(note: this is a post I wrote on Echo, the NYC bbs. In it, I try to talk about how postcolonial theory came to rise in the academy. Specifically, we were discussing whether or not we should begin a poco-ish conference on Echo called TRIBES. Some folks were nervous about it. Here, I am arguing in favor. Even though this post comes mid-way into a longer conversation--you'll notice that, quickly--I think it's a reasonably good gloss on postcolonialism for folks who don't know much about the topic. Use if you like , attributed, please.)

What's the Deal with Postcolonialism?

by Theresa M. Senft

I have seen the phrases "identity politics", "ghetto" and "tokenism" used a couple of times in this discussion. For what its worth, I would like to clarify the way I saw a TRIBES conference. Because its where I spend too much time, I am going to use the history of American universities to say some stuff.

I realize that identity politics are a big issue in the press, in local government decisions and in most of what people call "the real world." But actually, in the academy, there has been a trend AWAY from speciality departments that practice what Lana has termed "identity politics"--and TOWARDS departments that are more analytical in their focus.

Here is an example: When Women's Studies arrived on the Scene in the academy, most of the courses offered had titles like, "Women and the Novel", "Women in Politics" etc. Please note the word "women". The thinking was that identity politics would bind folks long enough to carve out a curriculum, and carve they did.

The next wave in the academy argued that Feminism is not necessarily the provence of women, but is a form of intellectual praxis. A feminist scholar would argue, for instance, that the body is a legitimate space of poetic, economic and epistemological inquiry. A feminist scholar might fight for the increase of autobiographical language in "serious theory", or might make the case that The Socratic Method is only ONE among MANY styles of processesing information. Feminist courses today might have titles like, "Conceptions of the Body in 18th Century Europe", "Briccolage and Computer Programming" (I believe Sherry Turkle is planning a course with that title) or "Autobiography and Questions of Authenticity."

Someone asked awhile ago, what did I consider the difference between "gay" and "queer". Some answers were offered up: that gay is an older term, that the label 'queer' includes transgendered people and bisexuals among others, that 'queer' is a more malleable label. All those definitions are true, to some degree.

But for ME, "queer" is NOT a way of saying, Gay Plus! The queer INTELLECTUAL movement has been influneced by writers like Eve Sedgwick, Michael Moon, Leo Bersani, Judith Butler. These writers see the word, queer as a verb as well as a noun. To queer: to make odd, strange, to invert, to inhabit the stigma, and reverse the political climate in so doing. Red ribbons are a gay politics. ACT UP! is a queer politics. The gay person says, "I'm just like you, except I am gay." The queer person says, "You depend on me to EXIST as a category of human being, therefore you and I are of a piece. It aint pretty, but there it is."

In Lambda, we call ourselves a Queer ISSUES conference, not a queer identity conference. Because there is no such THING as a queer identity. Queer is a way of calling identity front and center for questioning.

There were, very briefly, courses in the academy on Gay Literature, Lesbian Herstory (sic) and such. By and large, these have been replaced by courses with names like, "Sexuality, Homosexual Panic and Fin de Siecle Writing", "Transvestite Politics and Shakespearean Drama", and "Sex Work in Digital Communities" (yup, its a course title.) These courses use Queer as an intellectual tootl to ask particular questions about sexuality, community, legitimate pleasures, and history.

What I was proposing in the TRIBES conference is something that actually has current roots in academia. What I am trying to do, in a very subtle way, is to suggest that postcolonial theory (yes I know its an unfamiliar term) might be used toward a useful end on Echo.

Let me backpedal: A buncha years ago, African American Studies entered the academy. You can guess the course titles, and the devisive politics that came out of classes with titles like "The Black Novel" and whatnot.

The trend about ten years ago (and it was a good one!) was to say, "Hey! What is with this ghettoizing! Black novels (not only novels written by black authors but books like INVISIBLE MAN that worked to articulate a 'black aesthetic') should be taught in ANY class called, "The Novel in the 20th Century" or whatnot.

The trend above, which many folks here have articulated quite clearly, is called in simple terms, "De-Ghettoizing the Academy". Its a good thing.

But while this is happening, should happen, and continues to happen (read the Yale ALumni magazine if you think this process is even CLOSE to finished) there has been ANOTHER move in the academy:

Post-colonial studies. Does anyone remember the book, BLACK SKINS, WHITE MASKS, by Frantz Fanon? Fanon was an Algerian psychiatrist who tried to make three things clear:

1. The state is formed through violence

2. The most profound effect of that violence is the creation

of "civilized" humans THROUGH THE CONCURRENT CREATION of those called the "uncivilized"

3. This pattern is MOST dangerous not in its flamboyant forms (crime, war, public punishments) but rather in its most benign manifestations (beauracracy, technology, the polic, (er, the police), the law.

To bring this back to the case at hand, Fanon saw Nationalist Revolution as yet another brand of violent identity politics. The feeling at the time (which still exists many places) was that if a country like Algeria threw out the colonizer (France), they would somehow be "free." Do you see the similarities between this mindset and a gay separtist movement or an all women's gynocentric feminism? All of them have a kind of utopian hope attached to them.

JUst as queer thinking suggests that heterosexuality DEPENDS FOR ITS EXISTENCE on homosexuality, postcolonial thinkers say: The "First World" and the "Third" are of a piece. They are connected. No one gets out of it.

Paul Gilroy, the postcolonial writer of THE BLACK ATLANTIC, argues that racism is a world-wide ECONOMIC phenomenon that has an INTELLECTUAL history. He also makes it clear that racism is not a global term: it doesn't mean the same thing in every context. When an African American assumes that an Iraqui is a hysterical fundamentalist based on nothing but CNN coveage of the Gulf War, this is racist. When a well-meaning English relief worker tells an Ecuadorian man that he is having homosexual sex with his male partner, rather than focusing on AIDS prevention (the reason she is there) she is racist (because "homosexual" has no place in the sexual/social dynamic of this man's life, and is an example of a square epistemological peg being rammed into a round hole.) When you look at me and tell me I am white, you are very possibly being racist. Racism occurs when I use my "civilized" parameters to render you an object under my gaze, in order to classify you as a type of human being.

So racism is a way of intellectual classifying humans, but so is nationalism, sexuality, gender, intelligence level, comparison to an "able-bodied" person, and a whole mess of other things. It is something we do. Its how the Enlightenment has worked for us: we like to classify stuff, and people, and ourselves.

A postcolonial critic would suggest that by talking, telling stories, analyzing the mechanics of social systems, re-inserting the body, desire and violence back INTO the academy, we might be onto a new way of learning. Postcolonial critique is as much interested in the statement "I am white" as the statement, "You are black." Courses in a postcolonalist department would have titles like the items I gave in the TRIBES conference list, above. Identity politics would have little to do with the progression of a postcolonial discussion, except as a topic of analysis. Not only would "black" or "white" or "Irish" or "Japanese" be interrogated, the phrase:

"I AM..." would come under the microscope. We live in a world that includes a world wide AIDS epidemic, massive international migration, DNA patenting, a critical dependency on an underpaid world labor market, and the INTERNET, for god's sake. At what point can I say with assurance, "I" and know what that even MEANS, for the sake of anything short of religious reassurance before death?

SO, TO WIND THIS UP (I SWEAR) and answer Lana's question: Yes, I can cover lots of these issues in a Philosophy conference, and I will. My training is in feminist, queer, and postcolonial theories, and I try to bring them to bear on ANYTHING I look at closely. I know we will be looking at certain texts: Fanon's WRETCHED OF THE EARTH, parts of Gayatri Spivak, and Gilroy's THE BLACK ATLANTIC, to name a couple.

Does that mean that a postcolonial critique cannot sustain an entire conference on ITS OWN? No. Just because I read Eve Sedgwicks EPISTEMOLOGY OF THE CLOSET in House of Thought doesn't mean that her ideas cannot be discussed in a more relaxed way in Lambda. Just because we read FANON in House of Thought doesn't mean that the topic "Is Nationalism Dead" isn't a good one to talk about in a TRIBES conference.

Does this mean we SHOULDN"T talk about these things elsewhere? No. Of course we should! But please mark my words: whether we admit it or not, EVERY CONFERENCE ON ECHO has an ideological framework. It is impossible to converse on any topic without one (thank you Nietzsche.)

TRIBES was a suggestion for a different flava of ideology than exists in say Politics, or Culture, or Lambda. Not better, different. Not ghettoized, specialized. Not separate and equal from "mainstream" conference, but a place that is in dialogue and, from time to time, dissent, from them.

A conference that would strengthen Echo. Because knowledge is strength. And it comes in many varieties.

Lord, don't ever let me post like this again. Sorry for the length, anyone who stayed this far.

end.