Mingolo

In his article, Mingolo compels us to reconsider our naïve notions regarding the knowledge-making process – one that completely negates that knowledge production has actual geo-political locations, that is closely tied to very real power structures in the world, and indeed is part of that process. Mingolo explains how the Geo-politics of knowledge goes hand in hand with geo-politics of knowing. He is basically concerned with questions of Who, when, why and where is knowledge generated, and in doing so he attempts to shift our focus from the “enunciated to the enunciation”. However if we recognize the knowledge production is tied to coloniality, how do we respond to it in order to move beyond this conundrum. Mingolo claims that it is not enough to simply change the content of what is being said, but actually the terms in which it is being said. However, in the process of changing those terms – what alternative do we really have? And, how much scope do we really have to change the terms involved in the discussion? Can we really delink ourselves by playing within the rules of the game? For instance, much of what we have talked about positionality in this course is an attempt to push us  into that direction of delinking ourselves, however, how emancipatory is it, if continues to hold the same system, and uses the same terms of agency, resistance, autonomous domain, rationality.  I agree that in attempting to call in question the colonial foundation of modern knowledge production we need to shift our attention from the known to the knower, but even then what possilbities do we really have?

Session 14

Minglo’s book on the Idea of Latin America presents a familiar argument: it demonstrates the power that a construct can have in shaping the way that people think. The invention of America, rather than its discovery, served to construct two distinct geographical and political regions in the dominant imaginary; “Latin” America and “Anglo Saxon” America. The former became increasingly dark as time passed and was gradually distinguished from both “White” North America and the European Latin nation-states. 

The construction of this idea of racial of difference was crucial to the logic of colonialism and remains an integral part of contemporary imperialism. Minglo’s main argument is that the politics that emerges out of this idea, even in the present day, is one which is contingent on the geographical location of a nation-state, the race of its people and the stereotypes that are assigned to them. These politics he contends, serve to solidify unequal distributions of wealth and power amongst industrialized nation-states and post-colonial ones. 

Minglo’s idea of the imagined Latin America can be considered parallel to Dipesh Chakrabarty’s “Hyper-Real Europe”. Similar to the construct of Latin America, Chakrabarty’s Europe is associated with a specific geographical region and is made distinct from all other entities. Both constructs serve to create categories of people and associated hierarchies, and the existence of both is closely tied to colonialism/modernity.

A Decolonial Aura

Mignolo announces nothing less than a radical critique of modernity that seeks to situate it within what he calls “coloniality.” According to Mignolo, decoloniality involves generalizing the experiences of decolonization and anticolonial struggles in Asia, Africa, and Latin America into a new epistemic frame. The project of decoloniality therefore involves a double gesture: first, the re-embodiment and relocation of thought in order to unmask the limited situation of modern knowledges and their link to coloniality, and second, an-other thinking that calls for plurality and intercultural dialogue. I somehow find this project of decoloniality a little too ambitious. It can be problematized in various ways. So for example, de-linking/decoloniality can take place through what Mignolo refers to as “disciplinary knowledge making” that takes place through speaking the language of particular civilization. But the conundrum as he himself points out is that one can of course do sociology in Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Mandarin etc etc. But doing so puts us at a disadvantage to “mainstream disciplinary debates”. Thus there is a difference that remains between local versus European sociology whereby even when doing sociology in any of the European languages (English, French, German etc) will be localizing it, it will still be widely read and understood. As he himself points out “the inverse will not hold”.  As such any knowledge produced  in any language can be attested through translation into a European language only affirms the power of European knowledge system and problematizes translation. This is just one example. How is this then delinking? Also when we think of decoloniality how are we thinking of separating ourselves from the institutions of colonial knowledge production whose legacies resonate in every domain. More so, even if decoloniality as a project seeks to decenter Europe as one of the many centers of knowledge,  we need not ignore that indigenous languages are not inherently egalitarian or liberating just because they are non-European. Non-European languages can have hierarchical, conservative, or reactionary forms of address?

Founding Statement

The Founding Statement talks about the danger of filtering cultural hegemonies all the way across the political spectrum, from the elites themselves to the epistemologies and discourses of revolutionary movements looking to subvert their power in the name of the "people".
Even in the case of the Cuban Revolution, it was the "working masses" that was written about by the elite intellectuals who insisted on a unitary, class-based subject veiling "the disparity of blacks, Indians, Chicanos and women; alternative models of sexuality and of the body; alternative epistemologies and ontologies; the existence of who had not entered into the social pact with the (revolutionary) state". This basically sums up all those groups, and their perspectives, about whom we have studied in the course so far. Using the same lens for the Latin American case places a particular detactment with the subaltern that was not the case with the "Indian" subaltern.
The emergence of students in the political arena changes the dynamics in Latin America where the subaltern subject representated in the testimonial text becomes a part of the construction of the text itself. It seems as if the degree of marginalisation or subalternity within Latin American society in the second and third phase was less than South Asia. This comparison would be useful in gauging the state of scholarship on Subaltern studies in the two regions.

Latin American Subaltern

Let me begin by saying that this is the first of two blogs. For various reasons, I've been unable to go through any reading except the founding statement of the Latin American Subaltern Collective. I'll write on it and then add on the other readings by noon or sometime around that.

What is interesting is that despite being geographically so distant from the Indian context, the Latin American subaltern collective is dealing some of the same issues. They talk about Marxist categories and the heterogeneity that it misses out on and how they seek to challenge them. But more than that, the Latin American writers seem to be keenly aware of the problems they might encounter. They talk about non-working classes being part of the subaltern group. They also seem to be deeply cognizant of the limits of their own approach. All this is highly appreciated.

I'll add more later. Urghh, so sleepy. 

On "an-other" history

     The concept of ‘an-other’ is a tricky one to navigate. It is also one that most new historiographical approaches are foregrounded in: “an-other logic”, “an-other language”, “an-other thinking” and an-other history. What this idea of an-other does is that it first and foremost points towards a dominant theory/ idea and then tries to make room so that ‘an-other’ idea can be accommodated. When I think of the examples of this “other” its very interesting to me that while these alternative ideas claim at some level to be radical, they are  such that can in some ways co-exist with the dominant discourse. I realize all of these are abstractions. Let’s move to particulars.

       If we take the example of Shahid Amin’s articles on Gandhi and if we were to read it in conjunction with other histories (nationalist or otherwise) of  early twentieth-century India what imaginary of India would be formed? Would Shahid Amin’s article co-exist neatly with what has already been written or would it disturb it? There are multiple ways in which these ideas can co-exist and disturb what is already there before them. Ideas that co-exist can use what was before (Spivak’s criticism of the geopolitics of first-world feminism which travels), can read something in a new way to add to a particular idea (Ranajit Guha’s interpretation of colonial law in Chandra’s Death), can disturb the fabrics of what was woven before a text's existence (something that the subaltern collective aims to do). Interestingly, even when claims are made about the rewriting of history and the disturbance of various threads that are woven to create narratives, these texts co-exist with what was before.

       Is there any possibility other than this co-existence and simultaneity (that Mignolo identifies as historico-structural heterogeneity)? What would an actual radical break away from this model of co-existence and simultaneity look like, if it were possible? Is it also a question of language which makes whatever is imagined and presented as radical also submit on the altar of co-existence? What does the subaltern collective, and generally history from below, do when the differences that are said to separate these projects from the rest allow them to co-exist with what is already present? If co-existence, simultaneity and supplementarity are the limitations that are placed upon anything that becomes a part of an epistemic system, what does the outside look like and how can there be a disjuncture within the system if at all? 

Session 13

'The war of my life had begun; and though one of God's most powerless creatures, I resolved never to be conquered. Alas, for me!'

This line represents the entire contest in the book so far for me. Incidents in the Life of a slave girl cataougues instances of rebellion and agency in the torturous lives of slaves. We get to understand how these poor creatures, treated as 'chattle' show their resolve and grit. I found the particular scene where the grandmother is auctioned after her mistresses death extremely powerful. It showed how even the unlikliest of people have agency. A major theme in the book so far is that the slaves get immense agency if they have a good character and are skillful. Good character is respected by whites and they find their skill useful. This makes me sligtly question the agency of the slaves, because it is still derived from the same instituition of slavery and what it encompasses. The artistic mastery, talent, good faith etc of the honored slave are of little importance. It is his usefulness as a certain machine that is rewarded by honor. It is like giving more time off the leash to a good hunting dog. Nevertheless, the slave does have agency. And we see that, especially in the life of William. The way he says that he doesn't mind being whipped, but he dislikes the idea of it, resonates a powerful idea for me. It is not the actual beating, (for extremely horific cases of slaves being beaten to death may be a few) but the idea that one man owns another man in such a tangible, physical manner that is disturbing. 

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

To comment on a narrative like Harriot Jones’ without being reductive is, for all practical purposes, impossible. The immensity of the experience that she communicates is, by her own admission, one that falls short of her reality. Rather than talk about the harrowing particulars of her experience, then, I have a more general observation to make. As we’ve seen from previous readings, it is a consideration of particular narratives that bring home the relevance of the general. What this reading did for me, more than any other, was drive in the extent to which the condition of subalternity dictates the terms of one’s existence. In the preface to the book, Harriot tells her readers that she was “born and reared in Slavery”. The phrase was probably commonly in use at the time, but coming from an emancipated slave, I can’t help but feel the significance of the way the circumstance is described. To say that one was “in Slavery”, as one would say “in the desert” or “in” anywhere, really, seems quite different than to say one “was a slave”. What I feel this does is really reinforce the nature of the conditions that create or enforce this particular form of subalternity. Obviously, to be in Slavery one must be a slave, but what comes through so strongly in the text is how the institution of slavery operates as an inescapable overarching narrative, as wholly responsible for determining experience as, say, climate.

In Harriot Jones’ story, this comes through most strongly when she speaks of the social rules governing marriage and the sexual exploitation of female slaves by their owners. Although her language is never explicit, there is a conscious portrayal of an awareness of their sexuality that comes to colored women living in Slavery very early on. This awareness permeates all levels of the household, even the white women are not exempt from it, although the consequences they suffer are obviously different. Harriot’s own struggle against the advances of her owner Mr. Flint are an example of this. She describes a spectrum of personal moralities that dictate these decisions amongst slave women, but also explains that none were exempt from a painful awareness of the sexual, regardless of their moral position. That the only escape she could find from Mr. Flint’s advances was to turn to Mr. Sands, is indicative of the extent to which she was defined in terms of her sexuality, and the extent to which she saw herself in terms of it. Harriot reflects multiple times on the fate of the children of white fathers that were born to slave women. These children were also born “in slavery”: they had to follow “the condition of the mother”. When her second child was born, she had no legal name to give it, she even describes feeling like she had no right to her own name. To possess the surname from their white father, as Harriot’s own father did, would not give them any sense of identity stemming from belonging to him; they did not even properly speaking belong to Harriot, but to Mr. Flint. There is a sense that, to be born in slavery is more than just to be born a slave. It is to be born of slave parents, to be destined to have children born slaves, to have one’s whole lineage in the control of a more powerful other, and to be forced to define and understand oneself through this circumstance above all others. To be subaltern then, to live in subalternity, is to be stripped of more than agency. It is more than being completely outside a hegemonic power structure, it is the condition of having that power structure influence not only what one does, but the very terms in which one perceives oneself.

Session 13

I would rather have titled this post hell because the account of Harriet Jacobs can only come from a place that is hell or worse. The account was persistently painful to read. It was unbearable on some places but that is because it is not a fictional tale but rather the reality of so many lives.

Despite all that I know about the subaltern I have never been more agonized with the thought of subalternity and how it attaches itself to someone making them voice-less. There were so many things that came to mind while reading this painful account. And I would like to approach this particular blog more personally than I have ever done so before.

The first time I truly related tot he text was when Benjamin says after being caught in his journey to freedom, "No, I did not think of him. When a man is hunted like a wild beast he forgets there is a God, a heaven. He forgets every thing in his struggle to get beyond the reach of the bloodhounds."
This told me how the hardship of the level that the slaves endure can drive them either way and this came into contrast with what I know or have read about the slaves and how they turned to Christianity in order to justify the hardships they bear. Some or even most of them did but there were some who refused to have faith on a cruel divine.

The other thing that I noticed was how blackness or color is a common feature associated with slaves or slavery, yet Harriet Jacobs makes a comment in her account at the time when her master has started making advances towards her, "No matter whether the slave girl be as black as ebony or as fair as her mistress. In either case, there is no shadow of law to protect her from insult, from violence, or even from death; all these are inflicted by fiends who bear the shape of men." So there are certain attributes of this condition that will apply to just one gender. The other reason why being a woman AND a slave is also a much more horrible place to be is because a woman's worth is only valued by if she increases her Master's stock of slaves as Jacobs points out. All of this is a testament to the intersectionality and how a person can be the subaltern buried under so many different layers of subalternity. For instance the mother slave is silenced in all accounts. She has no control over he her own life or body or sexuality. She has no control over her own marriage or relationships. She has no control over whose child she bears and even when she has born her masters child, she has no control over their condition and where they might be taken or what might be made of them. And this applies to so many others.

Another thing that came to light when I was reading was the idea that even though the slave is dehumanized in the eyes of the master, on a certain level this dehumanization is reciprocated when the slave holders are referred to as blood hounds or when their hearts are called a "mystic clock that beats in their chest and they are deaf to it".

I inferred from this that it feels better to dehumanize one's attackers and torturers because it is easier to say that a monster did these horrible things than to say that another human being did these horrible things.

The torture of the life of a bond-man or a bond-woman is experienced so deeply and is a violation that is so great as Jacobs says, "I know that some are too much brutalized by slavery to feel the humiliation of their position; but many slaves feel it most acutely, and shrink from the memory of it."
It is unbearable to imagine how these brutalities left scars that couldn't possibly heal and even if they could, they didn't until the end of their lives.

A question that came to mind constantly was where d I find the subaltern or who is the subaltern. It is the slave girl, it is the slave girl's brother or her uncles or her mother or her father or ever her mistress who was distressed by her husband to an extent. If I take spivaks definition of how the subaltern is excluded from the access to power structures then I must say apart from the very wealthy slave owners  I become inclined to call several of the people mentioned in jacobs' account the subaltern. Subalternity in my opinion was a characterisitic that attaches itself to these people, to some more than others but in most ways it silences them not because they cant speak but because their voice isn't part of the dominant narrative no one is willing to hear them. They are simply not heard. The other thing that it very obviously does is that strips the subaltern from any agency. Even the mistress of the happy family when married to her slave holding husband was incapable of stopping any of the horrific acts he did on to her slaves, The lack of agency finds the slaves from birth but can manifest in so many ways later in life. 

Random South American Subalterns

This was in yesterday's news and it's quite an uplifting story.

It's interesting how these Bolivian women have chosen to exert their agency, find a voice etc, in a very modern way (professional mountain climbing) but have retained the unique markers of their specific Aymara identity in the shape of their orange shawls and their wide skirts.

Just in case any of you might be interested.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/21/bolivia-mountain-climbers-women-cholita-aymara-illimani-peak-summits

http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2016/apr/21/bolivia-cholita-climbers-mountains-ayamara-women-gallery

April 22 Blog

• Jacobs’ narrative is obviously powerful and moving. It cannot help being so since it is an account of the treatment meted out to black Americans in the nineteenth century.
• It is surprising in its sophistication. Jacobs’ ideas are complex and very well articulated. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl broadly reads like any other mid 19th century work of prose. Because of its subject matter, it especially reminds one of Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
• There is nothing in the text itself to indicate that this is the work of a black woman. I do not mean to cast doubt on Jacobs’ authorship but simply to point out the oddness/bizarreness of the fact that black American slave experience with all its specificities and uniqueness has been expressed through the unmodified white bourgeois idiom of the day. An enormous amount of authenticity will naturally have been lost in the process.
• For example: at one point, Jacobs' grandmother (a lifelong slave and very probably illiterate) is recalled to have said “O Linda! Has it come to this? I had rather see you dead than to see you as you now are. You are a disgrace to your dead mother.”
• The grandmother’s words, having been given this shape, would make their way to the hearts of Jacobs’ white middle-class readers. This is in line with more straightforward appeals to shared common humanity. For instance, when Jacobs tells her readers that a black woman's love for her children is the same as a white woman's love for her children.
• In her introduction, Maria Child explains Jacobs’ style of writing and general parhi-likhi-ness by telling us that when she was a young girl, Jacobs had a kind mistress who taught her to read and write and that Jacobs had considerably supplemented this learning during her time in New York by reading and by conversing with educated and intelligent (presumably white) people.
• Child rather loosely tells us that “At her request, I have revised her manuscript; but such changes as I have made have been mainly for purposes of condensation and orderly arrangement.”
• Even if we take Child’s word for it and believe that Jacobs's words are largely her own, a poststructuralist reading of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl should pay attention to the fact that the stock of signifiers that is available for Jacobs to use in her written story, the very language that she uses, has been created by the hegemonic discourse around her. Its limitations therefore have to be kept in mind.
• In light of all this, the introduction to this Penguin edition of the text comes across as unduly confident in its claims. In the first paragraph alone, I was made uncomfortable at several points. Jacobs is referred to as an “African-American” – a term that wouldn't come into existence until long after her death. We are also told that Jacobs was “thoroughly feminist”. The first wave of feminism only came into its own in the early twentieth century. Jacobs is being retrospectively assigned categories that might not have meant a great deal to her. (Which is obviously not to say that she did not share these concerns, but simply that she wouldn't have experienced them in the exact same terms that a late twentieth century academic would.)
• Here is a very short excerpt from a book I read for another course. I think it is relevant to my blog. https://www.dropbox.com/s/3wcwhge6q0r35ic/Truth.pdf?dl=0

Week 13

This week’s reading shows in great detail how the theories of subalternity can apply to history and why the voiceless-ness of a subaltern is a defining feature of her existence. While the voice of an oppressed individual can be considered legitimate, the voice of a subaltern will not be considered valid unless it is in terms of the dominant mode of hearing. Linda’s lack of control of her sexuality is an important example of this case.

In an earlier chapter we told of a situation where Dr. Flint is accused of being the father of one of his female slaves’ children. In response, Flint whips the accusing husband nearly to death and a year later, has the couple shipped away so that they are “out of sight and hearing”. We discover that the slave women had been promised better treatment in return for her assent, but despite this, Dr. Flint has the woman sold to protect his own reputation.

Linda is made a similar offer but she refuses. Linda’s subordination to her master, Dr. Flint, is defined to a large extent by the lack of control she has over her sexuality. In these conditions, Linda is able to exercise her agency only through acting along this defining feature of her subalternity; she chooses to take Mr. Sands as her lover in the hope that Dr. Flint agrees to sell her.

The result is that Linda is ostracized by everyone, including her grandmother and Mr. Sands refuses to value her even after she bears two of his children. Linda attempts to escape her subalternity, but ends up reinforcing the dominant mode of being; she is no closer to being freed and is still exploited.

Session 13

This piece, more than any other, rendered me speechless (no pun intended). For it is difficult to analyze and deconstruct a narrative such as this- difficult to even fully move past the impact it has on you. Distance, though present in time and space, is hard to replicate. So I will focus not on the grief, or the impossible choices of the actual narrative, because for those I have no words. In this particular case, it is just easier to discuss "broader questions" than to go into the specifics of her experience.

One question I kept asking throughout this text was: who is the subaltern? Who is the subaltern when there are layers and layers of subalternity? The author who's writing this narrative- but also in cases, the other slaves who have been rendered voiceless, the other women whose experience, as she states, is similar or far worse than hers. Is the subaltern one who can speak? At the point when these experiences can be voiced- when these narratives shared, does the subaltern cease to be that? How? In the technical sense of the word- perhaps. But those experiences, those memories that don't ever escape- what of them? For some things Linda Brent admits, can never be put into words. Some cannot be represented, no matter the attempt. How do we think of those?

What struck me was the solidarity, forgiveness, and understanding in her tone. Her address, she makes clear, is primarily to women. It is them, she states, who receive the worst of it. It is them who she relates her experience to- for strength, for hope, for fighting the demon she terms is slavery. Even for the white woman, who oppresses and subjugates her, who makes her life difficult, she extends an understanding. She blames not her primarily, but the institution of slavery. She acknowledges how that woman, too, is in some ways bound by circumstance, by the way she was raised and what she has seen.

Yet, despite this divide between the white woman and the black, there are those who break the binaries. The friends she brings up, Betty and the woman who gave her shelter, the Aunt Fanny (?) who helped her grandmother, the grandmother herself- her story is laced with women who support each other at enormous personal risk to their own lives. In fact, more than just women, her story is laced with people who do the kind thing, who do the right thing. That, to me, was such a a courtesy: such an unexpected understanding and humane rendering of the human, who is not just dismissed at purely evil.

This reading also prompted a closer look at resistance and agency. We discussed in one of our classes, that individual acts of resistance must not be so elevated that collectives become impossible, yet we also critiqued the grand, homogenizing tendencies of narratives of collective resistance. Here, in this account, are so many strong, powerful acts of resistance. From Linda's refusal to give in to one master over a different white man (where choice was limited, but at least there was the ability to think she exercised it), to the grandmother who walked dignified to the auction (knowing how it would be received), to the woman taking Linda in at the possible expense of her name and reputation, to Linda's escape... These are perhaps small in the grander scale for change, perhaps not collective in the way we are used to thinking about them- but are they not shared? I found the element of solidarity in them.

Isn't it through these that one can even get to a place where they can fight for bigger change- whatever it may be? Why are we so quick to dismiss those?

We have discussed metanarratives and grand structures, and how they stand in opposition to the individual, to a more "post structuralist" approach as Gyan Prakash argued for (in his opposition to O Hanlon and Washbrook). We have discussed the oppression of these. It is interesting how so many of these link up and how they fall on certain groups. In this, I kept thinking of slavery, the Church, and of (this had to come up) capitalist logic. Slaves are tools, used on plantations to increase the capital of the slave owner- they are no longer human, they cannot be accepted as such. As Linda repeats over and over again- they are "property". The Church, so often, was used to reinforce the slaves' oppression- to make them work harder, to submit to their masters, to refrain from entertaining any ill thoughts. These structures that impose, that are used to legitimize and subjugate- are living, breathing entities.

Yet, within these structures, are stories of resistance- of challenges, of spirits that refuse to be snuffed out. It is these that give us hope. It is these that, despite all of the oppression, of the cruelty and hatred exuded by humans, of the meanness of their actions- makes you think that perhaps not all is lost- that this is not all we are. It can't possibly be all that we are.

Incidents in the Life of a Slave

       The theories that we studied in class actually come to life in these narratives. Although, there is much that can be discussed about Harriot Jacob’s narrative, one point is clear – Harriot has agency. Even in the most severely restricted circumstances, she makes that last attempt to overcome her slave owner. Indeed she clearly mentions that “I knew what I did, and I did it with deliberate calculation.”  However, as with Chadara Death, it is the reception of that agentive act which is interesting. Where as in Chandara’s death, the State criminalized these women, in this case it is community itself that ostracizes Jacob’s attempt at liberation through the rhetoric of morality. Harriot’s case also calls attention to the fact that even in the most clearly binary relation between master and slave, power cannot merely rely on brute force. An entire discourse needs to created that perpetuates the system of slavery. 

I also found the two opposing characters of Benjamin and the grandmother quite important. Both were working towards gaining freedom from slavery. However, the grandmother realized what Benjamin simply didn’t – that to be able to engage with power, one has to speak its language. The grandmother abhorred slavery as much as Benjamin, however he attempted to speak in a language that the dominant power holder could simply not recognize. Therefore, even though she too argues that "he that is willing to be a slave, let him be a slave”, nonetheless she recognized that the only way to freedom is through buying one’s freedom. By refusing to speak in terms of the dominant modes of power, and refusing to buy his freedom, Benjamin very clearly set himself apart.

The last point comes to the layers of subalternity. In the case of the wife of the  slave owner for instance, she too seems as restricted, and indeed as silent as Harriot the slave as well

Week 13-Maria Said

Throughout the book, Harriet Jacobs is very aware that she is being written and talked about. When she mentions the Clergymen who arrive and are shown a very agreeable view of slavery by the masters, she exclaims, 'What does he know'. This shows a very clear politics of representation where she feels that those who have not lived this life are not able to speak it. I also think that the emphasis on the 'he' might be the emphasis on the gendered nature of the degradation of slavery which Harriet is quite aware of. It appears then for Harriet, those who are not slaves and those who are men might never understand where she is coming from and are thus unable to represent her life in a reasonable way. Though I agree with the ideas we have discussed in class about if everyone can only be represented by themselves, what about the politics of solidarity, Harriet makes a very good case for this claim. As a woman, the gendered nature of the violence she has to bear and the abject humiliation of being a slave are portrayed in such a powerful way only because they are personal and may not have been articulated this well if they had come from someone else. What this book also starkly illustrates is that no category is an undifferentiated mass. Using a gendered lens might be impossible in the case of Harriet without taking her race into consideration since the white Mistresses while being women, are on the side of oppressors and have no way of speaking for the slave women. This shows that in politics of both solidarity and representation, intersectionality is the most important tool.

I think that the question of agency in this context is very interesting, as a slave, she is property and property can not have any agency. When Mr. Flint is pushing her to sleep with him, it appears that she has some agency in the matter because she can say no. And her relationship with Mr. Sands is negotiated under condition of saying no to Dr. Flint, her saying saying yes to him is not a yes she would have given freely but is an act of vengeance against Dr. Flint. In that case, since her consent is not freely given, I am not convinced that this is a case of her exercising her agency but of being raped by one man over another. That is not to say that she never exercises any agency, her push to get freedom for her children is an act of supreme agency. She is willing to let herself stay in a tiny closed off space, have her children stay in jail, all in a bid for their freedom which she eventually succeeds in doing.

What is interesting about her agency when it comes to her sexuality, is the question of virtue and morality. Dr. Flint is trying to take her virtue away from her, her grandmother is ashamed of her when she finds out, she is disgusted with herself, she is ashamed of taking her children for christening. These are all incidents where morality is used as a viewing lens. I find this interesting since this is morality taught to her by the Church and Clergymen who are quite happy to see her in slavery and even rape slaves themselves. This is the morality of the white free man, who has forced it upon the slaves and they view themselves in the same way. With the question of morality, I find the discussion of God also interesting. Her uncle Benjamin can not have faith since he is a slave, but her grandmother does and as the book progresses, Harriet begins to too. She uses the bible to shut her master up when he is propositioning her and there is a belief in the true God and the true word of Bible vs what the white people tell us. This is interesting since this is a god that has been brought to the slaves by the white man and is not their own. But this God has been appropriated by slaves to give them succor. If ideas of morality and religion are looked at as representations of ideas that emerge in one place and travel to others, it appears that origin does not matter. It is actually quite unimportant to those it affects, what matters is how these ideas are adapted and seen by those who practice them. 

Writing the Self: Incidents in the Life of a slave girl

“Reader be assured this narrative is no fiction” says Harriet Jacobs in the preface of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. In reading these lines, I was reminded of another female autobiography The Weave of my Life by Urmila Parvar, which I read some time ago and it begins “My mother used to weave aaydans, the Marathi generic term for all things made from bamboo. I find that her act of weaving and my act of writing are organically linked. The weave is similar. It is the weave of pain, suffering, and agony that links us.” Though, separated by context and culture, what I found deeply interesting was the way the woman’s autobiography displays a palpable consciousness and at times unease with the form in which her life is to be articulated: ‘What it means to write the gendered self?’ seems to be a critical question that turns the autobiography into a space of self-reflexivity. What should female life writing look like? Should it be just about the self, or does the purpose transcend the self. In the case of Incidents the question is not just confined to notion of gender since here  gender is entwined with racial politics. Incidents then takes the autobiographical mode to write about Jacob’s own experiences but as she says her story is painful and she would rather have kept it private, but she feels that making it public may help the antislavery movement. In this way can we think of this work as a political or historical document? In what way is this autobiographical narrative revealing of the subaltern’s resistance. To that end what can one make of her act to enter into a sexual relationship with Mr. Sands. Is that a moment of deep vulnerability or an act of resistance even if it comes at the cost of having to bear two children from Mr. Sands. How does one extract the voice of the subaltern in such an incident.: She says that she is ashamed of this illicit relationship but finds it preferable to being raped by the loathsome Dr. Flint. With Mr. Sands, she has two children, Benny and Ellen. Linda argues that a powerless slave girl cannot be held to the same standards of morality as a free woman. She also has practical reasons for agreeing to the affair: she hopes that when Flint finds out about it, he will sell her to Sands in disgust. Instead, the vengeful Flint sends Linda to his plantation to be broken in as a field hand. But can we say that Linda is making a choice in this case. Is she exhibiting some kind of agency? This also has implications for thinking about the relationship of agency to the form of writing- autobiography 

Incidents in the life of a slave girl

The author prefaces her book by stating how she wrote this whenever she could "snatch an hour from household chores". The very fact that this account comes from someone who personally underwent the experience of slavery merits this a status that is equal, if not more, than the status merited by theories on and around the issue of slavery.
Harriet Jacots, a slave, could be seen as a classic subaltern but her speaking to Northerns, depicting her situation and the situation of countless others like her, endows her with a voice that (in my opinion) is much more effective than anything else in moving the readers.
The various levels of subjugation that a slave undergoes are highlighted here. It is not only poverty, destitution, humiliation and barbarity, that is a feature of daily lives for the slaves. Added to this, is the additional dimension for slave girls of the constant fear of maintaining their purity and resisting the attempts by their masters to even rule over their bodies. Unimaginable as it is, beauty for them is a curse. Here then, resistance can take forms that are subtle, yet very powerful. For example, the author chooses someone else over her master to deny him the glory of being with her. The strength with which she resists this urge, despite the promises of comfortable living, and goes on to defy her master's wishes highlights the strength of her resolve and the hatred that she feels for him.
Narratives play an important role in keeping the slaves from running away to the North. Here Harriet highlights how stories of how the slaves suffered worse fate in the North highlight the role of knowledge production in perpetuating the interests of the powerful. How Harriet is made to read the newspaper by an old slave to find out about the situation of slaves in the North was a powerful moment, depicting this knowledge gap.
Harriet reminded Benjamin of the poverty and hardships he must encounter among strangers. Is it interesting to note how this fear of strangers was embedded within the slaves- in most cases, they were made to believe how a miserable life as slave was better than the uncertainty that laid out there.
Standard notions of morality are also effectively challenged by Harriet. When Benjamin tells his mother how he did not jump in the river fearing for her mother, she asks him if he did not fear about God. Here, he retorts: "No I did not think of Him. When a man is hunted like a wild beast he forgets there is a God, a heaven. He forgets everything in his struggle to get beyond the reach of the bloodhounds". This theme is again highlighted when the author highlights the circumstance in which she chose to be with that white man. These words were very powerful in depicting this alternative narrative of morality.

Depressing narratives, agency and morality - Session 13

Let me begin by saying that it is extremely difficult to write anything about this piece; what does one say about it? Nothing would do justice to it and everything one would say will be inadequate. But I suppose one way to think about it is to recognize that we read these narratives not to offer anything back but to learn something ourselves and judging by the book she writes, I imagine she would not have a problem with us using her work for our own selfish reasons. That is the thing that strikes me about this book, the immense generosity of it. When talking about the character of her 'master' and his wife, she writes; "Had it not been for slavery, he would have been a better man, and his wife a happier woman." This ability to look beyond her own pain and bring attention to the oppressiveness of the system on both the oppressed and the oppressor is perhaps the greatest part about this book. I'm reminded of that phrase in Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Friere; "This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well".

On the issue of agency;
I constantly reflected back to previous sessions and our discussions on the issue of agency and compared them with how agency manifested itself in this narrative. We see how agency is not something absolute and can almost never been without recognition of the context in which it is practiced. For me, Jacobs choosing to have a relationship with one man over Dr. Flint is the limit of her agency. Her agency, being stuck between a rock and a hard place is limited to choosing who she gets 'disgraced' by. I think this allows us to think through the issue of agency. This isn't just limited to that particular choice but throughout her narrative. Her choosing to leave her children (which means that they end up in jail) is another exercise of agency. The point being, if we are to engage in an ethical history writing and representation, the attention to context is supremely important. It goes back to the issue that we discussed when reading Spivak and Saba Mehmood. There are obviously special contexts in which people make special decisions. For a historian, and especially a 'subaltern historian', paying attention to these issues is supremely important but because only then can we truly re-present the actions and choices that individuals make.

Related to the issue of agency is the idea of Morality. At one point in the narrative, Jacobs herself writes about how being able to live a virtuous life is a luxury granted only to the free. In many ways, what this forced me to think about, more than anything else, was how we can expand the notion of 'privilege' itself. While not arguing for some idealized notion of a 'subaltern', it is supremely important to note that the ability to exercise 'moral' actions is severely hampered by the choices available to us. On a second level, it is worth pondering over the idea Jacobs presents that slaves (subalterns in general?) have a rubric of morality of their own. At the outset, this idea makes sense. That ethics need to be seen on a subjective plain makes sense but then, what do we do with some form of universal ethics? One way perhaps of making sense of it is to see the domain of ethical action as not being being defined in strict categories and actions but being on a spectrum and certain extraordinary conditions, such as that of slavery (or of subalternity?) might expand the domain of ethical actions. This is important because this goes back to the issues we discussed in Saba Mehmood; I'm merely drawing a comparison to think through the idea of ethics; the situations are obviously not comparable.

On Freedom

I don’t know why reading Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents reminds of Maya Angelou’s early writing, I know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Jacobs calls slavery the “cage of obscene birds”. Like Angelou’s caged bird who “sings of freedom", Jacobs's narrative is also one that actively pursues freedom (to the point that the narrative becomes fast-paced and itself mirrors a deep longing for freedom).

Jacobs forces one to reconsider what freedom means. In the obvious sense of the word, given the context of the narrative, one would think there is a binary between freedom and slavery and Jacobs yearns to cross over to the other side from slavery. Yet the narrative complicates this further. There is a strange oppressiveness that freedom contains for colored people.Free black men are seen as “half free niggers” by the white population. Jacobs tells us of a continuing agony which follows her throughout, “I called myself free, and sometimes felt so; but I knew I was insecure.” Thus, freedom too is a precarious state. This precarity is also shaped by a burden that comes with the realization of one’s freedom in the face of the suffering of others. Jacobs writes “I could never go out to breathe God's free air without trepidation at my heart.”

Freedom is found in little things. Jacobs writes that the first thing that she did on the “dawn” of her freedom was “to see the sun rise, for the first time in our lives, on free soil”. When Jacobs is in hiding she hates the fact that she is not able to breathe freely. At that moment while Jacobs movements are restricted she thinks of Dr. Flint who was “out in the free air, while I, guiltless of crime, was pent up here, as the only means of avoiding the cruelties the laws allowed him to inflict upon me!” Freedom is not just the grand idea of what freedom at the end of slavery felt like but it also includes small acts such as the ability to breath freely and deeply. This freedom also contains the ability to speak and write. About slaveholders, Jacobs says, “Hot weather brings out snakes and slaveholders, and I like one class of the venomous creatures as little as I do the other. What a comfort it is, to be free to say so!” This ability to write is also one that Dr. Flint found threatening when he would ask Harriet about the lovers with whom she exchanged letters. Therefore, for Harriet Jacobs to be free is to be able to breathe and see sunrise and write and speak freely.

These small acts which for Jacobs are reflective of a person’s freedom show her believe that freedom is a natural state. Freedom for Jacobs is as natural to man as “the air he breathes” and anyone who takes that freedom away is “guilty of murder”. It is a search for freedom from socially acceptable behavior for a young black woman that dictates Angelou’s narrative too. Both Jacobs and Angelou show that freedom is an expansive yet precarious state. They also show that to actively create circumstances that allow for one to be free is the most radical thing one can do.

Session 12

While reading Aijaz Ahmad and Arif Dilrik I understand how they claim the discourse should be framed and how it is already framed. It seems to me that Dilrik does a great job of redefining the term the post colonial in a broader fashion than simply what is considered to be 'not Eurocentric'. Aijaz Ahmed seems to understand the positionality of Edward Said as a Palestinian man who is trying to own his identity in a credible fashion and writing what he would consider an opposition to the literature produced by the Occident and alaso autonomous from it. However, Dilrik place sthe location of Eurocentricism not just at the center of Europe as he says,

"Eurocentrism is crucial to understanding the spatialities and temporalities of modernity, not just in EuroAmerica but globally, from at least the late nineteenth century." 

My question while reading Dilrik’s description of the abovementioned was how it applies to the context of the subaltern. He does claim in his article “Post Colonialism Aura” that the Subaltern school informs the major themes in Postcolonial discourse but it does not exhaust them. He does so while mentioning a question that Gyan Prakash frames “How does the Third World write "its own history?" which to his mind is the point of departure for Postcolonial discourse.

This is very interesting considering it raises further questions of where we locate the Subaltern in a world where globalism and Post-colonialism are busy fighting a war of their own. Is the subaltern a completely postcolonial phenomenon? Does it stand to oppose the Eurocentric histories written so far? The latter is debatable according to Dilrik because his claim goes so far that the break between Europe and the rest of the world has not completely blurred the identities in the non-European context and the fact that the divide is not that powerful.

I think the main idea is to try to understand what we plan to achieve from the dialectic in history whether it is between the Orient and the Ooccident, Europe and the rest of the world or West and East, globalism and postcolonialism because to my mind, once we understand the purpose of the historical process we can use it to inform our efforts to uncover identities that may be lost or stories that haven’t been heard.

Session 12: The Postcolonial Aura

For me, Arif Dirlik addresses most of my questions about post-colonialism and he does so fairly convincingly. He takes a term used to define intellectuals in the third world and generalizes it over a world situation. The term is not limited to the third world intellectual but refers to anyone who talks against the meta-narrative (or so I understood). But in saying this he also recognizes the importance of a meta-narrative as a contrast. He also points towards this other issue - which makes me personally very uncomfortable as well - where he talks about how different narratives are tailored to fit a meta-narrative. In an existence which can not be freed of biases, the modern historian counters this problem by accepting quite the opposite. They take up titles such as Marxist or feminist. This open acceptance gives them the right to be biased. Narratives are formed by different writers to fit history into their own ideological orientation. This is where silences are born and one position, or version of history or historical moment is given precedence over another. Since, according to modern set standards different intellectuals are allowed to have different orientations, many sides of a historical event are illuminated. Except when a historical narrative does not fall into any of the meta-narratives, then the subaltern position is born. The subaltern can not be understood because it does not, in any way conform to the meta-narratives in play. He gives the example of Confucianism which did not make sense to the Chinese a few decades ago and there was vehement resentment to it in the Mao era, but now due to the Sinification of first socialism, and now capitalism, intellectuals can link traces of capitalism to Confucianism. Confucianism now has legitimacy to exist in the modern context because it conformed to an acceptable meta-narrative. This sort of conformity leaves no room for 'the other' to exist. He/she only exists in a mirror to what is already present. 

Some recognition of structural politics at last

One of the issues brought forward by both Dirlik and Ahmad is that formulations of discourse and their relationship with power. I find this idea to be of extreme importance. Beginning with Ahmad, he points out how there is an inherent problem with tracing the discourse of Orientalism all the way back to Greek drama. Dirlik, in both his pieces points out the same issue of how any discussion of culture has to be situated in the context of Political economy which gives birth to it. In many ways, the issue of separating Eurocentrism from other 'centrisms' is crucial. The point that Dirlik hammers home is how the power of Eurocentrism is fundamentally related to the configurations of structural power which perpetuate it. In many ways, this is something that has been missing in almost all texts of postcolonial variety that we've read up till now (Spivak would of course be an exception). Additionally, considering how Dirlik conceptualizes Modern Capitalism as not specifically situated in a geographical location, one wonders how it is even possible to conceptualize a 'postfoundational' history. But more to the point, as I pointed out earlier, what is the utility of such an endeavor given that these 'foundational' categories such as the onslaught of Capitalism are as much relevant to us today as ever before. One of the factors, I do think are important, are the positionality of these authors. The economic deprivation caused by multi-national organizations in places like Pakistan and India are of course of little concern, personally for tenured (almost) professors sitting in Columbia. For them, the issue of 'hybridity' and its impact on culture is of course, more important. This, in many ways, is how I see the 'postcolonial' intellectual fashioning the 'postcolonial' world in his own image. 

In another sense, this discussion needs to take center stage for reasons for self reflexivity. As Dirlik points out, the EuroAmerican 'ethos' now (and by extension of modern global capitalism), instead of creating divisions, seeks to incorporate difference within the hegemonic discourse. As Dirlik points out; " there is a parallel between the ascendancy in cultural criticism of the idea of postcoloniality and an emergent consciousness of global capitalism in the 1980s ". In addition to this, the fundamental point that writing of difference and cultural integration is a key concern for global capitalism now. Given also that most 'postcolonial' critiques are aimed at including the marginalized into the 'hegemonic', one does wonder about the radical-ness of their endeavor. Going back to Dirlik, the need to historicize postcolonial literature is paramount. Does it, on any level, propagate the dominant ideology? According to Dirlik, the problem runs far deeper (one could contest this); "The complicity of postcolonial in hegemony lies in postcolonialism's diversion of attention from contemporary problems of social, political, and cultural domination, and in its obfuscation of its own relationship to what is but a condition of its emergence, that is, to a global capitalism that, however fragmented in appearance, serves as the structuring principle of global relations". Even if one does contest the last point, what is certain is the idea that in discussion of culture, issues of economic exploitation, political domination do take a side role, almost as if they are not fundamentally related to issues of cultural domination. The two way link between culture and political economy, and its absence within 'Postcolonial' literature (at least in so far as we've read it) seems almost criminal.

I also think it is crucial to seriously engage with the question of what lies outside the 'EuroAmerican' given especially that most of the 'postcolonial' authors are deeply enmeshed in the EuroAmerican tradition. In this sense, I find the idea of 'contact zones' significant in this regard. In many ways, the issue of difference is used time and again, as Dirlik points out, to 'make space within the EuroAmerican academy for the postcolonial intellectual (paraphrased of course)'. Given this, I really wonder about the utility of thinking about difference. In many ways, the fundamental issue is of what is being argued and for whom and consequently, what is being ignored. Right of the bat, what is being ignored are structural issues of capital accumulation and economic exploitation which, as I said earlier, seems almost criminal. By arguing against something like foundational categories, are we not completely ignoring the structural power dynamics?

Finally, all of this is fundamentally related to politics. As Dirlik points out, 'Culturalism conceals inequalities in the realm of economy by focusing too much on issues of culture and ‘subjectivities’. What does cultural do politics of solidarity on a global scale? There has to be something foundational, some foundational mode of oppression against which global politics of liberation are directed against. In that sense, the readings for this week are a sigh of relief because they bring back the issues of culture within a real political scenario. In addition to this, I think there is some value in the comparison Dirlik draws between Huntington and postcolonial literature (loved the part about Huntington) in the sense that it almost posits a difference so impenetrable that nothing can be said about solidarity. Bearing also in mind that the claim almost always has been about liberation, then one wonders why the fundamental issue of structural politics has been so missing in postcolonial literature. 

The Post-colonial Intellectual

Arif Dilrik emphasizes the significance of the post-colonial intellectual in ‘The Post Colonial Aura’.  Is the postcolonial intellectual a displaced subject? Dilrik posits that “postcolonial intellectuals are the producers of postcolonial discourse”.  Why can this not be thought in terms of the discourse producing and sustaining the postcolonial intellectual? In one way, the postcolonial intellectual sees himself as an emancipated subject in so far as he is no longer bound by the constraints that accompany the usage of the idea of a Third World intellectual. The argument presented by critics is that the Third World as a term was inadequate and “vague” in so far as it could not encapsulate  heterogeneous historical circumstances. The specificity attached to it meant that the third world subject was locked in a fixed position both structurally and geographically. Thirdly the term could not account for societies and populations that shifted with changing global relationships. This objection is quite valid, the fixing of societal locations permitted the identification of Third World intellectuals. Postcolonial does not permit such identification. If the postcolonial intellectual is not located in one place then Dilrik is right in questioning whether there is something called a postcolonial consciousness that constitutes the identity of the postcolonial intellectual. He argues there is a postcolonial consciousness that could not be grappled previously with the term Third World. To him, this consciousness is discursive and represents an attempt to “regroup intellectuals” of uncertain location under the banner of a postcolonial discourse. Intellectuals need to  participate in the discourse to defines themselves as such. The postcolonial intellectual cannot be understood outside of the discourse that he produces and participates in. At the same time, it is important to note that written into the idea of a ‘postcolonial’ is a break with time- as having coming after and being a product of the workings of colonialism. As such, the postcolonial intellectual is not “outside the history of western domination”, it is in a “tangential relationship to it”. To my mind then, the postcolonial intellectual inhabits, in the words of Homi Bhaba a “space of inbetweenness”, a hybridity. Central to the discourse he participates in is the “repudiation of master narratives” and a critique of Eurocentricism, though this understanding of discourse is also something that Dilrik contests for being exclusive on several grounds. For instance, in so far as ‘postcolonial’ is thought of in discursive terms it ignores those who come from postcolonial societies themselves. But most importantly, to my mind Dilrik is concerned with the problem that even though postcolonial critics engage in a repudiation of master narratives ultimately  the "critical gaze" reproduces the “universalist pretensions” of the First World academy. How then are we to understand the postcolonial intellectual and its hybridity?

Session 12

Dirlik's piece on Eurocentrism talks about its inescapability in certain ways, explaining the links between eurocentrism and modernity, and then postcolonialism and globalism. 

Considering the fact that the subaltern collective comes specifically from the context of postcolonialism, it is tied inherently to eurocentrism, which is, in many ways, inescapable. One must be careful to not exaggerate the binaries between Europe and the third world, and the "values" associated with these categories. If Europe is the bringer of Science and modern values then, it cannot be said that the East was the opposite. To show fluidity and heterogenity, Dirlik argues, is a task that writers in postcolonialism take seriously. Yet at the same time, one cannot reasonably say that some of these "values" existed – in the shape that we see them, at least- outside of Europe. When speaking of capitalism for instance, one cannot simply argue that capitalism was present in other parts of the world in the shape that became dominant. We can find traces of it, but the global form it emerged in was a European model. Attempts to diminish Europe's centrality, then, become difficult. For if we also argue that Europe did not exist in itself- that it too, clearly, was formed through interactions with the colonized world, then what structures and ideologies can we attribute to it? 

How do we apply this to the Subaltern though? Is the Subaltern being defined in opposition to Europe? Or to the native elite? Or to a particular gender? The point is, that when speaking of relations of power, questions of resistance, difference, and representation are inevitable. But what does one do with them? Fluidity must be recognized, yet one should not ignore how power dynamics tilted it in the favor of one side. Consciousness and subjectivity of the Subaltern must be recognized, yet one cannot overstretch that if one is to write these histories, one cannot take them at their word and has to maintain distance from the logic of the "thakkur". One must try to uncover/recover/make these voices speak- yet one does not have the resources to always do so. One must not essentialize or romanticize, but one must write histories of the oppressed. It seems most of our classes have been spent discussing the dangers of either extreme- but then what do we do? When almost all approaches are problematic, what approach are we to take? How are we to move forward? 

This text gives a strong argument, to my mind, for why these histories are important. For despite elements of essentialism or romanticism which may creep in when reading sources "against the grain" in writing subaltern histories, it goes some ways in bringing to attention a marginalized group, and attempting to give it voice (despite the problems that come with it).  

"One of the most remarkable pieties of our times is that to speak of oppression is to erase the subjectivities of the oppressed, which does not seem to realize that not to speak of oppression, but still operate within the teleologies of modernist categories, is to return the responsibility for oppression to its victims."  

The above argument makes sense, but then the way to write these histories is not safe from the endless problems I have highlighted above. If even self-reflexivity is not enough, and neither are attempts to speak to the subaltern (the ones that exist in the same time period that is, for we cannot "uncover" those voices in the archives), then how is one to proceed?

The only answer I can think of is to not pay excessive heed to the critics. One should be careful and try to go through the checklist of techniques we have already discussed, but these criticisms should not stop one from still trying to write these histories, or to keep posing questions.