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.