I read this article today in preparation for the RSA Summer Institute that I mentioned previously. Here, I'm going to write down some notes, comments, and questions I had about the article.
Escobar's article summarizes the general features of the "Modernity/Coloniality" (MC) research program that has its roots in Latin American thought about the origins of modernity and the possibility of thinking outside of a Eurocentric perspective on modernity, which tends to view its own version of modernity in universalist terms and tends to ignore the role of colonialism in the development of European modernity. The MC project argues for viewing modernity as being rooted in colonialism and calls for (among other things) the recognition of "the domination of others outside of the European core as a necessary dimension of modernity, with the concomitant subalternization of the knowledge and cultures of these other groups" (184).
Another important element of the MC program is the concept of "exteriority" (Dussel) and "border thinking" (Mignolo). The former, emphasizes Escobar, is not meant to be "thought about as a pure outside, untouched by the modern. The notion of exteriority does not entail an ontological outside; it refers to an outside that is precisely constituted as difference by a hegemonic discourse" (186). (This reminded me of Mary Louise Pratt's conception of autoethnographic writing, which is a kind of description or depiction of oneself that engages with what she calls "metropolitan" representations of the [nonhegemonic] self.)
"Border thinking" requires one to change not "the contents but the very terms of conversation" (187). [To give a possibly relevant example from a letter I read during my dissertation research: In the early days of Tunghai University, students--I believe history majors--had written to John King Fairbank, the famous American scholar of Chinese history, to get his support for the development of a graduate program in Chinese history at Tunghai. Fairbank wrote back with what I thought at the time was a wise answer: he suggested that rather than focus graduate studies on Chinese history, it would be more valuable to insert Chinese perspectives into the various courses and disciplines taught at Tunghai, so that, for instance, courses in science would include Chinese scientific thought. As I say, at the time I thought this would be difficult to do, but that it would be an important development to show Chinese contributions to the disciplines. But the idea of border thinking has me wondering if it isn't more important to "change the terms of conversation"--in other words, address Chinese thought from its own perspective rather than trying to shove it into Western-made silos. This is true of rhetoric as well, as has been discussed at length by a lot of scholars of comparative rhetoric (this will probably come up in future posts as I read more from some of those scholars). Reading over this, I'm not sure it's an entirely relevant example; maybe if we look at it from a wider perspective in thinking about the relations between Fairbank and the students at Tunghai, as well as their motivations for what they wanted... I think I need to find copies of that letter again. (I can't remember if I copied them or not...)]
Escobar writes, though, that this border thinking "is not a question of replacing existing epistemologies either; these will certainly continue to exist and as such will remain viable as spaces of, and for, critique" (187). In addition to western internal critiques of modernity, he says that Mignolo calls for "critique(s) arising from colonial difference" to be included in the conversation, giving rise to "'pluritopic hermeneutics' ... , a possibility of thinking from different spaces which finally breaks away from eurocentrism as sole epistemological perspective" (187-88).
Escobar also says that the MC project stresses the idea that cultural difference should not be just viewed from a relativistic perspective (as is sometimes done in studies of intercultural communication), but should emphasize "the power dimension" (189). [This brought me back to thinking about Pratt and the idea that cultural differences could be seen as differences produced by colonialism. That is, communicating between cultures has not been primarily a conversation among equals, but has been a "conversation" (?) between groups in "highly asymmetrical relations of power" (to borrow Pratt's language).]
Skipping ahead, I'll mention that Escobar had three areas that he thought the MC project should take up in their work--important perspectives that were missing from their approach. The first was gender. He argues that feminist theory, especially as it has become more attuned to and inclusive of global perspectives, should be engaged with for not only its discussion of women's rights but also for its "concerns with subjectivity and identity" (195). Here he points particularly to queer theory and its "de-essentialization of identity[, which] means taking all identities seriously" (195).
The second perspective is ecological--he argues that the "split [between nature and culture] might be equally formative of modernity than the civilized/other (us/them) binary" (197). "By privileging subaltern knowledges of the natural," he argues, the Latin American political ecology "articulates in unique ways the questions of diversity, difference, and inter-culturality--with nature, of course, occupying a role as actor and agent" (198).
Finally, he argues for the need for "new economic imaginaries" (198). Here he also brings in gender and ecology to argue that along with them, "economic difference and alternative economic imaginaries should also have a place-based dimension" (198-99). He sees a "certain convergence here between the projects of feminism, ecology, and alternative economies and this convergence is articulated around the politics of place" (199).
One final point that is important to my own project: he (and those others working on the MC project) view this research project as not just being about Latin America (as the object of study in a traditional area studies sense). "In short," Escobar writes, "the MC research program is a framework constructed from the Latin American periphery of the modern colonial world system; it helps explain the dynamics of eurocentrism in the making of modernity and attempts to transcend it" (189). This means that while it's a Latin American perspective, it is potentially relevant to other regions, particularly those colonial or postcolonial places that have experienced Eurocentric domination. Some of my thoughts here are how it might be applied to Taiwan, which was multiply colonized by the Dutch and the Spanish, Han settler colonialism, the Qing, the Japanese, and the Chinese Nationalists over the years. What varieties of modernity came from these encounters, and what kinds of border thinking might be done here? (And how/what might this tell us about rhetorical practices in Taiwan?)
[Update, 5/9: I wanted to add a couple of terms that I think will come up later on in the readings: pluriversality, which comes from Mignolo but doesn't seem to be defined in Escobar, but seems connected to the "pluritopic hermeneutics" mentioned above; and mundialización, which seems to emphasize diversity more than "globalization" does--as Escobar puts it, "mundialización brings to the fore the manifold local histories that, in questioning global designs (e.g., neo-liberal globalization), aim at forms of globality that arise out of ‘cultures of transience’ that go against the cultural homogeneity fostered by such designs" (188-89).]
No comments:
Post a Comment