File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2000/postcolonial.0003, message 134


From: "Lisa Greenstein" <greenstein-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: environment and development
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 21:22:03 GMT




>Marion wrote:
I have also wondered about that and even more often wondered why so little 
of postcolonial theory cross-pollinates with development studies, even 
though they are both mucking around in the same terrain.

Do you speak of postcolonial theory as something independent of postcolonial 
literatures?  (is that a chicken-egg scenario, or is there a structure to 
the flow of ideas between theory and fiction?)
I'm thinking of Margaret Atwood's *Surfacing* as a text which offers some 
themes of "integrating issues of culture and identity with environment and 
economy", as you put it. It's not exactly new, and I don't know if it 
emerges from/ provokes any body of critical thought.


>Personally, I really would like to see postcolonial studies grapple with 
>the immense modernizing projects and international development projects 
>undertaken in young nations, fostered by the very same political leaders 
>who articulated the corroding effects of
>colonization upon indigenous culture (for example Jawaharlal Nehru in
>India).  Until we do so, we have really ignored history.

I wonder if, on a scale from grass-roots to ivory tower, politics, 
particularly development projects, aren't regarded as a bit of a mucky place 
for theorists - hence the distaste for anything that might read as activist. 
  I mean, honest engagement with development projects entail some 
surrendering of irony for commitment to social change.  Perhaps i'm getting 
myself into hot water, but I suspect that many theorists like to retain 
irony (distance, a little back door) at all costs:-)

Lisa, who exchanged the inadequate dictionary for the New Oxford, and is 
technically empowered to look up 'limerance'

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