I want to make sure that as we follow our own directions for research that we do not lose sight of history and key concepts in postcolonial feminisms. The following link takes you to a good site that outlines many of the key concepts and people of interest to this area of study.
The Imperial Archive
2 comments:
"One reason for such metaphorization of the term postcolonial, like that of the term colonize, lies in its convenience as a way of assigning values and establishing the moral superiority of both the critic and the critic's topic."
George P Landow in "The Postcolonial Woman as a Terminological Problem"
(www.postcolonialweb.orgpoldiscourse/pocowom1.html)
It is all too convenient for me to sit around abstracting and re-abstracting these terms while I have little to no knowledge of postcolonial studies from the texts.
Perhaps this is why it feels increasingly inappropriate to theorize my own experiences through "postcoloniality", to speak of the "postcolonial moment" across multiple locales and identity practices, to merge vastly different histories of colonialism across the time-space continuum for the sake of relevance or solidarity.
This goes back to "naming the oppressor" or "who does the lie protect?". The abstraction or metaphoric use of "patriarchy" or "the West" or "the Occident" or the "Male Gaze" becomes part of this aura of superiority--the ability to be "in the know" about the nature and history of the oppression solely by the ability to give it a name.
"This critical approach would suggest that gender is often overridden by racial status and consequently becomes largely inconsequential, thus reflecting one of the central debates presently raging in feminist and post-colonial studies."
From my limited understanding of both the post-colonial and feminist cannon, i feel as though this statement, taken from the linked article, does a great disservice to both ways of thinking. Throughout the first half of the article, the author speaks on the simmilariies of these two disciplines, mostly through the relationship with phollocentrism and heirarchy. However, by the end the author ranks the gender and race, and thereby utilizing heirarchical methods and reducing the "post-colonial" purely to issues of race.
I also take issue with the use of Cloud 9, in that the author's argument is far too simple. The charachters are either male or female, colonized or colonizer, or one that is pretending to be the other in a comical and farciccal manner. If there is anything that I've gleaned from my time in this class, is that all issues tend to be far more complicated than "this" vs. "that". I take further issue to the fact that the place between these two oppososite parties can serve only as comic relief, and can therefore never be taken seriously. Gender goes beyond male and female, Power more complex that Matriarch and Patriarch, and Colonization far more complicated than merely physical violence. I in no way intend to minimize the victims of violence, however I think it irresponsible to examine these issues in relationship to a "vs," for the ultimate goal of the colonizer is to create a sytem which supports itself-- implying the necessity, complicity, and participation of the colonized.
I do believe that the author successfully illustrates that the categories that have been historically used to repress and violate are constructions rooted purely in fiction. However, I would like to see the author challenge these constructions rather than reifying them by placing them ino her own heirarchical systems of classification and importance.
-Jessica
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