Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 22:51:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kevin Hickey <HICKEYK-AT-SNYONEVA.CC.ONEONTA.EDU>
Subject: HOME AND HAREM


Radhika attempted to start our discussion of Inderpal Grewal's
HOME AND HAREM by asking about Grewal's advocacy of a
"transnational mode of analysis rather than a comparative one."
Grewal makes this proposal on page 19 where she refers us to
Spivak's "Scattered Speculations on the Question of Culture
Studies," (found in OUTSIDE IN THE TEACHING MACHINE 255-284). I
have not read the Spivak essay, but I presume Spivak--and
certainly Grewal--are proposing a deconstructive reading of the
global (post)colonial economy (economy as defined in Spivak's
intro. to OF GRAMMATOLOGy, xlii) which refuses to be boxed into
"easy" binary oppositions and monolithic representations of the
Third World (as well as the First World).

Although I, myself, am drawn to such a transnational approach, I
am constantly aware to the criticisms coming from classical
Marxists Teresa Ebert, Mas'ud Zavarzadeh, Arif Dirlik, and Alex
Callinicoes (to name those who come to mind) that such a
transnational "post-al" approach is complicit with multinational
capitalism and works merely to obfuscate the global exploitation
of workers under late capitalism. (Part of the argument that
multiculturalism is both a "product" and abettor of
multinationalism and global capitalism.)

Grewal, however, is quick to mention that she "does not wish to
suggest that the transnational approach can take the place of
examining, for instance, the violence of the colonial project on
the colonized" (19). As Derrida makes clear in, for instance, OG
and POSITIONS it is necessary to work/read/theorize in more than
one way (or "register"), and this seems to be Grewal's approach
too. I find it exciting. But is it a distraction from (and
hindrance to) creating a more just world?

Let me end by quoting the next sentence in HH: "However
[transnational cultural studies] works also to show colonial
discourse as a representational practice that catachrestically
did not even apply to its own 'home'" (19). Try as I might, the
meaning of this sentence keeps eluding me. The closest I've come
is that Grewal is proposing that the binaric (and thus
simplified) representations of colonial discourse were as
"violent" at home as abroad. Can anyone help me out with this
and/or the question of multinational capitalism?

Hoping others will MAKE THE TIME to join in on this reading.

Kevin Hickey 
SUN Oneonta