File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2000/postcolonial.0007, message 100


From: "Marlene" <maratleo-AT-island.net>
Subject: Re: Anxiety in Postcolonial Subject
Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2000 08:15:48 -0700


Tina,
You might be interested in Tom Burvill's work on post colonial anxiety of
legitimacy...he is "down" there at Macquarie.
But probably more interesting is UCLA doctoral student in cultural studies
Shilpa Agarwal's website in which she discusses her own postcolonial anxiety
and how she deals with it...at: http://www.strirmag.com/communities.html

Shilpa opens with Thomas Szasz' quote from "The Second Sin": "In the animal
kindgom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom it is define or
be defined."
She echos my sentiments when she speaks about what to do with the
freefloating anxiety of managing the multiple identities as we negotiate our
intrapsychical selves in between communities in which we have our histories
and where we are situated "Rather than allowing these fears to paralyze or
pens, we must embrace these anxieties - anxieties that drive us to write
with conscious commitment." She maintains that to do this we must be willing
to deconstruct our selves constructively and that requires a self awareness
that can situate the subject in relationship to the issue and audience.  Its
a tricky business, a "collision of the mind and heart" in the process of
moving between telling secrets and biting our tongues...
the key I think is "conscious commitment" in constructing a new way in a
seemingly normless moras.....

As a health educator in the indigenous community the psychical cannibalism
of colonialism is all too apparent to me and the cost to human health is
very high..(the irony of course is that "cannibalism", a way of talking
about the non-Christian other is one of the greatest
Euro-fears)..traditonally indigenous societies acknowledged this in the NW
Coast through mask dances and cannibal dance ceremonies that dealt with the
anxieties of "otherness"....scientism/colonialism declared those defenses
illegitimate and illegal (See my review of "Potlatch Papers" in the Journal
of World History, 1999), outlawing their use...not permitting a means to
assuage the very real manifestation of such anxieties which occured in the
colonial project....

now among FN there is a government funded "healing project" to ameliorate
the effects of physical, sexual, religious abuse of the colonization of
aboriginal people in church run Canadian residential schools which manifests
itself in high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, intergenertional violence
in the poverty zones that are reserves and urban ghettos...

I think postcolonial anxiety is a very useful analytic lens...
please let us know what other resources you find...
mar(e)


----- Original Message -----
From: Christine Eklom <Christine.Eklom-AT-jcu.edu.au>
To: <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Sunday, July 09, 2000 11:02 PM
Subject: Anxiety in Postcolonial Subject


> Dear List Members,
>
> I'm researching anxiety in the postcolonial subject. Most research that
> I've turned up so far discusses anxiety but in the colonizer not in the
> colonial or postcolonial subject (as in Homi Bhabha). Does anyone know of
> any books or articles which ocver this particular topic.
>
> Thanks in advance
> Tina
> School of Humanities
> James Cook University
> Townsville
> Australia
>
>
>
>      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
>



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

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005