Postcolonial Theories: Nation, Migration and Globalization

1. Postcolonial Theories: Nation, Migration and Globalization Fall, 2009

2. Outline • Why nation? Why postcolonialism? • Nationalism and Postcolonial Studies • main argument • summary • Example: The City of Sadness • Course Requirements (please see the syllabus, or course site)

3. Why nation? Why postcolonialism? • Why are you interested in the concept of nation and its related issues? When is “nation” dispensable? And when indispensable? • What constitutes a nation? • Why are you interested in postcolonialism? What postcolonial issues are you interested in?

4. Why nation? • Nation is indispensable at times of dangers and national conflicts, or when a nation’s or an individual’s national identity gets challenged. • Nation is challenged by -- corrupt government, wars and international politics (nation without state, state without nation); -- flows migrants (dual or flexible citizenship), and -- flows of globalization and multinational capitalism.

5. Why nation & postcolonialism?Related Issues • 什麼是殖民？(‘The West,’ ‘The Orient,’ 種族主義，內部殖民internal colonialism) Does it work against the formation of nation-state, or cause it? • 後殖民主義是解殖民後的歷史階段（美國是不是後殖民國家）？還是一種抗拒殖民的態度與行動？解殖民可能嗎？ • Margins vs. Centers (The empire writes back); 殖民者vs. 被殖民者；The Subaltern, 離散族群, 第三世界知識份子； 抗拒／解殖民策略。 The other issues • 後殖民理論 vs. 後殖民文學；後殖民文學vs. 典律 • 後殖民主義、後殖民性(postcoloniality)：後殖民主義與後殖民狀況和殖民/新殖民／資本主義之間的關係何在？

6. Postcolonialism: Critical concepts in literary and cultural studies Vol. I -- [Definitions and Histories] 1 Framing the field 2. Marxist liberation and resistance theories 3. Manifestos Vol. II  -- [Nation and Colonialism]4. National, third world and Postcolonial identities 5. Colonial discourse analysis Vol. III. – [Orientalism and Race] 6. Orientalisms 7. Thinking/Working through race 

7. Postcolonialism: Critical concepts in literary and cultural studies Vol IV. [Resistant Movements] 8. Feminism and gender analysis 9. Internal colonialisms and subaltern studies 10. Challenging Eurocentrism Vol V. [Globalization and Institutionalization] 11. Globalization, transculturation and neo-colonialism 12. Postcolonial theory and the disciplines 

8. Nationalism and Postcolonial Studies [by Laura Chrisman] Main Argument: Postcolonial theorists tend to be negative about nation with some generalizations about its nature (derivative, paradoxical, dominant), its emphasis (nativism), its formation (mere narrative construction) and consequences (a failed project). Future postcolonial studies of nation should be more context-specific, while the critics should try to avoid the pitfalls of essentialism and false representation they see in some nationalist projects.

9. Postcolonial Nation: Major Issues • Its relations with colonialism (whether it borrows the same structure of domination) • The logic of its formation: national race, exclusion. • Its constituent elements: • Materialist: boundaries, legal-economic structures, • Cultural: history, symbols, narrative, nativism • Its past and future (in relation to globalization)

10. Nationalism as a Derivative Discourse • (184)“The concept and political practice of the nation-state are …seen as ‘Western’ inventions that colonialism has imposed on colonized peoples. By adopting the nation-state as the object and medium of social liberation, anticolonial nationalism dooms itself to conceptual self-contradiction. • Not necessarily derivative; • Enlightenment discourse can be “revolutionary, conservative, and liberal” (185).

11. Nationalism as a Cultural/Temporal Paradox • (186) “Nationalism is …the paradoxical expression of a historical and cultural rupture that must assert itself as a historical continuity.” (e.g. Indian bourgeois nationalism – with an “inner” space of traditional cultural and spiritual essence …and an “outer” space of “Western” progress; national history vs. national signs) •  a range of perspectives with self-determination as their ultimate objective.

12. Nationalism as a Dominatory Function • E.g. neocolonialism (of the neocolonial elites), racism • Nationlist ideology – not always dominatory, it can “generate a class-conscious critical analysis of nationalist elites) • Two related issues: (1) the transformatibility of subjects thru’ political action; (against différance) (2)the positive value of ‘unification’ (necessary for political actions; not to deny difference)

13. Nationalism as a Dominatory Function (2) • Nation and gender –(p. 190) women’s roles in national movements: -- As biological reproducer, -- as reproducer of boundaries of ethnic/national groups; -- as participating in the ideological reproduction of the collectivity and as transmitters of its culture; -- as signifiers of ethnic/national difference -- as participants in national, economic, political and military struggles. Nationalism and feminism –not always antagonistic; nationalist not always patriarchal

14. Nationalism as a Nativist Projection • E.g. For Gilroy, “black nationalism expresses and exposes the essentialist, violent basis of all nationalisms.” (192) •  nativism of Aime Cesaire: marked with strategic provisionality and mutability. •  nativism can be progressive or reactionary.

15. Nationalism and Narrative • From B. Anderson  Homi Bhabha “For Anderson, the practice of nationalism and of narratives are benign; his emphasis falls upon the inclusive community that is imagined thru’ the narrative form of a novel, the synchronized daily reading of a newspaper, and the idea of nationalism itself. However, postcolonial studies have demonstrated much more skepticism towards narrative forms.” (193)

16. Nationalism and Narrative (2) • From B. Anderson HomiBhabha • Narrative seeks to banish “difference,” following the same narrative laws and “logics” of domination, identity, exclusion and instrumentality. • E.g. Bhabha’s views of boundaries – totalizing vs. Anderson’s – both open and closed

17. Nationalism as a Failed Historical Project • The failure of decolonization • e.g. (1) Alexander’s class- and gender- specific critique of Trinidad and Tobago: 1) Globalization has caused a crisis in state authority for these independent states, and ‘has destabilized the ideological moorings of nationalism.” (195)  state criminalization of same-sex sexualities as a means to reconstitute weakened political authority.

18. The failure of decolonization • (2) its narrowness  Nationalism and global humanism (or internationalism) are inter-linked.

19. Conclusion • (p. 196) Instead of abandoning the nation and its discourses to those who dominate and exploit them, postcolonial critics might provide alternative national visions of collective identity, culture and power. • Main argument

20. Examplefor Analysis: The City of Sadness

21. The City of Sadness: Ending

22. The City of Sadness • Related Issues: • Politics and informal economy: How a gangster family gets destroyed in and around 228 incident (the interconnectedness of politics and illegal trade) • Nation, gender and survival: How the marginalized (a mute and a woman) get involved in the political incident; how both manage to record the event.

23. Signs of Nation in The City of Sadness • National flags; 流亡三部曲 –chap 4 • the Other – the Japanese – chap 5 • Internal (or linguistic) boundaries –chap 8 • State apparatus &languages– the hospital and the radio chap 9-10 • Chap 11 幌馬車之歌