejection of a dialectics as a dominant form of thought. 

    We then discussed how Dussel's exteriority defines difference, leading us to the following questions: How does Dussel address difference within the category of the oppressed? Does the negation of the negation actually affirm? Is there an erasure of difference in the project of liberation? How do you navigate competing demands without establishing a hierarchy of oppression? How do we conceptualize a heterogeneous exteriority? While Dussel has a marked interest in colonized cultures, he does not talk about differences within that group, for instance, of sexuality, gender, ethnicity, or race. Members noted that Dussel is distancing himself from Hegel, who drew on dialectics to affirm totality. Dussel wants to recognize something outside that totality. Others in the group noted that this use of universalizing categories is in keeping with contemporary theories that were emerging, for example, in world-systems theory. We also briefly discussed the concept of proyecto in the text, which indicates both a project and the idea of thrownness associated with Heidegger. The idea of thrownness in Heidegger, members pointed out, indicates a grasping or a grappling that is distinct from and pauses teleology. 

    While many questions were left unanswered, the points we raised through our discussion gives us a solid foundation through which to further examine Dussel's intervention as we read some of his later work next week before moving on to Spivak. We considered, for instance, how Dussel's grounding in European philosophy contrasts with that of Édouard Glissant. The idea of history as a totality in European philosophical traditions raise questions about the extent to which we can think about exteriority. Does this ultimately become a project of listening to the absences and silences or the mechanisms of silencing? Or are there other ways of thinking through which we might be able to account for difference in a philosophy of liberation?

The face of the Other in the Philosophy of Liberation

 In this meeting we began our discussion of the book Philosophy of Liberation by Enrique Dussel. Our discussion was focused on Chapter 2 “From Phenomenology to Liberation” and was led by Ricardo. Ricardo introduced Enrique Dussel’s intellectual development and the context in which this book was written. The first question that opened the discussion was about the relationship of Dussel with other thinkers such as Foucault in his writing of history. Part of the discussion to this question expanded to see the centrality of the question of history for 20th century philosophers, while signaling the differences in their question and understanding of history. For example, in the case of Heidegger the concern was more about the question of history in philosophy and how it has been addressed from a metaphysical perspective. Levinas critique Heidegger’s critique of a metaphysic of history because it leaves out a concern for the Other. Foucault could be situated as part of a critique and questioning of history after WWII. In Latin America, the question of history in the 60s was part of the concern for process of national liberation. 

The conversation continued with a question about the influence of theological thought and Christianity in Dussel conceptualization of the Other and the responsibility that one has with the Other. There are moments in the text when Dussel describe the responsibility to serve the Other and help liberate the oppressed that is reminiscent of Christianity. This led to a question about Dussel’s phenomenology. It seems that to be able to understand the relationship with the Other is important to question what is Dussel’s understanding of the subject, the “I” , and its relationship with the Other. Moreover, how is Dussel conceptualization of the subject in the world and its interpretation of it? Here we questioned Dussel’s explanation of the process by which we become subjects. This opened a discussion of Dussel’s explanation of the face-to-face encounter as having primacy before the creation of the subject, the understanding of being or other forms of understanding of the world. Zeinab questioned the emphasis of Dussel in love. Is the emphasis of love based in a theological foundation? Can this be antithetical to a project of liberation? We tried to understand where does love arises in a process of liberation. Is love the product of liberation or is it a given prior to liberation? How this emphasis of love can be contrasted with someone like Fanon that can be read as positing a form of ethical reciprocity after liberation? 

Part of the issue for Dussel is the problem with Western ontology, which is an ontology of Being, of domination. This ontology arranges the world into Being and Non-Beings. Dussel seems to propose instead a metaphysics that open oneself to the Other. For Levinas, at the very origin, we encounter the face of the Other. The face of the Other can be consider a priori in the sense that it conditions everything else. We encounter the face of the Other prior to making claims about Being or being able to make any epistemological claim. The possibility for love can be understood in this a priori encounter with the face of the Other. This led to questions about how is it that someone appears in proximity to me? How have we come to see the Other? What allows the Other to be revealed to me? Is it because of the system or is it something more existential? When you encounter the Other, what change is produced? What is mobilized? Is it a form of solidarity? Is it support? What opens the possibility of seeing the Other? Does it require a form of sensibility, a particular ethos? 

Part of what Dussel is doing in this chapter is providing a phenomenology to understand and interpret the experience when we encounter the Other. Seeing the face of the Other requires a form of interpretation and making sense of the world and ourselves.  The revelation of the Other, the exteriority of the system, can emerge in moments of fissures, ruptures, contradictions, and things that does not make sense. There are epiphanies in experiences that requires a work of interpretation. Therefore, for Dussel is important to develop a form of pedagogy that opens the possibility of seeing and have a responsibility for the other that has been pushed to the exteriority, what he calls the oppressed.  

One difficulty that can be posed to this philosophy of liberation is how difficult it is for most people to go against habits of thinking that developed through dominant process of socialization that prevent developing an ethics of liberation. It is more difficult for most people to have an epiphany. What are the conditions for the possibility of an epiphany? The challenge is in the process of interpretation and comprehension. Dussel acknowledge this difficulty in the section about interpretation and comprehension of the world when he recognizes the role of our preconception in the process of interpretation of things. The problem arises when one does not have the critical categories to make sense of things. This issue is made more complex in the section of alienation where Dussel analyze how the systems of domination maintains itself through repression. Dussel’s investment seems to be again in a pedagogy that begins with the interpretation of experience, but that is committed to make structural changes at different levels, including the economic. 

Questioning the space for Radical Critique of the present within Postcolonial Studies

 In this meeting Katherine guided the discussion of the text “Postcolonial Studies After the Invasion of Iraq” by Neil Lazarus. 

We discuss the critique this piece makes to postcolonial studies, particularly its lack of analysis of capitalism, imperialism and political events that are contemporary to their writers. One of the questions that opened the discussion is how we are limited and restricted in doing postcolonial and decolonial research within the neoliberalization of the university and scholarly research.  Lazarus text’s questions the avoidance of engaging with the political reality of imperialism by postcolonial studies as a discipline: “scholars in postcolonial studies have consistently failed to recognize the unremitting actuality and indeed the intensification of imperialist social relations in the times and spaces of the postcolonial world” (p.16) There are some scholars that do engage in a historical and deep analysis of the contemporary crisis, but they are dissidents of their own discipline.  

One of the reactions and questions to Lazarus' critique is that is not clear who are the postcolonial scholars that avoid analyzing the imperialist politics of the present. Although he mentions Homi Bhabha, this does not necessarily entail that there are not postcolonial scholars that engage in a Marxist and materialist analysis of the present. Part of the concern with this text is that the generality of the critique can project a stereotypical reading of diverse postcolonial scholars. For example, Said has written about imperialism and Spivak has taken a Marxist approach in some of the texts. However, part of the critique is how postcolonial research has been institutionalized which have prevented a more robust discussion of, for example, US imperialism. 

We discuss about the challenges, difficulties, and risks in engaging in critique to US imperialism, and the consequences that can bring, not only to individual scholars, but also to the field. One example of this is the institutional expressions against Critical Race Theory, and how the previous administration discussed banning from schools the 1619 Project. Another example is how there is not enough work done about the Middle East in postcolonial studies and how this can become a sensitive topic when it touches topics such as radicalization and US intervention in the Middle East. Lastly, there are consequences that scholars have faced (like losing teaching positions) for researching and advocating in favor of Palestine and against US and Israel settler colonialism and imperialist violence in the region. We discuss those constraints, but also how scholars that take those risks are pushing the boundaries of what can be criticized within the academia and the possibilities of doing radical work from their research and activism. 

Lastly, we had a conversation about the limitations of postcolonial and decolonial studies in terms of the overall limitations that disciplines face due to the hyper specialization and professionalization that is promoted in the university. We discuss of the need of more interdisciplinary work to be able to develop a more complex understanding of the problems that we are committed to study: colonialism, imperialism, immigration, capitalism, Islamophobia, etc. Postcolonial and Decolonial research are inherently interdisciplinary, they need to engage with history, economy, politics, literature, Marxism, and any approach that allows us a better understanding of the systems of domination in the past and the present. 

 Postcolonial studies between the European wars: an intellectual history  

Timothy Brennan  

 

Ricardo gave a summary of the thinker’s work and opened the floor for discussion. 

 
 
Brennan is really interested in showing continuity in historical events and shaping, rather than an idea of history where there is a rupture. Reading of the text is spread out and can be perhaps understood in three essential parts 

1. Postcolonial studies as a ‘form of theory’. 

2. Interwar Marxism and Anti-colonial Liberation 

3. Discusses various cases of art and their interactions with non-western forms and influences.  

The troubled lineage of postcolonial theory 

Postcolonial studies as a ‘form of theory’: We discussed about the problems of postcolonial studies in academia and university systems and its troubled history. 

 
“Over time, this array of meanings amounted to a virtual ethics of poststructuralism, freely applied to diverse situations and investigative contexts with a rigorous conformity.” (186) 
 
We also stated the two problem postcolonial studies faces. One is the work happening through the lineage of philosophical borrowings from poststructuralism- which aims to end western dominance by bringing attention to differences (race, gender, power struggles etc) and other is the articulation of non-western conceptions, making space for them, marking anti-colonial leanings. The former, we discussed could be seen has separating postcolonial studies from its project of exposing Western dominance and giving voice to non-western forms of knowledge production. 
 
We then discussed about the former structure- where postcolonialism works with the poststructuralist frameworks, the impact and consequences of such a frame. We briefly discussed about how Derrida, Levinas (radically perhaps) criticize western metaphysics in their work but nonetheless still re-assert their Jewish origins through their work. Which is to say that Derrida and Levinas criticize eurocentrism but in a euro-centric way. Expanding on the above, we notice Nietzche’s genealogy too is ultimately concerned with defending eurocentrism.  

“What writers like Emmanuel Levinas or Jacques Derrida left out of their parochial fixations on the Graeco-German West constructed by Romanticism (the object tirelessly exposed in their writing) is much less pertinent than their vigorous prolongment of European superi­ority in the guise of an anti-Eurocentric critique that has rarely been called by its rightful name (Bernasconi 1998, Critchley 1995)” (187) 

The drive of to broaden postcolonial theory (postwar) is brought into the picture as a suggestion. Originality of discussion is a theme, a way of working many postcolonial scholars pick up. 

 

Interwar Marxism and Anti-colonial Liberation 

Brennan singles out 1880 to 1939 as time that ‘angry colonial’ were taking up arms and drawing the attention to theorists working on race, modernity and city etc.  

Two forces stand out particularly- cross cultural contacts and political unease with colonial system. 

We discussed about the impact of Russian revolution that Brenna in his article is trying to invoke and how he connects it to the beginnings of an anti-colonial feeling. (196) We found that the focus on third internationalists and the interpretation of Marxism in this localized forms and expressions to be really fascinating (193). 
 
Discusses various cases of art and their interactions with non-western forms and influences 

Brennan discusses various cases of art where non-western art forms touches on western arts and shapes its formation. Walter Benjamin, Bataille’s examples are discussed. However, we also note that these art formations or influences of non-western forms can be also read as sites of appropriation, as a modality of consumption (by the colonizer’s gaze, and because of their economic capacity to co-opt, take, appropriate creative forms to theirs) 
 
The conclusion ends with an appeal to Bataille’s concept of economy and the limits of Marxism. We also notified how he made naïve references to non-western cultures in his writing and can be seen as perhaps a rather amateur thinker, but it is also this amateurishness that has a certain appeal, an influence on the way he writes and thinks without in-depth analytical analysis of theories in an academic way, one can say. 

 

 

 
Other Points 

In our discussion we first talked about the question of how we can begin to think of history of the anti-colonial movement/sentiment. We also grappled with the question of history in relation to anti-colonial origins in different places. 

Secondly, we discussed historical materialism and its linkage to anti-colonial sentiment. We noticed that Brennan has been perhaps deliberately critical of few things in his writing than others. Which is to say that the writings on some pieces has not evoked the same sentimentality. For example, it seems like there is a special emphasis in his work on Russian Revolution and its linkage (almost as an originary point for anti-colonial sentiment).  

Around this we had various views, and we were troubled about the politics of purity (which is to negate any post structural thoughts and influences) but also, we wondered about the conceptual (Eurocentric) frames that perhaps never get questioned. How do we reconcile these issues and think of history and postcolonial frameworks? 

Some of us didn’t see Brennan’s reading to be accurate which was that postcolonial thinking does not deal or acknowledge the debt of Marxism. Brennan almost points out to it in in a way that shows that Marxism is heavily repressed whereas it was noted that in the works of Said, Leela Gandhi, Spivak, they have time and again acknowledged the Marxist understandings and leanings (in their various work). 

We also discussed that this kind of a rupture-less historical knitting and the stakes of it. The narrative of Russian revolution as the sole beginning of anti-colonial sentiment might hold problem that we began our discussion early on, who does the work of decolonizing and perhaps may raise ethical epistemic question in due course. We also reflected on the question of ‘theory of postcolonialism’ and said that it is impossible to perhaps have a unified pregiven singular origin or theory of colonialism and post coloniality for a given place, because it manifests itself quite differently in different geo-political spaces, cultures, etc.