Commonwealth studies (reflecting on empire) + Social sciences (Marxism) + Derrida (French)

Orientalism: inaugurated postcolonial studies

1980s: Spivak, Bhabha: finding Derrida's colonial context
1990s: Asad in religion, xyz in anthropology
2000s: Fitzgerald in religion, Kuper in anthropology
Real problem: how will these discussions influence legal policy?

Aspects of Bhabha
Views Conrad as fellow-observer, equally flawed: not object of criticism
Writing has no objective or conclusion. Repetitive, like Derrida
Not postcolonialist in opposition to anything particularly, so applicable to different political views
Not assuming the preexistence of colonizer and colonized, but explaining consequences of that duality
But possibly limited to colonial discussions? Portability: Mostly British

Colonialism
Constantly being proclaimed
Anti-Enlightenment, because egalitarianism cannot be achieved (Signs 153)
Says to the native: achieve this, but it's impossible to actually achieve it. Thus, mimicry
Mimicry is disavowed—therefore, colonialist discourse must deny itself, and be blind to its effects

Mimicry
Accidental “Civil disobedience within the discipline of civility” (Signs 162)
Unable to achieve citizenship/humanity, but constantly attempting
Not necessarily a conscious action: just a new invention, a form of hybridity; a misreading
“The sign of the inappropriate”: both in the sense of undesirable and of impossible to achieve a
complete appropriation of the colonists (Of Mimicry 126)
Expected colonial behavior: adopting the colonial narrative, the native can only achieve a strong
mimicry, not completeness
The undoing of colonial power contained within it?

Hybridity
(Includes mimicry, the less conscious creation, but always a mixture of accident+agency. Agency is not
a big issue for Bhabha; he probably thinks we put too much emphasis on it. Good to ask him)
Resistance: recognition of the colonialist discourse and creation of a new discourse in response
Confuses the colonial discourse (Signs 154): creates anxiety about colonists' self-identity
Is hybridity the result of disavowing colonialism, or of avowing it? (Signs 157)
Is the fetish—looking to a pre-colonial meaning—separate from hybridity or part of it?
15/157: hybrid vs. fetish