Subject: Re: Third Spaces and materialist critiques
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 18:14:26 +0100


This is a rather delayed response (because of work) to Marlene Atleo's two
postings of 12th September following the circualtion of my essay.

I take Marlene's point from her first posting about the 'splitting effect'
of socialisation in one language but then being forced to communicate in
another which either ignores, denigrates or opposes the social traditions of
the first. Her use of seeing and knowing seems particularly apt. I'm no
psychologist, but I can see that this would create a divided identity
whereby one might mimic -- to use one of Bhabha's expressions -- the
dominant language and culture and reserve one's 'mother tounge' for
family interactions, or perhaps as a way of preserving a positive
self-conception in the face of disparagement and/or racism.
          What bothers me about Bhabha, is that he takes this negotiation
and cuts it loose from the social conditions which created it. Having done
so, he proceeds to speculate that this 'spit' is not a division forced by
appaling social persecution, but an empowering opening of a doorway into
another place/space: the the "interstitial" or the "in-between". This
transcendental move denies the oppressive conditions which created the
'split' in the first place. What is 'play' in this imaginary realm but
escapism or psychological opium. Surely such withdrawal presages political
and cultural surrender? Accomodation of the worst sort.
          Yet this is not how Bhabha conceives of this strategy; for him
this new 'place' is inherently critical of the very social conditions and
cultural aggession which provoked the psychological defence of the 'split'
in the first place. The why and how this should be so is, of course, not
explained. Writing from a materialist perspective, Bhabha seems to overlook
that the power of western metaphysics which provides the intellectual
justification for colonialsm did not precede colonialism, but were formed
and adapted in response to material economic and social conditions which led
to the global expansion and expoitation that was (and is) imperialism. His
own metaphysics of the in-between reproduces the very chicken and egg
relationship Marlene suggests Marx overlooks in his conception of culture:
Bhabha seeks the metaphysical justisfication before the social praxis. In
short, reification. The problem can be illustrated by his idea of 'mimicry'.
To mimic the
outward form may discomfort the coloniser, but it does nothing to address
the material conditions (economic exploitation, military force) which
provides his/her real power.
          I doubt that recognising a common framework of negotiation would
release any real impetus for material change of itslef. Only if it had
potential to
effect material change would such a framewok have any political force. In
Bhabha's  formulation, it merely remains a very sophisticated form of
escapism.

     "Having produced the category 'mystery' out of the real world, he
produces
      the real world out of that category"
                -- Marx and Engels, 'Holy Family'

Lawrence Phillips
University of Sussex

-----Original Message-----
From: Marlene R. Atleo <maratleo-AT-island.net>
To: postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
<postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Date: Saturday, September 12, 1998 4:50 PM
Subject: Re: Third Spaces and materialist critiques


>I hope everyone has gotten Lawrence's essay by now and read it.
>My reactions to the essay are on several different levels:
>One of the biggest problems in post colonial discussions I think is the
>need to bring others into the frame or the "most rational frame" in which
>to analyze what ever when if they were of the samae "rationality' they
>would most likely be in that frame, ideology, theory, whaterver already.
>Marx doesn't recognize culture as such but only as a residual of all of the
>other materialist articulations of history...I would suggest that there are
>many "spaces" and many "times"..Young's critique that LP uses as evidence
>i.e., "driven from one conceptual scheme to another" suggests to me that
>the over arching frame is not acknowledged...Lefebvre's "subtle
>reformulation" of Marx's original observation of what might be called the
>dialectical relationship between culture and the material base" does not
>take into account the chicken/egg aspect of culture.
>Lefebvre talks about the political organization of space expressing social
>relationships and reacting back on them.  It seems to me that there would
>be a need to go beyond the materialist base into the metaphysical which is
>what I think is possibly so disturbing about Bhabha's position is that
>there are millions who "live so lightly on the land" with abstract
>resources that they can distance themselves from the ravages of materialist
>bases living in the "play" of abstract space.  I suggest that for many
>though the "play" of abstract space may be the only place where they
>live...a simulactum with no "real" engagement but a parallelism that
>"others" eachother with neither wanting to move into the "third space"
>because the framework has not been agreed on for negotiation.  The very
>idea of needing to reveal the contraditions of space suggest that one
>cannot live with paradox but needs to resolve them.  Perhaps Orientalists
>can live with paradox without the need to resolve them.  I think we need to
>be able to understand the potential of the "third space" by understanding
>the contraditions of the other two spaces.  Memmi I believe, speaks to this
>in the colonizer/colnonized.  For example when LP uses "bourgeous private
>life" (Lefebvre) to illustrate Jameson's '.."spacial peculiarities" and
>ideological frames and practices." is he not concretizing (filling in the
>space/lower levels of analysis) of the abstraction of another?  I think
>that the developmental "spaces" that the colonizer and the colonized.
>
>
>
>
>     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>




     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---