walter mignolo discurso colonial e pos colonial

7/27/2019 Walter Mignolo Discurso Colonial e Pos Colonial

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Colonial and Postcolonial Discourse: Cultural Critique or Academic Colonialism?Author(s): Walter D. MignoloSource: Latin American Research Review, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1993), pp. 120-134Published by: The Latin American Studies AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2503613

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COLONIAL ANDPOSTCOLONIAL DISCOURSE:CulturalCritique r AcademicColonialism?*

Walter.MignoloDuke UniversityCommenting n PatriciaSeed's well-informed nd useful revievAessay (Seed 1991) within limitednumberof pages requires selectivity.will first ffer brief ummary fmyreadingoftheessay and thendiscussspecific ssues thathave been of concernto me in the past decade.Seed's "Colonial and PostcolonialDiscourse" raises two distinctivetopics. The introduction nd conclusion are devoted to placing colonialdiscourse nto contemporary cholarship and tracing ts debts, complic-ities,and differences ithpoststructuralism,ubaltern tudies,new his-

toricism, nd feminist heory. n between, fivebooks are discussed, threeon LatinAmericaand two on the Philippines. Afterdiscussing the fivebooks in terms of current rends n history, nthropology, nd literarycriticism,eed offers er overall onclusion:What lltheseworks o tovarying egreess toachieve neof he unctionsfcritique:oposit n ideaabout hehumanitiesisciplines-history,iteraryriti-cism, ulturalnthropology-asmore handecorative nowledge,s knowledgecriticalf he elationsf uthorityithin society. he imof he ritiqueneachof hese iscipliness different-economicelations f uthority,ulturalelationsof uthoritythe anon), onventionalolitical elations f uthority.ut he asictarget fcritique emains he same-therelations f authorityn colonial ndpostcolonialtates-and t s thus n enterprisef ulturalndpoliticalriticismbeing arried ut na resolutelyostcolonialra. P. 200)

Because thewholespectrum fcontemporaryrendsmentionedbySeed (from oststructuralismonew historicism, rom ubaltern o colo-nial studies) takes a critical tance toward knowledge, the reader maywonderaboutthe differences f colonial and postcolonialdiscoursefromother orms fcriticalnterprises fauthoritynd authoritativeiscourses.Seed's view is thatwhile the "two fields" share an interest n colonial

*For nsights ncorporated n revisingmyoriginalversionof his omment, am grateful oFernando Coronil and the numerous student participants n "Beyond Occidentalism:Rethinking ow theWestWas Born," a seminar hatCoroniland I cotaught t theUniversityofMichigan nthefall f 1992. This essay s dedicated to thememory fJosephat ubayanda.120


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LatinAmerican esearch eviewThe issue here s notwhether ne who is born n Holland should bea miller nd one born in New York a stockbroker or whether omeone

born n Holland or nNew Yorkhas more authority hen t comes to millsorthe stockmarket ut ratherwho is talking boutwhat whereand why.Certainly,most of the work discussed and cited by Seed has been pub-lished n the United States and addressed to an academic audience. Thereare at east two issues to be disentangledhere. One is the political gendaofthose of us (an empty categoryto be filled) born in North or SouthAmerica, ndia, Iran, or Africa ut writing nd teachinghere n the UnitedStates who are concernedwithcolonial discourse. The other ssue is theagenda of those (an empty category o be filled)born or writing herenIndia, Iran, Africa, r South Americawho are struggling o resistmoderncolonization, ncluding he academicone fromhere. am aware that n theglobal village of a postmodern world, such distinctionsmay be viewedwithsuspicion. I believe nonetheless thattheyshould be drawn not somuch n terms fnational dentities ut nrelation o the ocus ofenuncia-tionconstructed y the speaker or writer.Once again, the basic questionis who iswriting bout what whereand why?The critiqueof what today s grouped under the abel of "colonialdiscourse"has a long traditionnLatinAmerica,which can be tracedbackto the 1950swhen thewritings fGermanphilosopherMartinHeideggerbegan to catch the attention f Latin American intellectuals.The mostspectacular xampletomymind s thatofMexican historian nd philoso-pherEdmundoO'Gorman. His La ideadeldescubrimientoe America1952)and La invencione Ame'rica1958, Englishtranslation 961) represent heearlydismantling fEuropean colonialdiscourse. O'Gorman wrotemuchbefore thepoststructuralist ave, although he had a similarfoundationand perspective.His reading of one chapterofHeidegger's Being ndTime(1927) made himrealize first hat anguage is notthe neutral tool ofanhonestdesireto tell hetruth, s nineteenth-centuryistoriographersadassumed,butan instrumental ool for onstructing istory nd inventingrealities.Using these presuppositions, O'Gorman dismantled fivehun-dredyearsofWestern istoriography-colonialnd postcolonial iscourse,as it were.Another elling xampleis Uruguayan iterary riticAngelRama'sLa ciudad etrada1982). Thismagnificentittle ook offers theory boutthecontrol,domination, nd power exercised n the name ofalphabeticwriting.Poststructuralism o doubt reached Rama beforehe wrotethebook, and theguidanceofMichelFoucault s certainly isibleand explicit.What Rama has analyzed is a complex, hanging, nd growingdiscursiveformationnwhichpower and oppositionaldiscourses from he colonialperiodto the twentieth entury onstitute he twosides of the same coin.The power of the "letteredcity" helps indirectly n understanding hesilence inflicted y written anguage. One can even say thatas far as122


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COMMENTARY AND DEBATEcolonial and postcolonial) discoursepresupposed alphabeticwriting, hecorpus analyzed by Rama both as a discourse of power and an opposi-tional discourse obscured and suppressed oral traditions nd nonalpha-beticwriting ystems,whichwere forcibly epressed during hesixteenthcentury ythe ettered ity.I mention hese two examples not to claim nationalistic r patrioticright f speech but mainlyto underscorethe significance f theplace ofspeaking, the locus of enunciation.1O'Gorman's and Rama's concernswith differentorms f ntellectual olonialism and culturaldependencyinLatinAmerica ed themto construct ostcolonial oci of enunciation nthevery ct of tudying olonialdiscourses. Thus theirworkcomprised neffortodisplacefield ndvoices: theThirdWorld snotonlyan area to bestudiedbut a place (or places) fromwhich to speak. Both these thinkershave aided the growingrealization that the "others" are notpeople andcultureswith ittle ontactwith the FirstWorldbut that "otherness"ap-plies in disguise among equals, in what Carl Pletsch (1981) termedtheapportionment f scientificor scholarly) abor among thethree worlds.Pletsch, however,was mainlyconcernedwith the distribution f areastudiesfrom heperspectiveof social scientists nd humanists ocated inand speakingfrom he FirstWorld. O'Gorman and Rama exemplify heperspectiveof social scientists nd humanists ocated in and speakingfrom heThirdWorld.Theyare in one sense contemporaryxamplesofthe "intellectual ther," s were Inca noble Guaman Poma and Texcocannoble Alva Ixtlilxochitln the early seventeenth century.For example,Tzvetan Todorov, t thebeginningofTheConquest fAmerica 1982), rele-gated O'Gorman to a footnotewitha short ommentplacinghimamongthosemerely oncernedwithgeographic spectsof thediscovery. y quot-ing Edward Said (whosebook Todorovhad translated ntoFrench n1978),Todorovsuggested thathis own description f the conquest of Americacould be read as somekind of"occidentalism,"perhaps complementingSaid's "orientalism."But in so doing, Todorovsuppressed the factthatwhatO'Gorman had done inthe ate 1950swas very similar o what Saiddid two decades later.The subtitle fO'Gorman's Spanish editionof LainvencioneAmne'rica,l universalismoe la cultura e Occidente, as notacelebrationuta critical ismantling f such "universality."xamples ikethismakeone suspectthat here s little ifferenceetweenyesterday'sndtoday'sdiscourses fcolonialism.2 or nstance,FrayJuande Torquemada's

1. One can also cite llustrious xamplesfrom razil. Antonio Candido led the way n Bra-zil and has also provideda guidingexample for decolonizing critical iscourse Candido1959,1973).Candido also recognized AngelRama's contributiono a LatinAmericandecolo-nizing voice in Candido (1991). Roberto Schwarz, Candido's disciple,has been exploringthesame kind ofproblems,mostrecentlynhis studyofJoaquimMaria Machado de Assis(Schwarz 1990).2. Here I am usingHomi Bhabha's expressionas a synonym or olonial iscouirseBhabha1986).

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LatinAmerican esearch eviewprintedversion of the historyof the Aztecs from Franciscanpoint ofview, Monarquia ndiana 1615), was widely read, while the manuscriptversionby Texcocanhistorian ernandode Alva Ixtlilxochitl as shelved nthe archives and published only in the nineteenth entury,when his ac-count was approached as a historicaldocument rather han as a politicalintervention.Once again, myconcern s with the ocus ofenunciation nd withdislodgingormultiplyingts center, o use an expressioncoined by Ken-yan writerNgugi wa Thiong'o.3 In his comparative nalysis ofJosephConrad'sHeart fDarkness nd George Lamming's n theCastle fMy Skin,Thiong'o concludes that although both writerswere critical f colonialdiscourse,one spoke from he centerof the empirewhile the other pokefrom he coreofresistance o the empire. Decentering he center r multi-plyingtprovidesnewperspectives n colonialand postcolonialdiscourse:thatof the ocus of enunciation reated n thevery act of postulating hecategory f colonial discourse s wellas the ocus ofenunciation reated nthe act notofstudying ranalyzing tbut ofresisting t.Once the ssue ofcolonial discourse s relatedto the ocus of enun-ciation, my interest ies in the interplay mong the configuration f thefieldofstudy, herules ofthemethodologicalgame, and the feelings ndpassions of the ndividualplayingthegame. I willexplorethese ssues inrelation o "colonial discourse" as a fieldofstudy, iterary tudies as a caseof discourse-centered isciplinesand an exampleof nterpretingnd the-orizing emioticnteractions,nd LatinAmericaas a placewhere an alter-native colonial, postcolonial,or ThirdWorld) ocus of enunciation an beconstructed.First, hefield ofstudy. ntroduction fthe termcolonial iscourseinto thevocabularyof the humanities nd the social sciences witha liter-arybentoffered,n my view,an alternative pproach to a field ofstudydominated by notions such as "colonial literature" r "colonial history."As definedbyPeterHulme (one ofthe authors eviewedby Seed), colonialdiscoursembraces llkindsof discursiveproduction elated o and arisingout of colonialsituations, rom heCapitulationsf1492 to WilliamShake-speare's TheTempest,romroyalordersand edicts to themostcarefullywritten rose (Hulme 1986, 1989).The advantageof theconceptof colo-nial discoursewas that tunified n interdisciplinaryoster f scholars nhistorynd anthropologywho foundthe dea of "discourse"moreappeal-ingthan"facts" r "information"-and nliterarytudies,moreappealingthantherestrictedonceptof iteraturer"literary iscourse."Thusinthefield f iterary tudies,thenotionofcolonial discourse also allowedschol-

3. This section s a summary fThiong'o (1992). A more generalperspective fhis criticalposition can be found n Thiong'o (1973, 1986).For an alternative osition on "decolonizingAfrica," ee Appiah (1992, 47-72).124


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COMMENTARY AND DEBATEars to treatthe concept of literaturen relativeterms, which is highlyproblematic, specially n colonial situations. Colonial literature"mpliesa canon thatdepends on discursivecriteria stablished n the metropoli-tancenters,whichmakes t doublyproblematic: irst ecause the "literary"productionnthe coloniesand in the anguage ofthe colonized cultures smoreoften han notperceived as a runner-up o the iterary roduction fthe colonizingcultures; econd, because "literature"s hardly felicitousterm o be applied to Amerindian iscursive roductionswhich re mainlyoral)and written nteractionswhich aremainlypicto-ideographic).Introduction f the alphabet in some sectors of the Amerindianpopulationduring he sixteenth entury id notchange the situation ras-tically.Whateverhad been "captured" in alphabeticwriting such as thePopulVuh, he ChilamBalam, nd the Huarochiri anuscript) as executedby members of a population who (towardthe middle of the sixteenthcentury)were forced o change theirwriting abitsor by Spaniards inter-ested inunderstandingAmerindian ultures such as the Huehuetlattollior theHuarochiri).None ofthese writings ransformed ral narrativentoliterature. he denialof "literary" ualities toAmerindiandiscursivepro-duction s neither negativevalue judgmentnor a suggestion of theircultural nferiority.t s merely he recognition hat iteratures a regionaland culture-dependent onceptualizationof a given kind of discursivepractice,one that s not universal to all cultures. This perspectivealsoinvites nquiry ntothenature nd function fdiscursivepractices ntheir"original"environment.When pushed to the limit,however, heconcept of "colonial dis-course," desirableand welcome as it is, is not the most comprehensiveidea possible forunderstanding he diversity fsemiotic nteractionsncolonial ituationsn the New World xperience.Hulmemade it clear thatin the area he was studying, he main documentationwas European inorigin. f nstead we focus on theentity hat nthe sixteenth enturywascalledtheNew Worldmainly ynon-Castilian uropeans)and the "IndiasOccidentales"or West ndies (mainly by Spaniards involved n explora-tion nd colonization),we musttake ntoaccounta large rangeof emioticinteractionseyondalphabeticwritten ocuments nEuropean languages.The idea ofdiscourse, lthough tembodiesoralas wellas written nterac-tions,maynotbe the best alternative o account also for emiotic nterac-tions between different riting ystems.The Latin alphabet introducedby the Spaniards, thepicto-ideographicwriting ystemsofMesoamer-ican cultures, nd thequipus n the Andes each delineateparticular ys-tems of nteractionshat ookplace during he colonialperiod. Ifwe wereto imit se ofthe termdiscoursenlyto oral and reserve he dea of text orwrittennteractions, e would stillneed toexpandthe atter erm eyondtherangeofalphabeticalwritten ocuments n order o embraceall mate-rialsign nscriptions.n doing so, scholarswould honor theetymological

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LatinAmerican esearch eviewmeaning ftext as "weaving" or "textile") nd justifyncluding hequipusinto a system n which writingwas always understood as scratching rpainting n solid surfacesbut not as weaving.Because in thefield f olonial iterarytudies, cholarsmust ccountfor complex ystemof semiotic nteractionsmbodied in thediscursive(oral) and thetextual material nscriptionsn different riting ystems),we need a concept such as colonial emiosis. his term scapes thetyrannyof the alphabet-orientednotionsof text and discourse, even thoughitadds to a large and already confusingvocabulary.On thepositiveside,colonial emiosis efinesa field of study n a parallel and complementaryfashionto existing erms uch as colonial istory,olonial rt,and colonialeconomy.urthermore,he concept of colonial semiosis includes the ocusofenunciation, dimension husfar bsentfrom hecurrent olonialfieldsofstudy. or nstance, hefieldofcolonial history resupposes an "objec-tive"understanding ubjectand a locus ofenunciation romwhicha seriesof interrelated vents could be mapped. Briefly, he concept ofcolonialsemiosis reveals that anguage-centered olonial studies could move (atleast n Latin America nd theCaribbean) beyond the realm ofthewrittenword to incorporate ral and nonalphabetic writing ystems as well asnonverbalgraphic ystems.This concept could also open up newwaysofthinking bout colonial experiences by bringingto the foreground hepolitical, deological, nd disciplinary genda of heunderstandingubject.The next ssue is thequestion ofmethod, tsphilosophical ustifica-tion, nd theconstruction f he ociof nunciation.Viewed nthisperspec-tive,the idea of colonial discourse nvitesrethinkingfthehermeneuticlegacyin the context f colonial semiosis. Ifthetermhermeneuticss de-finednotonlyas a reflection n humanunderstanding ut as human un-derstandingtself, hen he"tradition"n whichhermeneutics as foundedand developed (Mueller-Vollmer 985)mustbe recast nterms f theplu-rality fcultural raditionsnd cultural oundaries (Panikkar1988).Thuscolonial situations nd colonialsemiosispresent hermeneutical ilemmafor heunderstanding ubject. Historically,hestudy nd analysisofcolo-nial situationshave been performed rom heperspectivesprevailing ndifferent omains of thecolonizing cultures,even when the interpreterfavored ertain spectsofthecolonizedcultures.The term olonial emiosisbrings o theforegroundhefollowing uestion:what s the ocus of enun-ciation fromwhich the understandingsubject perceives colonial situa-tions? n otherwords,in whichofthe cultural raditions o be understooddoes theunderstanding ubject place himself r herself? uch questionsare relevantnotonlywhen broad cultural ssues like colonial situationsand colonial semiosis are being considered but also when more specificissues likerace, gender, nd class arebeingtaken nto account.Edmundo O'Gorman's The nventionfAmerica ed theway in di-recting ttention othis ssue. As a Mexican historian nd philosopherof126


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COMMENTARY AND DEBATEhistory, 'Gorman's engagementwith colonial situationswent beyondthe usual relevantdisciplinaryssues. What propelled his researchwas apoliticaland ideological concern relevant n Mexico in the 1950s alongwitha reassessment ofhistoriographical oals promptedby his readingof Heidegger. O'Gorman's demolition f fourhundredyears of historio-graphical writing bout the so-called discoverywas achieved from hepoint of view of a "creole" and a historian.Althoughhe ignored the roleof Amerindians n analyzing this process, he relativizedthe universalunderstanding ubject assumed by thehistoriographyf the discoveryand changed the cultural erspectivefromwhichthe discoveryhad beenconstrued.Whenever raisethe ssue addressed by O'Gorman, I am accusedofgivingpriorityothe ethnic nd cultural ituation ftheunderstandingsubject. According othis argument, woman or a Mexican is in a betterpositionto understandwomen's ssues orcolonial situations espectively.Yetthis s notthe point am trying o make. Rather, am concernedwiththe tensionbetween the nsertion f the epistemological ubjectwithindisciplinary or interdisciplinary)ontextgoverned by norms and con-ventions s wellas with tsbeing placed in a hermeneutic ontextnwhichrace, gender, nd class compete with and shape the goals, norms, andrules ofa given disciplinary ame. Disciplinarynorms and conventionsare thuspermeatedby hermeneutic eeds and desires.The point s that cholars tudying heculture o which they elong(whethernational,ethnic,orgender cultures) re notnecessarily ubjec-tive ustas scholars tudying ultures o whichtheydo notbelong are notnecessarily bjective. nmy view,theories re not nstruments orunder-standing somethingthat ies outside of the theory: rather, heoriesareinstruments orconstructing nowledge and understanding.Hence myuse ofthewordsubjectiveppliestoexamples,not toepistemological tate-ments.Within constructivistpistemology,ubjectivity mpliesknowl-edge and understandingnwhichthepersonal and social situation f theknowing ubject prevailsoverdisciplinary ulesand procedures.The in-verse holds forobjective:ules ofdisciplinary ognitionwill prevailoverpersonal desires, biases, and interests.Accordingly, eitherapproachguarantees ttaining "better" deeper,moreaccurate,moretrustworthy,more nformed) nowledge or understanding.For fwe approachknowl-edge and understanding rom heperspectiveof a constructivisticpis-temologyand hermeneutic, he audience being addressed and the re-searcher's gendaareas relevant otheconstruction ftheobjectorsubjectbeing studied as the subject or the object being constructed.Thus thelocus ofenunciation s as much a partofknowing nd understanding s itis of theconstruction f the mageofthe"real" resulting rom disciplin-ary discourse (whether sociological, anthropological,historical,semi-ological,or some otherkind). Consequently, he "true"account of a sub-

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LatinAmerican esearch eviewjectmatternthe form fknowledgeorunderstandingwillbe transactedintherespective ommunities f nterpretations much for tscorrespon-dence towhatis taken for real" as for heauthorizingocus of enuncia-tion constructedn the very act of describing n object or a subject. Fur-thermore,he ocus of enunciation f thediscourse beingreadwould notbe understood n itself ut in the context fpreviousloci of enunciationthat he current iscourse contests, orrects, rexpands. In otherwords,it s as much the saying and the audience involved) as whatis said (andtheworld referred o) that preserveor transformhe image of the realconstructed y previous actsofsayingand previous utterances.One examplecan be found n Michael Taussig'sremarkablebookon terror nd healing, Shamanism, olonialism,nd theWildMan (1987),whichhelps clarifyhe tensions between theunderstanding ubjectandthe subject to be understood in colonial semiosis. Constructionof thelocus of enunciation nTaussig's study articulates eautifully is opposi-tionalpracticesnrelation othedisciplinary raditionnanthropology. tthe same time,he constructs cultural pace in which Taussig, the Aus-tralian nthropologist, ttempts o find a place within a Latin Americanintellectual radition ia his careful ttention o essays and novels writtenby Latin Americanscondemningcolonialismand oppression (includingJacoboTimerman,ArielDorfman,JoseEustasioRivera,Alejo Carpentier,and Miguel Angel Asturias).This approach indicatesTaussig'sopennesstohearing nd rehearsing he voices ofthe other ntheoraltradition fthePutumayo nd inthe written radition fThirdWorld ntellectualswhoselocus ofenunciationTaussig attempts o oin.A second examplecan be found n a statementmade by Mexican-American rtistGuillermoGomez-Peina, everalyears ago inL.A. Weekly:"I live smack n the fissurebetween two worlds, in the nfectedwound:half blockfrom he end of WesternCivilization nd fourmiles from hestartofthe Mexican-American order, he northernmost oint of LatinAmerica. n myfracturedeality, ut a realitynonetheless,there ohabittwohistories, anguages, cosmologies, rtistic raditions,nd political ys-temswhich aredrastically ounterposed" Gomez-Peina 988).The interrelations f colonial semiosis as a network f processes tobe understood and thelocus ofenunciation as thenetworkof places ofunderstandingdemand a pluridimensional r multidimensional erme-neutic t the same time hat hey eveal the significance fthedisciplinaryas well as cultural gender, race, class) inscription f the subject in theprocessofunderstanding.Anthropologist aussig-born and educatedinAustralia, rained n London, and teaching n the United States-placeshimself etween a disciplinary raditionanthropology) nd ina personaland social situationoutsidethediscipline certainconstructions f LatinAmericanhistory nd culture, ndicatedby the names he cites and sec-onds or critiques).Meanwhile Gomez-Peina, Mexican-American rtist128


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COMMENTARY AND DEBATEliving n San Diego, illustrates oth the survivalof colonial semiosis andthe need for multidimensional ermeneutic o account for t. While un-derstanding nd constructing our own tradition" mplies a unidimen-sional hermeneutic, nderstanding nd constructingolonial semiosis thedialecticbetween official tories and suppressed voices, between signsfromdifferent ulturaltraditions) mplies a plurality f conflictive ndcoexistingworlds and requires a multidimensional ermeneutic.4Finally, wish tocitea few examplesofvoices emerging rom olo-nial semiosis that re constructing lternative postcolonial) oci of enun-ciation.When Barbadian poet Edward Kamau Bratwhaite ecounts thestory fhis search for rhythm hatwould matchhis livingexperience ntheCaribbean,he highlights he momentwhen skipping a pebble on theocean gavehim a rhythmhathe could not findby reading JohnMilton.Bratwhaite lso highlights second and subsequent momentwhen heperceivedtheparallels between the skipping of the pebble and Calypsomusic, a rhythmhathe could not find n listening o Beethoven.5 fBrat-whaitefound a voice and a form fknowledgeat the intersection f theclassical modelshe learned n a colonial school with his life xperience nthe Caribbean and consciousness ofAfrican eople's history, ispoetry sless a discourseof resistance han a discourse claiming tscentrality.im-ilar claimscould be found ndirectlyn thewritings fJamaicannovelistsand essayistMichelleCliff, ho states hat ne effectfBritishWest ndiancolonial discourse s "thatyoubelieve absolutely n thehegemonyof theKing's Englishand theformnwhich t s meant to be expressed. Or elseyourwritings not iterature;t s folklore nd can never be art.... Theanglican deal-Milton, Wordsworth,Keats-was held beforeus with anassurance thatwe wereunable, and would neverbe enabled, tocomposea workof similarcorrectness.... No reggae spoken here" (Cliff 985).While Thoing'o, Lamming,and Bratwhaite imultaneously onstructndtheorize bout alternative entersof enunciation nwhat have been con-sidered themarginsofcolonialempires,Latinos and BlackAmericans ntheUnited Statesaredemonstratinghat ither hemargins re also in thecenteror (as Thiong'o expressesit)thatknowledgeand aestheticnormsare notuniversally stablishedby a transcendentubjectbut are univer-sally stablishedbyhistorical ubjects ndiversecultural enters.ChicanowriterGloria Anzalduia,for nstance,has articulated powerfulalter-native aesthetic nd politicalhermeneutic y placing herself t the cross-road ofthree traditionsSpanish-American,Nahuatl, and Anglo-Ameri-

4. For an exampleof the hermeneutic infiltration" ithindisciplinary tructure,ee Kel-ler 1985). Tothe extent hat he social sciencesand the humanitieshave been constructed nthebasis of the combination f certainhermeneutical onfigurations, heytend to restrainthosewho would gravitateoward he uthoritativeonfigurationfthedisciplinarytructure.5. I am referring eretoBratwhaite1992).His generalpositionregarding oeticpracticesin colonial situationshas been articulated n Bratwhaite1983, 1984).129


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LatinAmerican esearch eviewcan) andbycreating locus ofenunciationwhere different aysofknow-ing and individual nd collective xpressionsmingle Anzalduia1987).

The influential uestion asked severalyears ago by Gayatri pivakwas "Can thesubaltern peak?" (Spivak1985; O'Hanlon 1988).This querycould be answered by sayingthatthe subalternhave always spoken, al-thoughscholars and social scientistswere not always willingto listen(Coronil1993; Wald 1992).The question of whether he colonized can berepresentedmay no longerbe an issue, and it couldbe reframedn termsof dialogues from ifferentoci of enunciationrather han as an academicmonologueperformedntheact of "studying" olonial discourseand not"listening" o politically ngaged persons (whethernside or outsideaca-deme), writers rom olonial,postcolonial, or ThirdWorldcountriespro-ducingalternative iscourse. Perhaps in the ntellectual rena, efforts oinvent n "other"from far nd long ago disguisesnew forms fcoloniza-tion.Jean aul Sartrepointed outthat ll non-Westernultureshavebeenreduced to the statusofobjectsby being observed and studiedbyWesternscholars ccording oWestern oncepts and categories.Thus although heconceptof colonial discoursehas opened up new areas ofinquiry andhelped n rethinkinghediscursivedimension fcolonial and postcolonialexperience), tmayunwittinglymisguide social scientists nd humanistsinto a new form f ntellectual olonization.I wish to closeby citing n example ofmimicry,ostcoloniality,ndacademic colonialism. On readingan essay like RobertoSchwarz's "Bra-zilianCulture: Nationalismby Elimination,"6 ne realizes thatthe ques-tion of "postcolonialdiscourse" seems farfrom hecenterof his intellec-tual and politicalagenda. One could argue that n Brazil,the new trendhas not yet arrivedbecause it takes time fornew theoriesto make theirwaytoperipheral egions.But that spreciselywhat Schwarz's essaycriti-cizes-the cultural nternal olonialismand the mimetic ctions takenbyinstitutionsnd intellectualsnBrazilianpostcolonialhistory nd inmanyothercountries.For those in postcolonialor Third Worldcountrieswhobelievethat signofprogress s to consume exportedtheories, heques-tion of colonial and postcolonialdiscourse has notyetarrived.For thoseinterestedncritically xamining he cultural ependencyof postcolonialcountrieswhichSchwartz erms theperipheries fcapitalism"), he ssuehas tobe rethoughtn the context f mimicry nd dependencyas well asin termsof ntellectualnterventions nd researchprogramsfeedingthetraditionsnd needs ofthecountry. or thoseofus in exile,whennego-tiating he ntellectual roduction n ourplaces oforigins whetherLatinAmerica,Africa, rAsia) and the ntellectual onversationn ourplace ofresidence theUnited States or WesternEurope), the question arises ofwhether ur function houldbe that fgo-betweens, romotinghe mpor-

6. See Schwarz 1989),29-48.130


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COMMENTARY AND DEBATEtationof "new theories" nto our "backward" countries,or whetherweshould "thinkfrom" he postcolonial experiences n which we grew up.How this"thinking rom"which mpliesa "thinkingnbetween") couldbe constructed s a subjectthat annotbe developed here.7My concern sto underscore he point that "colonial and postcolonialdiscourse" is notjust a new fieldofstudyor a gold minefor xtracting ew richesbutthecondition fpossibility or onstructing ew lociofenunciations s well asforreflecting hat academic "knowledge and understanding" should becomplementedwith"learningfrom" hose who are living n and thinkingfrom olonial and postcolonial egacies, fromRigobertaMenchui o AngelRama. Otherwise, we run the risk of promotingmimicry, xportation ftheories, nd internal cultural) colonialism rather han promotingnewforms f cultural ritique nd intellectual nd political mancipations-ofmakingcolonial and postcolonial studies a fieldof study nstead of a lim-inal and critical ocus of enunciation.The "native point of view" alsoincludes ntellectuals.n theapportionment f scientificabor since WorldWar II, which has been described well by Carl Pletch (1982), the ThirdWorldproducesnotonly"cultures"tobe studied by anthropologists ndethnohistoriansut also intellectualswhogenerate heories nd reflect ntheir wn culture nd history.

7. Some of herecent ontributionslong this ineareAnzaldia (1990),Mora (1993),Coro-nil 1992),Minh-Ha (1989),Appiah (1992),and Bhabha (1992).131


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1989 Special issue of Dispositio n colonial discourse, nos. 36-38.ALARCON, NORMA1990 "The Theoretical ubject(s) of This BridgeCalled My Back and Anglo-AmericanFeminism."Making ace,Making oul: Haciendo aras, ditedby GloriaAnzaldia,356-59. San Francisco,Calif.:Aunt Lute.ANZALDUA, GLORIA1987 Borderlands/Larontera:heNew Mestiza. San Francisco:Spinster/Auntute.APPIAH, ANTHONY1992 InMyFather's ouse: African the hilosophy fCulture.New York:OxfordUniver-sityPress.BHABHA, HOMI K.1986 "The Other Question: Discriminationnd theDiscourseofColonialism." n Liter-

ature,Politics, nd Theory:Papersfrom he Essex Conference,976-84, edited byF. Bakeret al., 148-72.1992 "Postcolonial Authority nd PostmodernGuilt." CulturalStudies, edited byL. Grossberg,C. Nelson, and P. Treichler,6-65.New York:Routledge.BRATWHAITE, EDWARD KAMAU1983 ThirdWorld oems.Essex: Longman.1984 History f heVoice:The Development fNationalLanguagen Anglophone aribbeanPoetry. ondon: New Beacon.1992 "Reading of His Poetry." Paper presented at the workshop "The Inventionsof Africa:Africa n the Literature f the Continentand the Diaspora," Centerfor Afroamerican nd AfricanStudies, University fMichigan,Ann Arbor,17April.CANDIDO, ANTONIO1959 Forma,do a Literatura rasileira. ao Paulo: Martins.1973 "Literatura Subdesenvolvimento."Argumento:140-62.1991 "Uma Visao Latino-americana."Lecture deliveredat the conferenceLiteraturaHist6ria m America atina, organizedby theCenter forLatinAmerican Studies'AngelRama." Sao Paulo, 11August.CLIFF, MICHELLE1985 The LandofLookBehind. thaca,N.Y.: Firebrand.CORONIL, FERNANDO1992 "Beyond Occidentalism: Toward Post-ImperialGeohistorical Categories." InPower:ThinkinghroughheDisciplines, dited by GeofElly.Ann Arbor: Univer-sity fMichigan Press,forthcoming.1993 "How Does the Subaltern State Speak? The Poetics of Politics n NeocolonialNations." PoeticsToday 5, no. 2, special issue entitled LatinAmerica:Locus ofEnunciation nd ImaginaryConstructions," dited byWalterD. Mignolo.FERNANDEZ RETAMAR, ROBERTO1971 "Caliban." In Paraelperfil efinitivoelhombre. avana: LetrasCubanas.1990 Caliban nd OtherEssays.Minneapolis: UniversityfMinnesota Press.1992 "Casi veinteanXosespues." In Nuevo Texto ritico, os. 9-10 (1992):9-20.GOMEZ-PENA, GUILLERMO1988 "Documented/Undocumented."n Multicultural iteracy,dited by R. Simonsonand S. Walker, 27-34. SaintPaul,Minn.: Graywolf.HULME, PETER1986 Colonial Encounters: urope nd the Native Caribbean, 492-1797. New YorkandLondon: Routledge,Chapman, and Hall.1989 "Subversive Archipelagos:Colonial Discourse and theBreak-upof ContinentalTheory."nADORNO AND MIGNOLO 1989,1-24.KELLER, EVELYN FOX1985 Reflectionsn Gender nd Science.New Haven, Conn.: Yale University ress.

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