Spivak

Spivak seems to be simultaneously engaged in a number of interdependent historiographical questions, and in doing so is building upon, critiquing and responding to a number of scholars. One of her primary concerns seems to be with the question of ideology - she calls attention to the complete negation of the question of ideology by the Foucault and Deleuze. I am not sure, but it seems as though she is arguing that ideology is an essential component in bridging the gap between theory and practice - that without taking into account the importance of ideology, the politics of theoretical production and its materialization in practice cannot really be properly conceived. Indeed, as she discusses, that the production of theory is itself a particular practice. In making this argument, the investigator and his positionality becomes immediately important and indeed complicit in reproducing subalternity. Closely related to this question seems to be that of representation – as both to speak for in the political sense, and to re-present in the philosophical sense. Again Spivak calls attention to the way in which both are interdependent, and feed into one another, and yet should not be completely conflated. I assume that, as was discussed in the previous classes, that Spivak may be arguing that our historiographical divides/demarcations create similar divides in history. The issue of epistemic violence is therefore crucial for her analysis. 

I think that related to these questions are those regarding the notion of a signifier, as we discussed in the previous class. Spivak is critiquing both Foucalt and Deleuze for ignoring the importance of signifiers. Indeed, he mentions that these scholars argue that "A theory is like a box of tools. Nothing to do with the signifier" (FD, 208). I found it interesting how Spivak discusses the way in which women, events, categories becomes signifiers for certain ideals, such as a good society, and in doing so, create new possibilities for the colonial government – what an event/object means is therefore crucial, and when its dominant signification alters, it is named differently – as a crime. The politics of naming therefore also lies at the heart of these problems.  She clearly mentions “what interests me is that the protection of woman (today the "third-world woman") becomes a signifier for the establishment of a good society which must, at such inaugurative moments, transgress mere legality, or equity of legal policy. In this particular case, the process also allowed the redefinition as a crime of what had been tolerated, known, or adulated as ritual.”