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    The Social Construction of Postcolonial Studies PDF

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    José Henrique

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    ‘The Social Construction of Postcolonial Studies eo9 Ina toc publi a few yrs goa book prea enited ‘esl Comarctn of What lan Hacking gave wet sone age | acute soa eontretionism dat as become wo readme a ple | psi of wd in th amie and socal wee the pst 0 e- | «aes or so,! Hacking, as ever the measured and charitable critic, is neither |) Sel anagonstic toward, nr simply dsm ofthis ow proninent sey of tengo. Rate, bg che expostory thinker he i be cise igi ino th ways in which oil onto la secablned o determin he cbse, nd to jet els ‘nd lens? OF cone Hacking hn his does sot thee clans, and de dubareinpred bythe pipe that ous apropiely xi hk nd thar ave nd ny epgap -Don' sk forthe meanng, sichit the point (This pl pag and Wie ‘ean vc prove eminent whatever ld of resign Aswe salle comport well wth ood del of what want octaer sacl hand mean low ot some ft pian in the course STi some dbs of own =o sat th contemporary oo sharia pontolonal suds. My pups re a fly ite nd rcamscribd nt maybe as scltstatethemas xpi ean eth ouer 05 0 ai Contino ‘nine My ener concer i ith he aero a rea ‘rae th cepatona fe, 0 spel ots purchase Th yews Citi saepy—which comprehend sag thr uc he Kn of Gerson ake ap and prc hee conned and engaged and the 86 Dani Sete stakes laimed—iea historical formation iaasmuch aie isalways send tnd stro work within a distinctive conceptual and ideological conjuncure for problem space cial strategy nother words, aways answers how ‘rer adequate this judged robe) a iscursively constituted demand, In my view therefor, ii always important fora ert to inguiee at any given onjunctores int the ways ia which acriial srategy conceives its demands, itsends, its yield, and its imitshow it conceves the operational ik, 0 to pati of its pectic action, In parca, however, | am interested in that moment in the ie of a seategy at which solidifies and hardens ino iscplined and cumulative esearch apparatus: this che moment at which, Inning arrived at a sore of platens of maturity, i begins ose from eit ism toward method, or in Thomas Kuhn's memorable idiom, from ar Tutonary paradigm toward anormal one? Tiss arguably very paradox cal moment in the carer of any critial strategy since the conditions of is normative insitonaiztion, eb conditions oft scholarly regularization tal canonization, constr, invariably, the conditions of is lose of ei cal force (Certainly this is my sense ofthe carer, such as thas been, of posto nial studies asa strategy Tor investigating the ace of colonial fess in or postcolonial rime. In what follows, my aim ist explore some aspects of this suspicion. {hope wil be appreciated, however, hat Ido ot aim make outa case fora fresh approach ro, of anew model of postcolonial Stas Its by ao means clear to me that shee is any suc case tobe mae, Bur it should be clearthat this isnot the same a saying that we ought 19 longer tongue erally ino the diverse ways in which che colonia pss ‘weighs onthe postcolonial present. Such a preoccupation gemain a mate, ‘of considerable, ad sometimes urgent, importance, In The Socal Construction of What? Hacking seems to be making at ast r90 sorts of angunents about social constructonisi. Both prove germane ro my {Concerns herewith posteslonial studies, cough one moe so han the chet, “Theis argument ie that in social conatractonist work, there ofen apps. to be some confision, ora least some ambiguity, regarding exactly wt is supposed tobe socially consrted. The til of is hook deaws is forse from this preoccupation. Is fequerty selea, Hacking args, whether ‘what thoughe to be socially constructed iste ation isl, othe classi Catory leas about te ation. lacking knows, ofcourse, chat every human ‘ction (insofar asi recognizable as an action a such) rakes place unde Some desrition. He writes: “All og acts are under description, athe fre that are open tous depend, ina purely formal way, on the descriptions silable ous (58). Bot this Hacking urges does not make the aeons and fhe description ndistinguishable fom eachother. Take, forexampl using nc of his tn illostracions) the ides that women refugees ae sectaly con ‘Mrsted, eis obvious, he sa that indvidval women who become refugees {Toso in consequence of sovial and politcal evens or conditions of one sort te another. ei rival o redundant (Hacking word is “oolsh”) ro make tha lc into a specfcaly theoretical point although it would not be v= Sor redundant to describe these conditions in their specific deta), What ‘Sle socially constructed, therefore isnot the individal peopl, the ‘Women eefagees, Bu rather the clascation women refugees. In short, he aps wht isn question f women refugees as kinds of persons; what isin {restian, in thet words, isthe classfiation itself andthe mate within sthch the clasficaion woeks™ (1. Te isnot ieelevant to note tha pare of Hacking’ interest in this snc tion derives fom his longstanding and ongoig preoccupation with the {abject forming for ubject-eransforming) propensiisof authoctarive ca ‘Rone wat he eal in more eecent work the “dynamic of casita ‘one Unie tings, people interact, more or less seconscionsh, with ‘Xho and this ineracion peoluces eet. Individual women casted _stomen refugees, lacking say sometimes fd tha this particular casi fo aers hei experiences of themselves: "A woman refugee may learn that she i a certain kind of pesoa and at acordingy- Quarks do not sare dhat they ave a certain kind of ent and actacordingy” 32). Hack tng devotes his remarkable book on paychopathologcal classification and ‘Semoco-polites.” Rewriting the Sou, to his there. People ate (partlly trlena ade up by the dominant categories that authorcacvey casi them as people ofa certain sore. Hacking famously calls this phenomenon {fe “loping effect of haman kinds,” oe now, more simply, the problem of Sinractive kinds" “The second argument | take Hacking tobe making focuses more on the coneptualthetorcal, ideological work thatthe metaphor af social con ‘Suction performs, “Social constretoa,” he say in she preface, “has in stny coment heen a truly berating ides, bu tae which on fs hearing fh likened some has made all t00 many others smug, comfortable, sod Trendy in aye tha have become merely orthodox. The phrase has become a rie you unit favorably you deem yourself eather radial Ifyou rah he She, yu decace that you te rational, reasonable and respetable (vi. Fh ide hee is hat thete was a omni is carer at which social con Sterionim produced a useful labor of etcsm, when it offered 2 valuable ie elo with exiting seratgis of ievesigacion, This i when i was 88 Davi Seat Hbratory. Bu this moment as passed or atleast is passing) —parl because socal consteutioniso has itself contsibuted to reorganizing the conditions ‘of ingiry in such away ao make ts distinctiveness moce the background tebe assumed than the foreground wo be gained the coarast effect as ie ‘vay platitudes. As Hacking says “The metaphor of social consrton ‘once hal excellent shock value, bu now it has become tied.” And ltr: “Aa all-encompassing constrsctionis approach has become rather dll both seass of thar word, boring an blane™ a1). Whereas socal costo ‘Sonim emerged in the Lae 19728 and 98s a sl conscous) ei strategy, it snot clear whether it continues to command the sae esl purchase or provide the same cic ite now ait did tes, Part of thew ‘alle inguistic ten (and dus the turn co meaning) in he amit at Socal sciences, social constroctionism sought to demonstrate he falsehood {nthe assumpeon thar human afar are naturally as we find them, ar ne: ‘sal describe in the weny they are. Far fom bing given, sich practises of description come into being at particular historical moments and under ertin socal and cultural circumstances, "The social constructionist n shor, is principally crite of ineviailn, skeptic an unmasker, an ant-essentiaist Hacking ha his doubes abou his radical pose. He delights in showing the Kantian rots ofthe constuction Jst metaphor. Ashe says, somewhat mischievous: “Alehough sil co seractonists ask in the sun they call postmodernism, they are really ry ‘old-fashioned 49) think thy atleast part of what Hacking is saying is ‘hat this strategy of rite iterpretation (especially wien the burden ofthe argument is made ro rest on its shoulders) only has purchase if you oppo rent thiaks otherwise than you do, if thai, he ose an eset in the appropriate sense) However i wear al ago onstruction no, if weal subscribe more ot esc the vew thar human ation always ake, place under description and that sich descriptions areas historia and therefoce as locate in seca, institutional, and material cecumssnces) 35, the actions hey describe, lie xtcal point may obtain in staging 4c seractonse confrontation Social consrtionism inshore, may well have lose te contrast effect chat nce gave i cial bit ‘This is the argumene thar especially imerests me, because it connects with Some ideas that Fhave been trying to develop recently about the peatice of ertism generally, bur postcolonial extciso moce special.” Fost, colonial studies (or discourse or cheory o eiticim or whateve) is, afer all,a subspecies of social and cultural consteucioism. I grew up ithe ‘ats inthe very heyday ofthe culture wars in which Hacking kates con Gomtrcon of PaselnlSatce 389 seractionism’s breeding ground. It drew its identity fom she (largely Fo ‘sulian) program of unmasking Eurocentric esentalsms at work in the "Wes representations of non-European ideas and behaviors Like Hack ing ton, wonder whether this verte in postcolonial social eonstrston ism has not now exhausted, spe, elf whether we have nt arrived at & sox of threshold of normalization at which io longer produces 3 set contrast et. have to quibles ith Hacking, however. They bear remarking thowgh neither, think, shou lad us to dismiss the argument he advances. The fess that Hlackin’s own erafickng inthe bordelands ofthe postcolonial ‘as proves les than inspiring Clearly this provides one instanceof te en ‘ealule that insight rarely travels well acros adjacent disciplines and scol- tty elds, ta his discussion ofthe so-called dehate between anthropologists Cananath Obeyesekere and Marshall akin onthe question of the dest of tne South Paci explore James Cook on Hawai'i 3779, be misses vietu- ally everything worth talking abou, eventhough almost everything worth ‘aking about tune precisely on the social consractinsm in which boch antlzopolgis participate. Hacking is quite right, ofcourse, dat the rsh of enthusiasm tha gathered around Obeyesekere's book, The Apotheosis of Capri Cook, and San’ epy to it, Hoa "Natives Think has tobe sit sted in relation to the culture wars ofthe 1980s and 1990s. But, oddly he does not at explore any ofthe complexity ofthat debate, especally sit pertains tothe humanities ad social sienees (The try of hat complexity Sarl the story ofthe so-called culural turn ofthe 19708 that sles tnd akes holdin the r98os and that cnstctes one dimension ofthe con- ‘ep cantext in which these culture wars ake place)” Instead, Hacking takes curious fue inthe uacharacteisticallyunnuanced view that “based ‘onthe evidence presented” “Sahline right about the so-called apotheosis of Caprain Cook" 213). “The second quibble the more important one for my immediate concer) isone derive frm RG. Collingwood and Quentin Skinner Tete smne- times stoag sense ia Hacking, I think (peshas a srong antelatvst sense), that socal consractionsm has avs been concepeully vacane (as esas, he has himself never heen a coastrcconist. For hime sometimes appears the fact that socal constructions no longer produces an interest- ing contrast eflac only underscores wha oughr all along to have beens ected, namely, that its understanding ofthe relation between concepts and ‘ston was rely misconceived fom the begining, Um not entirely per ‘aded by thine of argument. Iwhacis ar take foe Hacking is whether 30 ial consructionism is oris not conceptually confsed (or ust pain wrong), spe Dai Sout thenone as eo options onc ther agree with he setment and ie of soil onsrctioniam score ety res niyo ee ‘an dpe the acumen show where Hacking himself s mise Neither option apes o me however, Exadng both, Iwan purse he more hiner te of dcoson tha Hacking ese ay an ake mut Seri han I hink dos his wn recon tha scl consractn ie oct hady ba hs nro, cil be aT have already indeed, am interested in thisknd of sf ener problem nthe any pie oferta ab a spect paem m {belt postcolonial ecm, I we clam tha the pina ret ofr “ric the comprehen he present we nab a wou hen fauKing whether ont ei practices aren fact aden this pens Preicaent sno een, For soe ens aI have been win ht the Engh Hegelian piwpher RG. Colingwood ofan ise ‘ay of negeitng hs problem. Cling cous, best Koon fe tis docrine Fama aborted in The es Hy chat history sald be ones the enactment of past tought or past cxperence in he taf he iran Rt Cog slr mal» ic cil sratey of inesiation ose sccncly exes in A ‘pa esl sons se” deri thay, Calingwood writs“ bn by oberg ht you can i chan sy Sasori eer ‘ven thogh he hs spoken writen wth perfect command of tng fd perfect tf intention, Inorer of ot his meaning you mis inom wat the question wa (a quesion inhi own mind and presumed by im to be in your] to wich the ting he he sa writen was ment mane." Propo hry for pat of question ane compe thither toner oy oposite, Wseecsnay trea rat is con con orth aon wih prs ‘Not many people ave ken up a pursed his sie form ton ron floaty tinea serene ven Se ‘Working kes chrowgh Heel han through the ppc language phon: py of Jon Assn Jon. Sear and Ladwig Witgestn, Skinner ts very wily elaborated Collingwood quetan newer pipe ina spesch-act direction tn thinking about statement, Skinner nes, west ‘ermore concerned withthe dimension of ingutc ation hand si of ingie meaning. Word 5 Wingert ud ae avo Ge 2 at of tinguii ommunicaion, hereto an author tnt ony me ing someting in vireo he seat comt ofthe words employe, bt Gonatrnetion of Pstatoma Sates 390 tho doing something by virtue of “puting forward” the statement. And in Consequence ofthis, Skinner suggests, propositions should be thought of as linguistic mone in an ongoing argument; and to understand what the author is Jong them iis necessary to econstrict the ideological and conceptual next int which the have been inserted. Irs not hard see the connec fom berwcen this ad Hacking "Don ask fr the meaning, ask whats the Point” Both Skinner and Hacking ae focused on the impor of theoretical pei TThave waned topes this insight the dirssion ofa further implication, vhat think of as strategic one. | want to suggest tat ifthe predicament the presene makes up the target of our crise! practice as, again it ee tose st shouldbe, the entice noe only ro be concerned with determin Thu hither statements are consistent with the questions that can be shown Toner them but also with determining whether these undesying ques ‘Son cntinue to be questions worth having ansvers to inthe presen, OF to pr this another way, i a8 Skinner suggests, a proposition constites 2 tre in an ongoing argent, hen i pazt of the task ofthe erte of the rset eo gauge, ab any conjuncture, whet this move conrinaes # be & Fone worth making. Consequety, fmm his poi of view itis perhaps less tfatthe socal constractonist or ant-essentalise propositions are now them (Shes demonsrably false or incoherent here they once appeared plasble {Hocking poit, so far as Ta el) as hae che important or ineresting or ‘ral questions for or presen have change. “This, anyway, is something of what have been arguing about postcolonial critics the domand in the present has altered. Inthe 19805, when post- loa tues was becoming established as a going scholarly domain in ‘he North Acantc academy (wha I al the moment of posteoloniaism) its Spojee was to ext in the ermeneutical language ofthe days © deco et} colonial knowledge and it assumptions. Edward Sais Oriental [tyr ofcourse in many ways consid he inaugural move in this ener= pre Bur che purchase it had on strategies af eiicism was made possible ot only by the changing global politics ofthe third world (the decline of ‘onal Kberationism) but also By a cognitive shife the cultural en ex imped inthe work of three of Sais contemporaries, Clifford Geera’s Te interpretation of Caltares, Hayden Whites Metahistory (bth published inagz hand Richard Rots Phibsopy and the Mirror of Natare( published insoy8h, Postcolonial socal cansroctonism could claim crite! contrast ‘heer with an older paradigm of discourse abou colonialism (what I all he “Soment of anticolonialsn) insofar asi enabled the recognition of evel of “hywoblematzed assumptions governing it teleological and esenilis 25: oa Dawid Set sumpeions lange, egarding history, politics, subjecivin, gender, ras, a soon, As opposed to antcoonialian's escripcion af the problem ofc rials i terms of the demand for political decolonization, postolnih jem commended its redescription as an pisemologicl problem, ober about he polis of eepresentation, abo the relation between kowse and power ‘Ot this view, aniclonialism and postcolonial are not progressively successive theoretical strategies, one providing beter answers 0 questions ‘eldest by the other. Contrary tothe sntiessentaist dogs, posclo Balsn’s social consroctionsm is ot beter hoory than anticonilisns ssscaialism. Rather, 1 use Collingwood terms anticolonais and post Colonialism should e understood as occupying diferent question answer omplexes; ot 36 Skinner might put i, dey ate ertial moves located in ‘diferent arguments, interventions int diferent and iferently coasted Problem spaces. My concern, though, has been with whether the «ies tions that have animated postcoloiaism’s genealogical ei of coo ial knowledge continue to be questions worth having answers to. wonder ‘whether che histcical context of problems that prodced the poston effet aa critical fechas not now altsed soc that he yield ofthese ques ons sno loager what it was. Lwoade, a other words, whether psc rials has not los its point and become normalized as a strategy forthe tere accumulation of weaning. Tes long time now (exactly four decades, i fact since Thomas Kubs's popularization of the idea of a “paradigm® in The Structure of Sst Revoltions. Readers ofthat memorable book will member the bist illuscation thereof what happens when 4 "revolationary” paca be comes a “normal” one. Kuhin would not have put ie quite this way, bt, ‘sent, criticism becomes method. Wheres “aormal” scent change ‘occurs withthe cumulative stockpiling of scenic knowledge, reoluion fay change takes place by altering our conceptual lenses in such a way 3810 bring new objets neo view Once a scenic revolion occurs, Kohn ested there isa more or less api emengenceofaninteasing aay of val ‘methodological apparauses for uncovering deeper and broader meanings and devising more and more complex explanations regarding the new ob- ject now bought under investigation, weve, he maintained, this method: ‘logical expansion is accompanied by tad loss of focus on the cont tive poe ofthe exercise isl the distinctive relevance fits new gestions to the objects organized by the new clasificaory Rd. *This constitutes the moment of normalization, Conran of Poli Salis 95 Iemay be noticed shar Kuhn and Hacking (end indeed Collingwnd and Sinner have somthing important in common, namely, a distinctive way of conceiving ti Bel of theoretical investignton, They ae, all of dem, rele iy slf-conecous of what i at stake—whac objective i being engaged ~ inthe historical lormation ofthe objects of theoretical investigation. Nowe sf the in other words, take for graned the configuration of the concep. ral proba space af nguiry, think fas transparent, as mezly che back- {ground tothe investigation at and, bur rather as a consiuive par oft, ‘Naedo they se one problem space ss seamlessly conneced in continuously rogsesve series ta successive ones. Rates, they seal problem spaces a, Ascontinaous wich each other and characterized by some deysee of incom rmenrabiliy, All would ages, therefore, chat a certain amoune of recone traction is alvays necessary inorder make adjacent or successive theories ineligible one another, OF coure, theyll share this angle of peeoccupae thn with Michel Foucault, whose pactice of eres bs proven so impor tan foe postcolonial studs, Foucault's genealogies were precisely modes ‘of problemaizacion, But Foveul, coo, can be turned into the method of tomal social scence, as Hacking capares nicely this passage: “Foucault {Carved sunerous curs of phrase ito ice sculpts, wich had, for 2 mo nen, sharp contours, The he walked any from then, esoaciant, ad et then mick, for he no longer needed che. isles ifed readers put the half tne shapes back inthe freeze and, without thinking, reproace these fess chy sil glivened in che midnight sun and mean something” "Tomy and normalization has heen he fate of social consructioaism mer, and of one of principal branches, postcolonial sues, in pa tcl. The pret ruccess of social coastractonst postcolonial studies as exe of inguity isnot only tht i inciively and eelenlessly demonstrated ‘he essentials at work a olde prada that, for example of anticolo- als) but that in nsttionalizing this iasight, i consiuted anew Bld, olonial sts, ad made vast swahes of new eestor available for re= Search, And ofcourse, in the manner dsceibed by Kuhn, the growth and Sastenance ofthis new territory of knowledge depended on the continuous xpasion ofits constitutive relations of meaning. And as it moved from teing a strategy for levering open new conceptual space to being a inst- tutonalizable research paradigm, the ueston ofthe distinctive demand in the postcolonial present acdressed gave wa tothe muliplicaion ofan in ‘reasing number and variety of sts ofthe colonial past, ech making 2 Conteibotion to the cumulative building up, stockpiling, and stabilization of ! nocnal paradigm. The pont, in sort, gave way tothe meanings eis re way 40 method. 194 David Sete Asan illasteation of what 1am gening at here—the transformation of postcolonial ste from ciiism ico method let me take as an instance 2 line of argument forthe revision and expansion of research on oli Jam associated most prominently (in the Unite Seates a last) with che an thropologist Ann Stole and che historian Frederick Cooper. Bodh dissin {guished scholars inthe respective fel, they have heen crscal of what they describe as the"Manichaean conception” of colonialism that chaste izes “colonial sic.” In tis Manichacan conception, Stler and Cooper ‘argue, Europe and its colonies the colonizer and the colonize, ace taken bedlscreeentises occupying separate eames of reference. Par of what dis tars them is that inthis concepion ofthe problem of colonials, Europe tends to be exclided asa legitimate objec of evscal analysis inainch a the only Hine of determinable colonial fects rns in one dizecton, that from metrapole to colo. In thei ie, we should have one ll-embracing algal frame of reference namely, “empite,” understood as “shared ha Aifereniated” space inclusive of both metropole and colony; fora they sy, “Europe was made by its imperial projects, 38 much 35 colonial encounter, were shaped by confit within Europe il” (Berween Metropole sad Colony. “The Manichaean conception, Soler and Cooper arg isin the fst pase mistaken. The colonial word quit simply was ot made up of discrete x ties or one-way effets. As they a4, colonial regimes “were neither mono Thi noc omnipotent closer and more discersng attention roth sri and ethnographic fet “reveals competing agendas for using power, com Peting strategies oe maintaining contol and doves about the iia of he venue” (6): In support ofthis view of the hererogeneicy and instablty ‘ofthe empire, Stoler and Cooper offer sochiatraions 36 ee flowing: “Paul Giltoy has shove fit The Blak Alani] that various expressions of popular cltre as well as iterary and philosophical prodvetons caning ‘out ofthe Afian diaspora in Avia, dhe Americas, and Europeice ' complex engagement with “Wester” culture entling more cha either i repition or an attempt to bud an ‘auceavicaleratve™(8- Or agi “Sidney Minz [in Sweetness and Powe] has argued. thatthe demand in [rope for spar prodced in the colonies was crucial o European working

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