Date: Tue, 31 Aug 2004 17:09:51 -0700 (PDT) From: villon sasha k <il_frenetico-AT-yahoo.com> Subject: [postanarchism] re: Dirlik Andy, Have you read Dirlik on postcolonialism? He is very critical of it, actually; so, I’m not sure one would want to say he discusses anarchism from a postcolonial perspective, although he is certainly critical of colonialism. In the debates between WST and postcolonial critique, he defended WST against postcolonial critics who claimed—rather weakly—that WST was essentialist (of course, poco critics have their own forms of essentialism—cultural). Dirlik’s understanding of Chinese anarchism isn’t really based in postcolonial theory at all. But Dirlik does do a very good job working within particular/universal tension. If we had to place Dirlik, he would be a mix of Marxism, World Systems Theory and radical Cultural Studies. I agree the debates between Marxism and postcolonialism often leave a lot to be desired. This is one of the reasons I like Dirlik, since he took postcolonial theory pretty seriously in his critique. The theoretical points at issue really hide a political disagreement over nationalism that really comes to the fore after the discursive end of revolution (post-Soviet times). This is when human rights and bourgeois nationalism take a few steps up the discursive hierarchy. Many Marxists are dismissive too quickly for sure, but simple acceptance seems equally weak. This is the question of particularism/universalism—nationalism versus the universal class. The more interesting people don’t simply dismiss nationalism as bourgeois and nothing else; instead, they try to pry it apart, looking inside that form for the revolutionary content contained. The point would be to see how that form is both enabling and limiting of revolutionary action—how it is part of a process. Dirlik does this kind of work with Chinese anarchists; but, in doing so, he does not fall into postcolonial-critique-style nationalism (which is, let’s face it, usually rather bourgeois in character). He is still pushing a particular addressed universally, and addressed to a structural contradiction of our world system (i.e. a contradiction within a system structured as a relation not on an essence). best, sasha ====------------- Anarchist Discussion Board -- Also for response to KKA, WD and Aporia: http://pub47.ezboard.com/banarchykka The Killing King Abacus Page: http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail - 50x more storage than other providers! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005