File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1998/postcolonial.9804, message 61


Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 15:21:35 -0400
From: Keith Alan Sprouse <kas3f-AT-virginia.edu>
Subject: Re:caribbeanist studies and US imperialism


Liz wrote:

>Keith, Since you have used a selection of my comments to prove the
>'ignorance" of postcolonialists about regions outside of their field of
>inquiry, you should know that my research is on anglophone caribbean
>literature and theory, and that the full text of my comment is as
>follows:

>I think the converse danger of teaching poco without attention to north
>america is that (as the recent job listings which concentrate on the
>caribbean or africa only, for instance) it detracts attention from
>current neoimperialist policies, particularly of the US. ie, it's more
>palatable for many departments to teach 19th/early 20th british
>imperialism in the Caribbean than Reagan and Clinton's policies towards
>Haitian refugees in the 1980's and 90's. This, it seems to me, is
>another example of postcoloniality's 'belatedness'.

I won't repost my comments here, but my entry point into this had to do with
the implication in this passage that anyone who gets a job as a Caribbeanist
does indeed "concentrate on the Caribbean and/or Africa only." Perhaps I
have missed something in the job descriptions, since I'm not yet on the job
market, but I have never taken a course (poco Caribbean/African or not) in
which we didn't deal with contemporary manifestations of US imperialism.

Perhaps the fact that I work in Spanish and French, as well as English,
might have something to do with my perceptions on the matter -- I don't know
which language traditions you work in, or if you do only anglophone
Caribbean, so I can't address that point. My originial point was simply that
those who work in Caribbean studies, in my experience, don't usually neglect
US imperialism in the region, with some conservative scholars excepted, so
the idea that one would have an appointment as a Caribbeanist or Africanist
and not in any way see those regions as tied to anything else seemed
problematic. I didn't mean for it to be a personal attack and apologize if
you felt it to be one. 

>My point is not that Caribbeanists are unaware of the continuing process
>of US imperialism, but that in its teaching and the administrative
>process which creates departmental job openings, the role of the US if
>very often subsumed under the examination of european imperialism in the
>caribbean.

This certainly hasn't been my experience, nor have I seem this to be the
case in my reading, etc. Perhaps this is a departmental issue? My suspicion
here is that your experience might have something to do with the fact that
you do anglophone Caribbean scholarship. Do you work in the hispanophone
tradition at all? There you will certainly find that US imperialism is much
more central to the work that deals with what is currently going on in the
Caribbean. The francophone Caribbean, since the relationship with France
tends to be the main imperialist influence, tends to not be so concerned
with the US, of course, which stands to reason.

>While this may not be the case with the literature of merle
>collins, ana lydia vega, edwidge danticat and countless others who
>examine the US's fragmentation of caribbean socio-economic policies,
>there continues an avoidance of this issue from what i have seen in its
>teaching and for example,conference panels at the MLA.

Hmmm... I haven't been to recent MLAs, although I'm going to this year's (to
talk about Glissant, as a matter of fact, on one of my papers). I'll be
interested to see how much or little is done with the US presence in the
other panels. In the conferences that I've been to, I couldn't say that US
imperialism has been ignored in papers dealing with the CAribbean.

>....one text which comes to mind is stefano harney's 'nationalism and
identity' >which i find problematic for many reasons, but in relation to
this discussion
>i dont see how harney can position a reading of trinidadian nationalism
>which doesnt fully examine US military and economic imperialism of the
>20th century.

I, too, find it interesting, not the least because he devotes a chapter to
CLR James, which might encourage one to look at the politics of imperialism.

>My research is primarily concerned with constructions of regionalism and
>nationalism in the anglophone caribbean (although i use glissant and
>benitez-rojo's theories), and i am continually struck by the lack of
attention to >neoimperialism.

I would be interested in hearing more about your work, especially since my
dissertation is dealing with Glissant, the Créolistes, Benitez-Rojo,
Brathwaite and others on Caribbean identity. I am saving Brathwaite for this
summer, but as far as Glissant and Benitez-Rojo go, I would pretty much
agree with you. Glissant is concerned with neo-imperialism in his earlier
essays, then takes up the Deleuze-Guattati happy nomad banner and loses the
ability to go beyond it to provide any thorough critique of (neo)imperialist
practices. Benitez-Rojo never seems to interested in examining imperialism
or neo-imperialism, content with seeing Europe's hand being played out in
the installation of the Plantation system. Beyond that, you might get the
feeling that Europe just stopped existing after the shift from sugar cane to
beet sugar and it's effects on the sugar-producing economies of the places
where sugar monoculture was dominant. But enough of that for now, if anyone
is interested in starting a Caribbean thread, I might write more.

>Finally, your point about glissant's strategy also highlights this
>shortcoming in regards to french imperialism:
>
>>This is nice, certainly utopian thinking has its value, but I don't
>>know how much use asking for a recognition of the value of
>>diversity will have in the face of global capitalism, or even
>>simply French neo-colonialism in Martinique (or the DOM-TOMs
>>in general).

Certainly. In fact, it seems to me that the francophone Caribbean is the
weakest in this regard, presumably due to the incredible success of French
colonialism and neo-colonialism. And, as I mentioned in another post, I did
prefer the sorts of analyses that Glissant undertook in that period of his
intellectual career. That said, of course there are problems with this
texts, too -- I certainly agree with Lisa here. But at least he hadn't given
up yet. . .

Take care,

Keith

____________________________________________________

Keith Alan Sprouse		e-mail:  kas3f-AT-virginia.edu
New World Studies		office: 804.924.4626
Department of French	fax:  804.924.7157
University of Virginia		home:  804.243.4306
Charlottesville, VA 22903	http://www.people.virginia.edu/~kas3f



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