ACTIVIDAD 5
By Walter D. Mignolo /Duke University
(FRAGMENTO)
Commenting
on Patricia Seed's well-informed and useful review essay (Seed 1991)
within a limited number of pages requires selectivity. 1 will first
offer a brief summary of my reading of the essay and then discuss
specific issues that have been of concern to me in the past decade.
Seed's "Colonial and Postcolonial Discourse" raises two distinctive
topics. The introduction and conclusion are devoted to placing colonial
discourse into contemporary scholarship and tracing its debts,
complicities, and differences with poststructuralism, subaltern studies,
new his oricism, and feminist theory. In between, five books are
discussed, three on Latin America and two on the Philippines. After
discussing the five books in terms of current trends in history,
anthropology, and literary criticism, Seed offers her overall
conclusion:What all these works do to varying degrees is to achieve one of the functions of a critique: to posit an idea about the humanities disciplines-history, literary critiism, cultural anthropology-as more than decorative knowledge, as knowledge critical of the relations of authority within a society. The aim of the critique in each of these disciplines is different-economic relations of authority, cultural relations of authority (the canon), conventional political relations of authority. But the basic target of critique remains the same-the relations of authority in colonial and postcolonial states-and it is thus an enterprise of cultural and political criticism being carried out in a resolutely postcolonial era. (P. 200)
Because the whole spectrum of contemporary trends mentioned by Seed (from poststructuralism to new historicism, from subaltern to colonial studies) takes a critical stance toward knowledge, the reader may wonder about the differences of colonial and postcolonial discourse from other forms of critical enterprises of authority and authoritative discourses.
Seed's
view is that while the "two fields" share an interest in colonial *For
insights incorporated in revising my original version of this comment, I
am grateful to
Fernando Coronil and the numerous student participants in "Beyond Occidentalism:
Rethinking How the West Was Born," a seminar that Coronil and I cotaught at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1992. This essay is dedicated to the memory of Josephat Kubayanda.
COMMENTARY AND DEBATE
Discourse, the "new literary historicism is ultimately concerned with canonical literature, while colonial discourse writers seek to understand the
dynamics
of the colonial situation" (p. 199). On the basis of this general
summary, I would like to discuss several related concerns of my own in
recent years (see Mignolo 1989a, 1989b, 1989c, 1992). The most
compelling aspects of the review essay are those dealing with the notion
of colonial and postcolonial discourse rather than
the review of the five books in question. The first issue focuses on what kind of category "colonial (or postcolonial) discourse" is. Seed takes it to be a "field of study" when she compares it with the new literary historcism. Although it seems obvious to me that colonial discourse is a new or emerging field of study, new literary historicism is a new perspective (or method) rather than a field. Yet when Seed defines the colonial aspect, she seems to take it as both a perspective (comparable to new literary historcism) and a field of study: "Colonial discourse has therefore undertaken to redirect contemporary critical reflections on colonialism (and its afterath) toward the language used by the conquerors, imperial administra-
tors, travelers, and missionaries" (p. 183).
She further specifies that "whether the focus has been on the colonial or postcolonial situation, the central concern of these studies has been the linguistic screen through which all political language of colonialism, including reactions to it and liberation from it, needs to be read" (p. 183).
Thus the method employed in analyzing colonial discourse seems to be similar to that used to approach any kind of discourse in any imaginable historical or social situation. We seem to be dealing with something like the "discursive turn" in various disciplines, fields of study, or even histor cal moments (such as poststructuralism).
My interest in delving into these distinctions focuses on a more fundamental question regarding the political implications of the scholarly decision to engage in research and teaching on colonial (or postcolonial) discourse. The issue I am trying to elucidate is addressed by Seed toward the end of her essay in discussing the questions of where these authors are writing, why, and about what. In doing so, Seed brings in the autobio graphical dimension of the scholar vis-8-vis his or her academic pursuit:
Many
anthropologists, historians, and literary critics writing of those who
are lumped together as "Third World people" adopt a stance of advocacy
for those they have been studying and working with. Hence they are
reluctant to criticize post-independence forms of nationalism. . . . The
early theoreticians of the colonial discourse field-Said, Spivak, and
Bhabha-are themselves ambivalently located between the so-called First
and Third Worlds: born and educated in places like Palestine and Bengal,
they have nonetheless made their academic reputations in the West. They
speak from the West but are not of it. Yet by virtue of reputation and
lengthy residence in the West, they are no longer of the East. Hence
their contribution to shaping the field has arisen within the same
context of the internationalization that they are attempting to study.
(P. 198).
Fernando Coronil and the numerous student participants in "Beyond Occidentalism:
Rethinking How the West Was Born," a seminar that Coronil and I cotaught at the University of Michigan in the fall of 1992. This essay is dedicated to the memory of Josephat Kubayanda.
COMMENTARY AND DEBATE
Discourse, the "new literary historicism is ultimately concerned with canonical literature, while colonial discourse writers seek to understand the
dynamics
of the colonial situation" (p. 199). On the basis of this general
summary, I would like to discuss several related concerns of my own in
recent years (see Mignolo 1989a, 1989b, 1989c, 1992). The most
compelling aspects of the review essay are those dealing with the notion
of colonial and postcolonial discourse rather thanthe review of the five books in question. The first issue focuses on what kind of category "colonial (or postcolonial) discourse" is. Seed takes it to be a "field of study" when she compares it with the new literary historcism. Although it seems obvious to me that colonial discourse is a new or emerging field of study, new literary historicism is a new perspective (or method) rather than a field. Yet when Seed defines the colonial aspect, she seems to take it as both a perspective (comparable to new literary historcism) and a field of study: "Colonial discourse has therefore undertaken to redirect contemporary critical reflections on colonialism (and its afterath) toward the language used by the conquerors, imperial administra-
tors, travelers, and missionaries" (p. 183).
She further specifies that "whether the focus has been on the colonial or postcolonial situation, the central concern of these studies has been the linguistic screen through which all political language of colonialism, including reactions to it and liberation from it, needs to be read" (p. 183).
Thus the method employed in analyzing colonial discourse seems to be similar to that used to approach any kind of discourse in any imaginable historical or social situation. We seem to be dealing with something like the "discursive turn" in various disciplines, fields of study, or even histor cal moments (such as poststructuralism).
My interest in delving into these distinctions focuses on a more fundamental question regarding the political implications of the scholarly decision to engage in research and teaching on colonial (or postcolonial) discourse. The issue I am trying to elucidate is addressed by Seed toward the end of her essay in discussing the questions of where these authors are writing, why, and about what. In doing so, Seed brings in the autobio graphical dimension of the scholar vis-8-vis his or her academic pursuit:
Many
anthropologists, historians, and literary critics writing of those who
are lumped together as "Third World people" adopt a stance of advocacy
for those they have been studying and working with. Hence they are
reluctant to criticize post-independence forms of nationalism. . . . The
early theoreticians of the colonial discourse field-Said, Spivak, and
Bhabha-are themselves ambivalently located between the so-called First
and Third Worlds: born and educated in places like Palestine and Bengal,
they have nonetheless made their academic reputations in the West. They
speak from the West but are not of it. Yet by virtue of reputation and
lengthy residence in the West, they are no longer of the East. Hence
their contribution to shaping the field has arisen within the same
context of the internationalization that they are attempting to study.
(P. 198).
Fuente
Mignolo Walter, Latin American Research Review, Vol. 28, No. 3. (1993), pp. 120-134. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0023-8791%281993%2928%3A3%3C120%3ACAPDCC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V
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¿Qué pensamos que plantea al texto previo a su lectura?
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Trabajo sobre el texto: "Colonial and Postcolonial Discourse: Cultural Critique or Academic Colonialism?" By Walter D. Mignolo
ACTIVIDAD 5
¿Qué pensamos que plantea al texto previo a su lectura?
Dado el título del artículo, el mismo propone cómo el colonialismo y el pos- colonialismo se introducen en el discurso académico.
¿Qué sabemos del autor?
Walter D. Mignolo es un destacado investigador en letras y profesore de literatura argentino, residente actualmente en Estados Unidos.
¿Qué plantea el texto seleccionado?
El autor plantea un debate con otra teórica. En el trabajo de ambos se pone de manifiesto el concepto de “poscolonialismo” en un marco de investigación literaria. Además compara el concepto de “estructuralismo” con el de “posestructuralismo”. A su vez, relata qué rol debería tener la crítica literaria ante el colonialismo y poscolonialismo: ¿Asumir un papel defensor de los procesos colonialistas o ser críticos antes esto?
Etimología de palabras
Colono: (lat. Colonus): Labrador, habitante, cultivar. Tras la llegada de Cristobal Colón al continente hoy llamado América, se planteó que la palabra colono, o colonia provenía de su apellido, pero no es así, según la RAE.
Discurso: (lat. Cursus). Carrera. Dirigir algo: en este caso se dirige la palabra hacía algo o alguien.
Cultura: (Lat. Cultura): Cultivar, cultivado. (Del lat. cultūra). 1. elem. compos. Significa 'cultivo, crianza'.
FUENTE: Real Academia Española.
GLOSARIO ESPECÍFICO
- useful
- útil; ‹experience› útil, provechoso;
-
- hence /hens/ adverbio
- 1. a. (that is the reason for) de ahí;
- ~ my surprise de ahí mi sorpresa, de ahí que me sorprendiera
- b. (therefore) por lo tanto, por consiguiente
- 2. (from now) (frml): a few hours/years ~ dentro de algunas horas/algunos años.
- Devoted ( adjetivo)
- a. (loving) ‹couple/family› unido;
- to be ~ TO sb sentir(conj.⇒) devoción POR algn
- b. (dedicated) (before n) ‹follower/admirer› ferviente, devoto;
- ‹service/friendship› leal
- Elucídate: verbo transitivo › dilucidar, aclarar.
- attempt 1 /əˈtempt/ verbo transitivo: tratar de or intentar
FUENTE: WORDREFERENCE.
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ARTE PRECOLONIALISTA
Estatua de la civilización Inca.
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