.·. (

. : .;~

, ~ . ,

'~.t; ELEPHANTS IN .THE. AMERICAS? .. ATIN AMERICAN POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES A.~p 1

L..O~~L D~COLON.IZATIO.... ,

G iven the c. _uriously. rapid rise w pro~inence ~f · · postcolonial studies as an academ.lc .field m

Western metropolitan centers since the late ;r9$osi it i~ to be expected that its further de~elopment would in~ volv:e efforts, like this one, to take stock of itS regional

expressions. Yet, while the rubric "La.tin American

postcolonial studies" suggests the existence of a re­gional body of knowledge under that name, in reality it

points to a problem: there is no corpus of work on Latin America commonly recognized as "po.stcolonial." This

problem is magnified by the multiple and 9ften diverg­

ing meanings attributed to the signifier postcolonial, by . me hete~ggeneiry of nations. and peoples encompassed

by,the pr~blematical term Larin America, by the thought-~ ,.1 .. :,;.,~ . . ful critiques that have questioned the relevance of post-

colonial studies for Latin America, and by the diversity and richn~~~ of reflection~· on Latin America's coloniaJ

and postcolonial hfatory, many of which, like most na-

ELEl'h ANTS IN .. THE AMERI CAS? 397

tlo?s ih thi~ rc~f?.~ long. pred~te ~-e field of po~tcolonial studies as ;t

was developed in the r98os. How, then, to identify and examine a body of

\fOrk that in reaJity does not appear· to exist? How to define it without

arbittarily inventing or confo1ing'it? How to treat it as "po~tcolonial" with·

~tit framing it in terms of the existingpos tcolonial ca.non and thus inevitably coldilizing it? · . . · · ·

·Tliese challenging questions do not yield easy answers, Yet they call atten­

tio~· to the character of postcolonial studies as one among a diverse set .or

regional reflections on the fotms and legacies of colonialism or rather

CQfoniaJiSJ'!IS. fn. Jig9t Of the worldwide diversity of critical tlloug~t Oil colo~ . niallsrn and its ongoing aftermath, the absence of a corpus ofLadn Ameri­

can postcolonial srudies is a problem not of studies on Latin America, but

between postcoloni;il and.Latin American studies. I thus approach this disc"us­sioii of Latin American ·postcolonial studies-or, as I prefer ~o see jt, ~[ postcolonial studies in the Americas-by reflecting on the relationsh)p J?e

7.:

tween these two bodies ofknowledge. · . · · . · _;1 ,>.>

While its indisputable achievements bave turned postcolonial studi~ into an "indispensable point of reference in discussions about old and new colo- .

nialisms, this field can be seen as a general standard or canon only if o~e . · '

forgets that it is a regional corpus of knowledge whose global inffoeni:e ~· cannot be separated from its grounding in powerful metropolitan univer-

sities; difference, not defer.ence, onentS this discussion. Rather than sub·

ordinating Latin American studies to postcolonial studies and selecting textS ·.

and authors that may meet its standards and qualify as postcolonial, I seel( to

establish a dialogue between them on the basis of their shared concerns and dfsunctive contributions. This dialogue, as ....1th :i11y genuine exchange even

among unequal partners, should setve not just to add participantS to the

postcolonial discussion but also to clarify its assumptions and transform its tenns.

. "My discus.sion is divided into four sections: the formation of the field of

iiostciJlonia:J studie; ; the place of'iatiil America in postcoloni.aJ studies·

responses to postcolonial studies from Latin Americanists; and open-ended

suggestions for deep~ning the dialo~e between postcoloniaJ and Latin

American studies . .liy'(ocusing on exchanges between these fields, I have

traded t:lfo ~ption o(olte~ing close readings of selected texts and problems foi''t:l.if optibri' 8ferigagfiig te.hs that have addressed the postcolonial debate

ln terniS. ·bf. how they 'shape or define the fields of postcolonial and La.tin American studies.

f·''.'

... . :;-

PO~TCOLONIAL; S~Ubi:ES: ~ .. ,.:· .s~ · · ·~·~ .... .. '· ·: .... , .... :- .~~~~·~· .~~~~· ~ ·; :. r/·~ ~~~.· .{~ ~ ·:~;;." · .. -x~.~· .

. P ·· tica~~f c;z5iqus cm !lJOd ..• . . st and ca tonization ofili ottcoloniat-

. · t~m a,s a term and. as a concep~al. catego~ originate~ in~Q,i~p,u~sio~s '?b,out ··. . · tti~ de1=otqnization of Aftican and A~ian cqlonies aftet.'Wotl4f W4r n.. Atlhat . · · time'; po.rtcplo~ialwas useQ. mostly as av adjectiye by.so · . · ' d.~{>!itical ·

' · · iracte;ii~ . chang~~ : (ii. the. s:tate's: ari:d·' l ifotmei: ~t ·hi~dw6r1a ... ; ~ate.gory that ~ai'a1 ea at that time. • • • -, :'·· , . • •; • • • •.N <, • ,J. >

o.cus. was al(e<!-dy pre11ent in the French'· sociologist George j~~~fysis o{"the ~oloniai ~ituation" (i:9sif~:~ell as . in later

abo~~ the ''colonial~; anp "po~tcoloniaJ state". {Afavi 1972; Chandra ; tl~~ "c~ionial mode of production" (Alavi 1972), qrtlie:"artkitlation of

· rµodes ·of production" (Wolpe 198(); I!erroom·kl~~. Lo. · ' 99i). Althou.gh . · ~Lari~ Am.erica Wa.$ conside~~~J,~;~,Q.(" <:.~:''"" ·· i,ise m.o~t QOt~ .··

·; : .': '·''- ,,,, · . :.,r)~ ' C.' .. ""' •• _, , "' .:· ,_ : .' - :.;_',,

.... n.ations hadac!.ii~ · · ~quarter of th~· . ·. '· v "·'ee~t'i{ce~· ?:' . . the~e discussion~

out deco1Qhiiatio,p' tbat ly independent nations of

~i~a .aid Asi~: ~~),; ;li·r·t ~ :~s a lab.eJ.fc;ir "old.'! ,P · . on1 nationa.l development for a long tin}e, the l<ey word in Latin American social . thought during thj~ per~od wr.s. not colonialism. or postcolonialism, but de11.en~. ,, dency. This term .ideritlfred:, a foniiHTu.bl~ :body of work~developed by leftist t ·· scholars ,in the ~g6os, .designed w ~nde~tand Latin Arneric~'s distinct.hi~~ · · toricai p-ajeqocy· an.d to counter mbeicmization theocy. Ridiif.g atop the wave .. Rf~ , . ; ,, . ~ ,tji~~fbUo:-v~d ~9r!d W~iJI, ~od, . , t~~q#;~£~c·:;

m as an alternative t.0 socjalism and con the achieve-ment ,of' modc~iry co overcoming obstacles inhe~i!fg e~O:ili'.>rnies, · · ' £,~~ : an<;! subjective motivations ?f the peb~l~~of'i: . e "tt~dirlonal!' so­

~of the Third WorJd,, Yf:.w. R.os~ow's Th( Stanen:if ilcononiic Growth . 96oi, revealingly subtitled "A Non~Com~unist Manit~sto,'' was a particu-" .·· Iarly clear example of modernizatioi1 theory's uniline:ir historicism, ideo-logical investment in capitalism, and teleological view of progress.

In sharp contrast, dependency theorists argued that development ancj underdevelopmenr are tlie 'muru.allr. ~ependent outcomes of capitalist as- ' cumulation on a world scale, fu theit view, sln~e underdevelopment ls tl;e ,,.

product of development, the periphery cannot be modernized by unregu­lated capitalism but through an alteratiqn of its polarizing dynamics (see, Qll. ;, .

this iSsu~, Grosfoguelin this.volU¢efThls basic insight about the mutual · · constitution ofcenters and pepphedes was rooted in the Argentinian econo-

economy an.9. S.O<:;ie~. l!Ve~ to C':>ffi,~ OUt of!,;i,t.in J\m

. •.. .1hl:13ssigh~ , , , .· , ;<i1'.nn, t1oa· ·un',~s~Amuctt1r •• '1;ha;,_ .. re' .. " .. prique Cardo~c{': '

:Jci~ujano,Theoi:onio:O ':' Ma~ro Marini; £~4 .·. m ependency" theoriStSj as Car oso l977J n~ted, their wo~k

was "consumed" in the United States .as '~dep~ndeilc.y theory" assciciatei:I · ·• · . with the work of Andre Gunder Frank, •· •· .· . . . · ·. : ··· ·

The worldwide influence of dependency ·aecli11ed after the 1970s~ :Oe. •· pei1dency. theOi:y was criticized for)~ 0Q~~dimti!1sional stn.itt\Jra)jsfu':aj:if{.

• f',4i. ;;' 7 -, >1; ~-- ;~, . . • . . M M • • • : • • , • ; •' : • •

· · l:(ced by the postmodern e . tual, fragmentary; ' · .~1'\t.;, J ~ " . . ,r••·-·-- · ,• ~~,,.{, .. ,~ .,,,, . · -<' .. ··.:

minate; its EurocentriC foe centered develcipment an td ofracfal andetl1 11ic;givfs;i~$iffi' Latin Ainerican nations his been 'a ·

cus of a recent critique (GrosfogueI 2000). Despite its shortcomings, in · my view the dependency sch.Qol .r~presents one · of Latin A,piep~·~ rpqs~ significant contributions. to postcotonfal thought ~vithJn this;i)·ei'i~d(a_ugw- · ing the postcolonial critique ofhistoricism and providing coriceptilal tools for a much-needed postcoio11ial critique of co1u~mponiry {1i;iped~11rn:, As a fundanientaJ qjtlque cifE~~q~eqtfic conceptions ofhisto'rY,;l:rr&oiP.~plblist development,> ~ . · fll!l~t)'. updennined Nsto~JG~t(~~tf~tlVes of the "traditi'tlh,iii, », a'1<l.1'modem, ",making ,it ~e,c~~$an/fo examine postco Htan~ations ,in '~e1~tiJ:#i:,r,~~ ;.;~plj ,~ther through .. . pecific situations bf ~~~~hae'ricy. < •

n tlrreedecades after World War II, i:he second usage of the term postcolonial developed in the AngJQpfiqne wotlcl in connection. wfth. .· critic;a1 studies of colonialism and colonial literature under the i.nflueuce of postmodern perspectives. This chaQ.ge toqk place during a historical juncture formed by four intertwined worldwide processes: the increasingly evident shortc~mings ofThird World national-aevelopment prQjec:~s; ·i:he;'

·breakdown of ~eaily e~isdng socialjsm; the ascendance of copserv~tive po ff~ .· des in Britain ciha~clierismJ arid the O.nlted States fReagartism); :irid ~he ~ve1whelmii1g a~pearkde;;qfneolil;ieral capitalism as the only visibie, or at .

' i~i~t se~nlingly ~iabl~.' historical horizon. During this period, postcolonial 'studies acquired a distinctive ideatity as an academic field, marked. by the unusual in:drdiige' bei:W€eii' th~ metropolitan location of its praductfon and the antl-impedat 's'tai:icb of its authors, many of whom were linked to the

Third World by personal ties and political choice. In this second phase, while historical work has center.ed on British cola·

:(

400 fERl~J'.NOO CORONll

. ·. ~ ~ . . nialism, literary crith:ism bas fd~used on.Anglophone ce.'lts,mcludmg those from Australia and the Bnglisb...speat<lng Caribbean. Tbe use of postmodern

. a~d poststructurlilist petspe~ti~e . · Tn .th~se works became so. in'timately asso-. ..· <:: ; <:<:: "~ ~ • • ' • • ' l .

dai:ed with po,sccoloniall's . . .'the post of postcolonial1sm has become :.· "''°~" "', ,., ' , · · ~~''t'i;m;~.r<-· ·. • . . • ·~ · Identified wjth the 'post cif postID.odemrsm and poststruct\lralism. For m-.

. stati~e; :a maj~r postcofoni~l reader aigues that "postcolonial studies is a decidedly new field ~f scholarship arising in Western uruversities . as the application of pb'st-modern thought to the long history of colonising prac-tices" (Henry Schwarz 2000, 6) .

. ·-~~ · In my view, equally central to postcoJonialism has been the critical· ap~ '~";:;:;"' plfoation of Marxism ro a broad speci:n:im of practices of social and c~ltuQJ · -~. ·• --domination not reducible to the category of "class." While .marked by idio-

·': ,;" 1;;;.~;::·~yfctt~c tpces, its identify~rtg signarure has ~~e? the c:°l1~e,t~~c~~Qf.N1;e.s~ . · · ~~) A'lli~orettcal currents-Maoost and postmodernlpoststt aj1s~"':}tt~ stud,: ::.

i:h;it address the complicity betw'~en,tknowleage ~ii . ' ~- W,~.. . . a•s integration of Gtamscian anci .Poucaul\:lian perspectiv~s' Ji1 th~

~~''.' 'tireak!ng critique of0riental1sni (19§4a .[1978)) has been widely re~ogoized as '\ ·~~? f'Oundational for· the field. A similar te'nsion between .Marxism and post­

- - structuralism animates the evolving work of the South Asia.n group of his to· rians associated with subaltern srudies, the strongest historiographical cur­rent of postco!onia.l sruclies.

Postcolonial critique now encompasses problems as diff:erent'as the for­mation of minorities in the United States or African philosophy. But while it has expanded to new ate~§, k)l~~ ~ti~a.red from analyiing theh: relations within .a unin·~a fi~1d; lhe[fin~trt~nrfuiistudy of pa(ts has taken precedence

· ~\ier the 'Sys iefurC'krl'~Jysi'.~ bfwii.Sleims critique of the grand narratives of lrib.<lel:oify b~; tea tb skeptlel~fu. toward any grand narrative, not always

•.~ •. ~fscn'Irt:i~.atlng between .EuroceutrJc claims to universality and the necessary ". ilruversaiism arising from struggles against worldwide capitalist domina·

tion (Amin 1989; Lazarus 1999).

As the offspring of a tense marriage between anti-Jmp~ critique and metropolitan privilege, postcolonial studies is permeated by tensions that also affect its reception, provoking sharply different evaluations of its signif. icance and political implicatibns: While some analysts seci)t as an academic commodity that serves the interests of gl6bal capital .ah4 b¢~efits its privi­leged practitioners (Di~liln(j94), othefs 're·gard it as a p,~;gigrnatic inteliec· rual shift that redefines the relaticin$hip bet'Ween· k~'owledge .and emancipa· tory politics (Robert Young 2001). This debate helps identifywhat in my view is the central intellecrual challenge postcolonial studies has raised: to de-

(

•,, "~. '_: • x~lEl'pAiHS 1N Tt<E liMEll!C,\S! -~ ~~;; .

~, _ ... ·~Ji-:_~~ ,_ . ~-r~ ~ ~ • e, 6 11 the one band, to view colo-· ·

rmation of the modern world

all-eocomp,asslrtg p.ro~~~s ~cl it$' Euroaeptti~ fornis .~¥~ Ji\ ',, ' '-~ · _, "'-'~<" .,1

&oin'1'll- prl\llli~e~ ~pfstemo:f.t ·.

epistemological sign to evoke the problem of producing knowledge of his­

tory and society in the context of imperial relations.

. POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES AND LATIN. AMERICAN STUDIES

Given this genealogy, jt is remarkable but understandable that debates artd ·.

texts on or from Latin America do n9t .~qre significantly in the fid,Cl ~f postcolonial studies as it has been defiµed s!nce the 1980s. As Pete~ H.i1ln\e. (1996) has noted, Said's canonical CiJ~n and Imperialism (1993) is emQle~,.i~ atic of this tendency: it centers on .British an.d;frencb im(le.rialism !tom the Iate_.nm_eteeoth century to the presept; i~. geographical focus is limited roan

area .sne~chj~g qom Algeria ~~ I!:~~~~;in.~ rgle, of the United States is

reso;i.t,~~d~?; ~qeno,s~-:Wodd w~.~ ~~t;J~~~;d~sregarding this nation's origin . : as ,~,,!$Ql~P,l~:Jl,eWe.!?eflli 9f,~nta.Jq. Spa.II!, and Prance, the processes of -internal colonialism through. which Native Americans were subjected within its territory, and its imperial designs in the Americas and elsewhere from the nineteenth century to the present

The major readers and discussions on postcolonial studies barely take Latin America into account. One of the earliest attempts to discuss post­colonial literatures as a comprehensive field, The Empirt Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures (Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin 1989), ac· knowledges a focus on Anglophone literatures . .Even so, its extensive sixteen­page bibliography, including "all the works cited in the text, ;md some additional useful publications'.' (224), fails to mention even a single text writte~. on ,Latin America or by a. Latin American author. The book treats Anglophone l.iteratures~ including those produced in the .Caribbean, as if tl1ese lirerarures were not cross-fertilized by tl1e travel of ideas and authors across regions and cultures-or at least as ifthe literatures resulting from the Iberian colonization of the Americas had not participated in this exchange.

,, 1-! :- (, ~:,,.;

. ,, ... '

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.:.;,·.,:{;

··' ., 40 2 FERl,IAN•D,I> C©R:Qf'l)~ .

; Thfs exclusion of Latin America was clearly refiected in the first g~ner.il ~anth()l9gy of postcolonial texts, cO!onial Discourse attd Pos1c~l0niii(rfteor!i (w~

: ':;it~ms:~d ~rism3:n 1994), Whose thiny-one articles in,c)H~fn9;~u~p~ ~orit\: ' . · "1J:>er()'-f\mcifca. Published two years later, Tht Post'(;oloni1il Stud!es:Rt~dir'{Ash~ , . croft, ' 'orlffiths, and Tiffin' 1995) rcpro<lti<:es-:the :A.nglo~ei:itric perspective tha~ characterizes their earlier Tht'Empire Writf,S B~Ck .. bu ·this time without the justification of a topical focus on Englls~ 'lite;~tui:is?;'.rhe reader fea- · rures eighty-six · texts divided into fou.rteen .theniaric s~ttions, including topics-such as nationalism and hybridity, whkh have long concerned Latin .Am~tJC'itr 'flilili~~'f,.1wfil1e some aumors are repeated under <liffereni topj~;:,,1.

·' · C.Bh:i;Bh\i ~P,Pears"Tureeirme~; Spi~!fk .Mice), the only author associated wiul -'. 'l.!llln;~m~Hc~ · r~<Jo'se "Raba.sa, whose contribution is a ctiti<a1 readhig of

.Mercator's Atlr:is, a topic relevant but not specific to Latin .America. ..... The marginalization of Latin America· is reproduced in most works on · postcolonialism published slnce then. Eor example, Leela Gandhi's Post­. colonilil Theoni: A Critica[ Jntroductio,n Crn9$) does not discuss Latin. Ameri-·. : .

can critical refleccion.s '~~ lnEi~dei:~v~ t{S-i'ngi&reference to Latin American; ' '· ~\~~ · thinkers in its extensiv~ ·bibliogra~fly. Wnile·R.'llocatiniJ Po;tc~lonialism (Gold- ·, berg and Quaysoh 2002) "rel~cate;;. the postcolonia! thr~gh'-i;:pe iodusion of such tepi~s as the· cultural politics of the French radfca.I d'g.ht"'ahd· the

· construction of Korean-Americ:m identities, it maintains the exCtusion of · ~Latin America by having no articles or auchors associated with this area. This

:taken-for-granted exclusion appears as well in a dialogue between John Comaroff and Homi Bhabha that introduces the book. Following Coma­·~otf's . sugg'estloii; they provide a historical frame for "postcolonialicy-'~ . .ln.

termS. of two pe'riods: 'the decoloni:zation of the Third World marked by • fudia~ i~de.flencfenc~· ·m i947; and the hegemony of neollbei:~: capiWis~ . ':Signmled bf the end of the Cold War in 1989 (ibid. I 15)'

:" Iri contrast, two recent works on postcolonialism include ilttin America · #\vitlun the postcolouial field., yet their sharply different criteria highlight the

problem of discerning the boundaries ofthis field. In an article for a book on tbe postcolonial debate in Ll!\fu America; 3ill:Ashcroft (whose coedited book basically excludes Latin America) presents Latin America as "modernity's first born" and thus as' a reglon that has participated since its inception in the· production of postcolonial discourses (1999). He de~nes postcqlonial discourse comprehensively as "the. discourse ofthe·-colo~ed" produced in

· coi o~ial contexts; as such, it does not have to be "a:nti-co1©uial" (ibid., 14-

15). He presents Menchu's I, Ri9oberta Menchtl :andfuan R_u!fo's Pedro Paramo as examples that reveal chat "the transf"ormative strategies of postcolon.ial

;,. .. ·

~\:-·· ., ... :~:-. . ~JY·' '~'s.} '.. ! (

.,,,. ELEf:~A~ ·N;~ Ti-if AMF.RICASI +•J . .,,,..

dl$course, str~tegie,s wb.ich engage the d.e~pest~isruptions of modernity, are

not limitecl tci,·i;ti,e:l~S~P!!Y coiomml" (ibid., 28). Whil.e bis .c;ompfehensive

definitJ,on o~$~ ~e'~ ~~u,,4es.J,:3tinfmerican discourses fr9in tfre conquest' onward;·Iuselbiinph!s S-!tggest~ narrower field defined by iri,o!:"t disctiiliinat-·

1 ~~g &J:\fj~nexl!mine~ crit~,ria. , , . -~'Ht . . . . .-kTit~.second text is Robert Young's Poi~lo : 4J1 Historical Introduction

&(~borJ.;,While Young (like Ashcroft) had~*9~ ,4J.iwos$ed Latin America in a pi;e:vipus work (Whitt Mythologies [1990)); in hls rtew book he gives such tbunaa"tional importance to Latin Ax'netica and~to the Th4'd World that be .

prefers to µ,~e ,W:~~$!~b"~~~fntinentaiism," after the ttjcon~ental con­ference held In Hatanidn i96fb.ooi:, 57). Young recognizes iliitposi'.colo· .. nialism l\as h:n1g an4 yai;ied genealogies, but he. finds)t, necessary to rest,rict it to anticalo~ial th~u;bt 'developed after_ form;tl p~llrl~'ll tnd~pendenc~ h~s.· been achieved: "Many of the ,problem~ rai~ed .can be resolved if the posb;glo:.. ,,: nial is defined as corning after £o!ogJalism and imperialism, in their orf~oal .

. ". cYf'\t, .. f.\';'• -" ~ ·: .. ,.<:,..tv~ '·. ·... ,

meaning of direct:!'.Ule dentin~:t:lon'~J1bid,). Yet Young distinguishes further

between the anP.co!~ni'al thou'g1l~ o€;~b.e p~riph!~ry and, th~ 1nore theoretical thought fa.lined at the heart of empires "wben tlie>political and culrural exped~,ce· gf r,he )Dargina!ized periphery d~§Jo;pe~Jn.:O). more general ,rj1eo~e~9iil p~_sitio~ that. could be set ~gainst weste~ political, intellectual .· aua academic hegemony and its protocols'' df'oojective knowledge" (ibid., .. 65). Thus, even su~essful ,anticolonia! movements "did not fully esta.bli~p the equal value of the cultur.es,of the decolonised nations;" "To do 'tfuit,'1

. . ~-. :-.t .

Young argues, "it-_was ~~c,,es·s~!J . to,take the s truggle into the heartlands of ,: the former q:ilenJ.aLPQ,we~" (j9.id.J.,

Young's sugges~ve discussion of Latin American post.colonial thought leaves uncle~i.tfae ,~~te~i;,to which its. a.nticolop.ialism is also "critical" in the sense he ascribes to metropolitan r~-~ectid~~- .. ~~mng discusses Latin Ameri­can postcolonial thought in two brjefch-;fr~,r$~The first, "Latin America I: Mariategui, Transculruration and Cujrur~ Dependency," is divided into four

• • I • • ..:·.t ... ' sections: "Marxism in Latin Ameritia,' ' ab account of the development of communist parties and Marxist thinkers in the twentieth ce11rury, leading to the Cuban R.evofution; "Mexico 1910," a presen~tio~ of the tefexic;_an revolu­tion as prec\irsor of tri.continenta! insurrecrion,s agains t colonial or neo­colonial;;ex,plo~itation; "Mariaregui," a discussion ofMariategui's role as one of Latin America's most original thinkers, highlighting his innovative _inter­p.re~ation of.Peruvian reality; and "CuJrura.l Dependency, " an overview of the · ideas of some cultural critics which, for brevity's sake, I will reduce to a few names and to the key concepts associated with their work: t,he Braziiian

.. •)

! .

. ·;:,· .

·( • .• ' ... ):~ • .. J. ·. If'. . . ' ' '

404 FERNAND.0 CO~O·Nll

Oswa.ldtiaif~~rade's· "anthropophagy" (the fopnation of Latin Ai:n~,ri,~an~~1'to idenurY;·through the " "digestioii" of·worldwide culmral formations}{ the : . Cuoatf:fernari_do Ortiz's. ffttansihlfucation" (the transformative creai:irin of culrures out· of colonial confrontations); the Brazilian Roberto Schwacz's "mispl~ted ideas" (th~ j~~pl~tbn in the Americas ofideas from different

, times and societies);";m ." Argentinian Nestor Garda Canclini's "hybrid '•' ' ,... , .<(

cultures" (the negotfatlCl the traditional and the IJ!Odei:n in Latin Ameri-. ¥ . can cultural f.ormations) .:~;• •~Ff/~ .,

Young's second chapter;· "Latin Arrierica 2: Cuba: Gu~vara; Castro, and tlle Tricontinental, 0 orgafuzed,aroui1d the ·centraJjff ofq.~ba in the devel­opment of postcolonial ·thought, is divided into three sections: "Compa­

•i)ierb: Che Guevara''"focuses on Guevara's antiracism and r;ii,dical humanism; ~ ... . ~~New Man" relates Guevara's concept of "the new man" to Jos~ Mani's

''p~~posal of cultural and political independence for· ''O~ Aru~ica" and to.· Roberto Fernandez Retarnar's .Calibanesque- vision of n:i~zaje; and "The .· Tricontinentii•• pr;sents the Tricontinental Conference of Solidarity of the <.

Peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America" held in Havana in 1966 as the

founding nioment of posrcoioniaJ thought-in Youpg's words, "Postcolo-nialism:was born with theTricontinmtal" (2001, 113).

While Young's selection. is co(nprehensive and reasonable, its organizing · criteria.'"ace not sufficiently d eati1-0'ne. Cal:l easily imagine a different sc;lecpon involving other thinkers'"'<incf anJ~olortlal struggles in Latin America. And despice the significioce'?fi'e attaches to theoretical ·reflections from metro­politan centers, Young makes no mention of the many Latin Americanists who, working from those .centers oc,from sl1iftin~tocatfons between them and Latin America, have produced ·monumental critiques of colonialism c:Iuring the same period as Said, Bhabha, and Spivak-tor ex:.imple, Enrique Dussel, Anibal Quijano, and Walter Mignolo, among oth~rs.

The_ contrasting positions of Ashcroft and Young reveal t11e difficulty of _. .. . defining postcolonial studies in Latin America. At one extre!')le, we encoun­

ter a comprehensive discursive .field whose virtue is also irs fatting, for it .. '" must -be subdivided tO be useful. A.t the other extreme; ... ,we encounter a

• . •· ~ ·j '.:' ..•

:restricted domain that includes an appreciative and impressive.Si:lection of · aut11ots, but rhat needs to be organized through less-discretionacy criteria. But whether one adopts an open or a restricted definition·ofiatii_i American

· postcdlOniaJ studies, what is fundamental is to treat alike; 'Wlt:p. , tJ1e sa..me i.iitellecrual earnestness, all the &Jnkers and discourses in~,Iuded in the gen­.era! ficld"ofpostcolonial studies, whether they are produce~ , in the m~tro­politatr centres or in the various peripheries, writing or speaking in English or in other imperial and subaltern languages. Otherwise; the evaluation of

(

· iit.EPHANT S IN TH E ~MER 1c:'.:A$? 405

.• P.os~coloi;iji.11 tp0tig~t risks reprodu,c!ng within it~ midst the subalternization of p'eopl~ ll{ld cultures it claims w. oppose. · ·

LATIN AMERICAN STUD IES. AND PO ST COLO N IAL STUDIES . . , ···~~\. ~; ¥; . .· '

Given this genealogy, ifls understaiidable that the reception of postcolonial ' . "'""' ,_'.,l,} . ' • -~

stti!.lfos among lfiti~~me · lsts,:has been mixed. Many thinkers have .doubted the approp.ria,~: . 'postcolonial studies to-Latin America, claim-

• . " • ·;.... . ... J§} t;t'l ' . . . •

' ing:that postcoJonial s,ttidieS'l!!S~()Iids to the: ~cademic concerns of metro-politan universiti;s1 .,W.Fe.,s,.P:ecific.reali~es ~.f Asia and Africa, or ro the position of acadettlic{\vltti"wrlte a.bout, not ·from, Latin Atneric:f and dis­regard its ctµ~l.tt!!di~oni (Ac;:hugii~ 1998; Colas 1995.,lGoi;de Al~ 199~a. 1995; ·Morafia 1998a; "i>~rez ig9g; aii'a Yudite 19g6). Kiot d'{A1va pas pre­

sented the mos~ ~~treme ctjtique, ar~g that co]oniaijsm ~~a pos~,olonial-. ism are "(Latin) American mirages,,; for these terms, •ias they:are us&! in the

relevant literature>· or "as commonly underst6od ilieta.y," properly apply only ro ~rginai populations ofindigenes, ~ot tb the ~Jor non-Indian core that has formed the largely European and C:hris.tiad sodecies of the Ameri­can territ~pes since tl1e sixteenth century. For hun, its ~ars of independence were not anticolonial wars, b~t elite struggles inspired in European mod~ls .. ,.. .

1,.thatmaintained colonial inequalities. · This arg"ument, in 01y vi~v, has_-seve_ral problems: it takes as gkven the

. standard set by,~i~cl!.~~9n the Asian and African colonial and postcolo-nial experiences; it assliine sharp a separation between indigenous and

.. qo~:indigenous peo2J~~. i~ .. ~erif.,t; it adopts a restrkted conception of coibi).ialisri:t derived from a homogenized conception of Northern Eutbpean . colot.iiaUs1~ .. and .an idealized. imag~ of the effectiveness of its rule; it dis-

;i-1()! . ,.. • •. ··• ' r;. "'·

rega.c:ds the importance of the coloriial control of territories in Iberian colo-nialism; it pays i115uffldei1~a~don to the colonial control of populations in lhehigl1-density indige'nous societies of Mexico, Peru, and Centrai America

?,~,,( . •,,: . .

anq ln plantations run by impo.r;ted slave Jabor in the Caribbean and Brazil; and it fails to see the similari.o/ ber:\veen die ~s of indepenqence and the decolonizing processes cir A.Sfa 'an1cf Afi:ica, which also involved the preserya­ti,on .,of elite privilege and th~ reproduction of internal inequalities (what Pabl~ : Gonz:ilez Casanova b96s&f~rid '.Rodolfo Stavenhagen (i965] have . t~eo~zed for Latin America.as :•ip.~~naJ colonialism"). Rather than pre­senting one set of colonial cxperien~es as' its exclusive standard, a more pro· ductjve option would be to pluraJi{f colonialism-to recognize its multiple forms as the product ofa comino~ 'b_isrori6tl process of Western expansion.

An influential debate Oil colonial and postcolonial studies in a major

· , .·

,. '·.

;:~·"~ . );i" .·. ; '.!';, 406 FE~NANP~ CQRQN l\'. '''l'<.· ':'.'1;

: :. . ~~-~'. ··;':.·,~ . ., .. t:'1.'j~f;- . . ·;

! · journal of Latin American studies wis irutiateif.~y:.Patricia $eed, a historian of

cold°tiial'Latin .l\me~ica;·yvho presebted the methods and soncepts of colonial

and postcolonf~J disco~rse. as· a s!gpl~.cant breaktlirough in social analysis.

According to Seed (199i); po~n:olcin'@stncii:s' c.ritique of conceptions of the

s4bject as ,unitary and sovereign? and of mean1ng as ~a,nsparently expressed

through lan guage, r~sts ·discussions of colonial domination that are sim­

plistically polarized' ~S resis~ce' Ve£SU~"aCCOIDIDOOation by autonOmOUS

subjects. TWo years later in th~'same.joitmal, three:literacy critics questioned

hei: argument from .different angles. _Hernan Vfdii.l expr~sed misgivings

about "the. pres~p\:ion th~;)"'.'hen ;a new analytic and ioterpreta~ive ap-

' , proach.is being in't~oduced~the icc~hlfilao~n, o!similar efforts in the past is

~it.\t'. left sl.lp;!rseded:and nul~ed," whitfi'he carte~ "tec~n9ci:.atic literacy criti­

<:" cism" .~9'93', ix7)')Rplena Ado~µo (1993bl, echoH.lgKJor de Alva's argument, argued for th~4 ~Jd td: z~ distinl;tiveness ofLatin America's

:.·1<~,1 · hi~~cal . ex~,e~i'e~ce, . ~u . . . i:in~ ·. "' '. >.colo~,\~, and p' . olonial d~scourse .

m~~ ,uoie ~~.ig~t!y · o th: ~1~".~ncal expert enc~ o. . . . an4;t fnca. A~d Walter Migqolli""(I :> ed f:l':!:l;/ the need to disangu1sh amoi;ig thre~ •

'.~titiqucs of ~odernfo/: postili8cf~%£sri'!Jit~ internal ~xpres~io~). postc~l8- ·

'~IW!ism (it( Asian aii'c! African]1odality};'!:rild post~~cideatltlism (its Latin

A~mic~h manifes.t.ftion) ~ YeHar froiµ regarding p~stcolo •alism as ii;rele­

,vant for C.atin Alrr~ri~a, .M1grl.fuq suggfs~ed that we treat it as liminal space

for developing knowledg/frdrn oui'\l&ious loci of enunciation. He has

develo,Ped his i~eas· of post·Occid~ntalism (building on its original concep­

tion by Fernandez R.eram:ir [1976) and on my own critique ofOccideotalism

[Coronil r996Jt in. his p~thbreakiliinocal Histories/Global Desiyns (1oood),

a discussion of the produEtion of non·imperfal 1q1ow1edge that draws on

wide-ranging C.atin American reflectio~s. in particular Quijano's notion of

the "colonialir:y 'of powet " (1oooa) ~d Dussel's critique of Eurocentrism (1995c). . . . . . ~- ;'! . .

Subaltern srudies has bien wideYY' i:ecogniZed as a major current in the

pQStqQlonial field. Whil~ historians developed subalterp studies in Soud1

A~ia, literari ('.heorists bave play.ed a major role in the foanation of subaltern.

studies ori Latin Ai]ierica. Ai'eurid tht! ~me of the Seed debate, the Latin

l\merican Subaltern Studies Group wa$Jounded a.:. a meedng of the Larln

Am'e.ri~:)I) Studies Association in r991: Unlike frs South 6$,lan counterpart,

afre~ wl1Jch it was naincd, .it was lnitja!ly composed ofliterary critics, with

the e~ception ofSeed and\ \.'$0 anthrbp6togist:S;who soon. d1ereafter. left the · '

. group. Its "Pounding Statemenc" offered 3° idweeJ?ihgfoverview of majo-r

stagt!S rof Latin American studies, rejecting the.ii: commo'ii 'modernist foun-

' ., '! ..... ·' ·; . . ··

~ w ,,:;·t . e~~PHANn 1M me AHifli~,..,s-;

,.q:~~ons a~4~'erebr?ti11g the. South Asian critlque ofelit;l~t represel).tatio~s of

the sub:µ~%~.~- But iln.J!~ the South.Asian group, formed by a sma1l group of

. historiai;iioiganizaj_ around ~ciiherent historiographkal and e\fitotiaJ proj:- ~ . ~<;t-ce{lte~~d .on rewriting the_ hist0ry ofindia, this group, mostly ~oin_pos~ ";.' ·.

· '·oflite~ qitics, w~s chaxac.terized b'. its diverse and shifting ~embership: ·-:::'. -and,tli:i::heter9g<:muty ofJ;heJI djsciplmary concerns and research agendas.

While the pu~lfoations of its meml?e.cs· have not fit within traditionalJil$ci­

pHnary boundaries, i:hey have privileged the interpretation of textS o~e< tlie

analy_sis of historical transformations. The group's attempt to represennlie

subaltern has; typjcally taken the fqrm of readings of t~ts produced by ""authors considered s.ubiltern or .d~ing with i:be issue of sl.ibalternit:Y. ~its

:: "P:~e~de:lop~ life (I myself participated in tit~ second half of it), the &roup ,

stl~wated.:e'.tfqrts to r~~ink the intellectual a~9 poliricale1igagementS.that had de.fine~ tne. field ofJ:.atin Am'erican studi~s. · •' ·· ·

While c~ntered oh .·literary stii~ies, $Ubaltern studie~ has be~tf2onsid- .

· ->J.;'eied ,a maiAF source of postcciJonial h!§~~iography in Latin Am'~~ka. J~);i~< , . 'a rhoug~ij;'.~filiscu~~ii:iil titled ''.The J.>romi~e~11CI Dilemma ofSqb;tltern Stud~ ~ih:"' · ies: Perspectives;fi:~"m Latiq; American History," pt.ib'lished id-a forum, on ·

sub;tl~r:n studies '.in a majbi hlsto~ jpurnal, historian FJpje'hcia M~9n , (1994) examfues the .consumption and prod1tqtion of subaltern sntdies' in Latin America and evaluates the tensions and . prospects. of this field . . Her

account focuses on historical works, making explicit referefice to the d.lntri· butions of scholars based on the United States who have made si~fifficant use of the categories or methods associated with sabaltern studies. She ·

highlights Gil Joseph's pioneering use ofGuha's work' on 1ndia's peasantty

.... in !tis examination.ofbandin:y in Lati.n America, noting that irmoved discus­

sio~peyond simplistic oppositions that reduced bandits to either resisters or

reproducer~ il_.f.\given social orders.

: ·-~ . ~::.

In her revJew Ma.IJ9n does not address subaltern studies on literary and culrural criticism (perhaps because she does not find th'i.s work properly

historical), but she does offer a ·critique of the Latin America·n Subaltern

Studies G~oup's "Founding Statement," noting its ungrounded dismissal of .. ··

histodographicah\(ork on subaltern sectors in Lat;in America. She makes a

similar critique of the m~respbStantial article by Seed, the one historian of

rhe ,g~oup. Objecting to Seed's pres~ntation of members of the "subaltern

studie's move1ne11t" as leaders of the "posrcolonial discqurse movement,"

Mallon offers ample. teforences to recent historical wor·k on politics, eth­

nicity, and the state from the eatly colonial period to the twentieth century

rhat '1' had begun to show that all subaltern communities· were . internally

:. '"

- ( 4oS

dif(er~J1 d, c~:mflictual ~d that sub~lterns forged politica(uillcy· or · ~' 't~:i . ·,'·, ·. .... '··;::·J;'"~1 ·1,,·. . . . ;>,.,, . • ' ·

conserts\is·mpainfully contingeritwar.s" (1994, 1,500). . ... • .· ·· · '~ :..;?,;c , . , J.~~ · '"·

Mallo11's eiu~ite discuss~on ~pands the scope of subaltern studies, but it

does not sufficiently clarify:\Yli}'. certain historical works should be con-~~· . .

. sidered part of the subaltern qr.,p9stcolonial movement. Since· studies on

. the social a~4 cultUral histp~;~,,~g~a1ter11 se.ctors ("histoiy from beiow") and subaltern/postcolonlaLsru~,ie~ ·share subaltem~tjl as a subject matter and employ similar theories aud methods, rhe lin es sep:irating chem are

sometimes difficult to define. Yet South Asian subaltern historiography has · · sought to distlnguish itself frqin. social and ~ul~al hisrocy by .attaching

· ... s ingular, significance to the c~itiqu.~ o f historicist and J3uroce1~tticassump­' tibns,· problematizing .the role or power in fieldwork and in the construction

· ·of archives! and inte_rrogating such central historiographlc categories as the

"nation," the ''state," "con~iousness," and "social actors." The histocio-

graphjcal s tern project has been marked · by the tension betw~n its ' { tft' .· ·• ~ . '::-<

~~>nS$l m,, which necessarily involves the use of represef\'ltatjbniJ.\ · ·•r1., . ~~ . . . ~·· w ·

strategies 1 ... ,}11i!ike those of social and cultural history, and it~ decbnstruc·

tivist strategy, which entails questioning the central categories of historical

research and interrupting the powerful narratives of the powerful with those

expressed by subaltern actors.

· Mallon casts the "djlemma". ofLatin American subaltern studies in terms ' ·. : : . { ,f ·~t~ V( . j ,+ .

of the ten~ion between (Grairisc,1.in) Marxist and postmodern perspectives (a

tension frequently noted i~ 'd:ii~t'ssions about South Asian subaltern .stud-~.,.~

ies). She proposes to solve tills'·dilenuna by placing the Foucauldian and . ·~,

Derridean currents of J?OSl:IJlodern criticism ''.at the. s.ervlce of a Gramsciau

project" {1994, 1,515). Per1lapsh,er.s~1bordination of deconstruction, so cen­. tral to subaltern history, to thedramscian project, so fundamental to social

and cultural history, helps account for her insufficient attention to the differ­

ence between these fields.

.This difference is central for John Beverley, one of the founders of Latin

American Subaltern Studies Group, who in his writings argues for the sup~~

riority of suo.tltern perspectives over nonsubait~rnist studies of the sub-·

altem (1993, i999, iooo). Deploying criteria rhat for him define a subal~ teroist perspective, he criticizes Mallon's Ptosont and Notion: Tht Makins of

Postcolonial Mexico and Pern (1995), arguing that despite her intentions, she

appears as an omniscient narrator engaged in a positivist representational

project d1at uses subaltern accounts .to consolidate rather than inte.rrupt rhe

biographies of the nation, reinscribing rather than deconstructing the offi­

cial biographies ofthesc nations.

ELEPH.ANH IN TllE ... MEl\ lC ... sr 409.

f\;;JJ).~$bpJ1lstipate~ discussion qf subaltei;n studies and Latin American his~ .

wcy~~e Ecuadorian historian quillei:mo Bustos (2002) uses Mallon and Bevei'Iey-as a: focal point to assess the relation between these two bodies of

kn · !?e. While ~mpathetic to Mallon's discussion of this topic in "The

~r. a1).,d Dilemm~. ofSubalteni Stµd!~," Bustos notes the Anglocentric

, • ~n , dpoHtau foc~s.i;iOtflr~.~~u~.~\;iq,lUJ.d suggests the inclusion of°a . ai9re ·representative s~i?J~ ot'work Rroduced in Latin America; Mallon's

only ~eferencc is to the-Alldeanist historian Flores Galindo, which Bustos

co!\1plem~nts by ·mentioning tllree rel' An.deanists: Assadourian, Col-

mepares, and .Rivera Cu.sicanquL Llk · ley, Bustos recognizes the need

to dj~tf1iguiSh ber,ween social )iistp; rnl~t perspectives. Butwliil.e Beverldy uses this distinction to e aUon's work in terms of th~ stan~s ~f subaltern studies, Bus·t~s U:.~es it to caution again~t assuming

the superiority ofa subaltern perspe~;reqtlling Vidal's critique of"tech­

nocratic literary criticism."

B.u~tos's ptoposal is to rum claf::. . T

superiority of any perspective into qu~s M~We~b!~,}hrough concrete

analysis. He exemplifies this option throitgh a subtle reading of Mallon'~ Ptasant and Nation that demonstrates the C01I1plexity of her narrative, incl'lik

iog her .attempt to engage in dialogical relation with .her inforll)anti' :µid

fellow historians. White distruLcing .himself from Beverleyis ctltiqu~, B

,endorses Tulia Halperin Donghi's obselY'ation that Mallon's prese-!J.t'~ti.o • other perspectives does not stop her from the common practice of assuming

the superiority of her p rofessional account His point is thus neither, to criticize nor to defend Mallon's work, but to refine the dialogue between

' , ,'subaltern ~~udies au'dtatiri American historiography. He develops his ~rgti• ment by discussing .other texts, including related attempts to break away

fro~ accounts organiied as "the biography of the nation ·state" based on the

critical use of multiple voices and sources (Coronil 1997;· Thurner 1997). In agreement with the l talian historian Carlo Ginzburg, Bustos proposes that

we meet the· postmodern challenge not by .. maldng "eVidence" impossibly

s uspect, ,but by following,. as Paul Ricoeur suggests, the "traces tltat left

from the past, take its place and rep resent it" (Bustos 2002, r5 ). Needless to

say, the challenge rem_ains how tO retrieve and interpret these traces.

Postcolon ial historical studies also received attentio~ .In Latin America in

a book publishi;.d ll1 .. Bolivia, Debates post·coloniales: Utia introducci6n a los es­tudios de la subaltemldad (Postcolonial debates: An introduction to studies of

subaltemiry) (1997), edited by the historians Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui and

R.oss~ Barragan and composed of translations of a selection of nine essays

:.<:•.

. · .,,..

·,

..

. .. . ,;, ::~i<i~: ~Ht~ NA r.itx6 ' C.O !lO Nf.l

;1•ir'Jx~;:~JtL , · ··~

by South Asian authors. In their introduction Rive c~rtqfil':irld Barra-. gan make only tangential refe'rence to thel2tin Ain SJJpaftei;n Studies Group, and none to the work ofits mem.bers:,'.r;hey, al~E4tli '~ .Pound- · in~ Stat.eme~t" for red~eing the contributions of ciurb Asian group to

. "' . , a.I); ""!ti~ortment of ethnographic cases that "exemplify from the South the '. . i·. ~· t;· "·~), .. ''' • ··'4. '

;~" /,~:'J-~f~~I'\' tf'~~ntand the _broad conceptual guidelines Jlroduced in 'the North''. (ibid., ->t.l!:i.l q)'. "And they criticize Mallon's article on subalterii~studiei 'both for its

' ''· . ;·

ti on to a long Latin Arnerkan cradition of critical work on colonialism . ostcoioiiialism iind for reducing South Asian sqbaltern.studles "to a

que~tionable Gramscian project on behalf of which'. o~e shoufd. pl.ace the """' . whole postmodern and poststructuralist debate" (ibiCJi:Y. , >·· .. ' ·vTheir oWn interpretative effort is centereddn unq!~Mrnng the significance of South Asian subaltern srudies for Latin...,Ameriealhistoriography, em­

.,. phasi.zing th!! innovative Unportance of the postsQ:UCtUralist perspectives ' i.ttforming the South' ASian scholarship. <their bri~·f discussi~n of Latin Am"erican w_ork highlights three critical cw1-ents: the Argentinean·school of

\;. ih, :£opm11ic history represented by Enrique Tand~t~r, Carlos Sempat Assa­douri:i.n, and Juan Carlos Garavaglia, and distinguis4,e~ by its transform~:..

tion of Marxist and Gramscian categories.diiough a:_ifamonta.tion with the specificities of Indian labour in the Potosf ;rea;.the s~es of peasant insur­gency and oligarchic rule carried out by -i::!ie Taller ~}Iistoria Oral Andin'a (Andean workshop oforal.histozy) :and oy--s.uch influential scholars as AI­bei't:O-Flores G~linclo and :R.eoe Zavalet1>,;1m4the studies of"internal colonial­ism" initiated .by the Mexican sodolpgisi: Pablo Gonzalez Casanova i11 the 1960s (and, I should add, Rodolfo Stavenhagen). Their call for a Soutb-Soqth dialogue at the same time avoid~ a d~smissiil of the No~tb , warning ag~fd~f the danger p.fesent in':r'Ee.rtam>icaoemic Lahn American circles" to ad6pt' new theori~ aiid djs'c;a ".our own intellectual traditions-;J,pd Ma.cxis111· is oi1~ bft11em::::'.;£t}f· tfti$':1ihpove;ri'~h~s and fragments the La~ln l\m.erican de­bate!• (RJver:i'c1i~icanqhi and Ba~gan 1997, 19). Their horizontal dialogue establishes a 'common ground between postcolonial stud~es and Latin Amer­ican ~i!itqriography on colonialism and postcolonialism, yet presents sub­altern srudies as the product of an "epistemological and methodological rupture" (ibid., 17). If subaltern srudies is pusccolonia1, its post is the post of postmodernism and poststrucruialism.

A yariant of this view is presented by the philosophers Eduardo Mendieta and Santiago Castro-Gomez in their thoughtful Jnu-.oouction to an impor­'tarit 0ook of essays writt~n by Latin Amerlcahlsts publl~hed in Mexico under the title Tulrfos sin disriplina: latinoamtricanismo, postwlonialidad !I globalizacion

. .. ·-

H ff .. .._NTS U\l·'fH ( 1<11ERICASI ~n ·

-~·-~· ·0 J,-: :, ~\,U.'·;~ .. ~:,(~,,·1 ~:;: •• ~~,1 >.~~\f ,i · : ·. , ' ' ·, >1~ , J ~ ~~·.:~.:: •• ~ ·.,.;} ·~.; ·~;,~;.:.·;;~· t> '":" • , .• . : • •

~q , ~; en de&(lte (Theotres' without disciP.liile: La1:1'1&i.men'tatillim,' pdstcolonialicy, :i ._ and .globalization in debate) (1998}. Focusing on the r~ationship ber:ween ifi.. ·;·· crlti¢al thought and the histodcal context of its production, Castro-Gomez

and M.ehdieta seek to determine the specific character of postcolonial stud• • ies. Thw draw a distinction between "anti-col nial discourse," as produced

~ :,;, lr,:}-~~:,~~~~ca by Las .~asas, Gu~~'~ c,fe i~Yf.,l~, Fra,ncisco Bilb~91( .. ' :·,' cu.10 Tffs'eEnriqueRod6, and i•postcolon13.1 , 'de," as'atriculated by Said/ · t Spival<,:and .Bhablia. For them, an~qloni;;i ucse is· produced in "tra~i;-~

:;''.2tip.:; .. aces of a~iion,'! µiat is, ';i '!J.ere subjects formed tlt~k ... ' ., , ; / idem es in predominantly local c et subjected to intensive pci>?: ~;;.

cesses of rationalization" (as descril;>ed by Weber or Habermas); they argue· f;th f Jfo~tcolonial theorid', in codili:~i. ar~rpri;lduced in "post-tra4icl.pq:q~~­

contexts of action," that is, "in l~calities where social subjects configure' their identities interacting with processes of global rationality and where, for this reason, cultural borders b,edome p9rous" (Castro·Gomez<tpd Mew dieta 1998, r6- r7). For them, iliii·"aistinction has poiltical impfi~~-tio·d~:

. while anticolonialist discourse cla.ifus to sp~al< for others and s~ks t.o dis-: - ~' ihaiitle toloniaLiin dep~&ffli$ '~{.,, , c~tei~ries, postcolon.iaJ dfseoµrse ,f .

bistorfcizes its own position, not to discover a truth outside interpretation, but to produce truth effec.{S that unsettle the field of political action. It follows that radical p61icl~s lies no~in anticolonial work that defines strug-gles wid1 the categories at hand, thus confirming the established order, but in intellectual work that deco11structs them in order to oroaden. the. scope of politics. Prom iliis,perspeedve, tbe post of postcolonialism ~tiin~-Our' to be an anti anticoloni~Ji!lst, at the setvice of decolo~'ing decolonization.

T~i~· positrq.i.f ;p.;,LS t,he merit of offering a clear defulition of postcolo-,,, .. , : l "'~\'..'i;; . . :

nialism. In my view, it raises several questions. Its distinction between anticolonial and postcolonial discourse ris~ repcoducing the rradition­modernity dichotomy of modernization checuy, turning the convulsed and rapidly changing social worlds of Las Casa~. Guaman Poma, or Bilbao into. stable "traditional" societies oflimited rationality, in contrast co the globally

· ~aticfoal worlds that engender posccolo11ial theorists and their superior dis· . cours~s. By treating deconstruction ~i

1

~ theoretical breakthrough that super­sedes previous critic:il efforts-no\V relegated to less-rational traditional .contexts-this position also risks becoming an expression ofVidal's "tech­nocratic:al literary criticism." Spivak's dictum that "Latin America has not participated in decolonization" (Vidal 1993, 57) is perhaps an e.meme ex­pression of tl1is risk. While. they acknowledge the "irrita.tion" of those who. recognize that Latin American thinkers have "long shown interest on the

' r.eRr~.A,rilf~01 C0~.°6Nll (

examinati~n of c~lonfa.lism," they seem to aacept this risk ;is an inevitable

consequence of the radical theoretical and m'ltbodoiogi~ novelty of post-

.. c:olonfal studies (Gomez and M~ndih~ i.§gS;~k ' . . ·" By contrast, the Cuban public intellectu31. Roberto Fem:indez· Retamar' s

discussion of Latin American decolonizing stiugglcs, originally offered as a

···;';·\~ lecture for a course on Latin American: th6i.igl1t iu Havana~ can b.~. ;;een in

'v.'J;'part as a response to Spivak's dictum, ~hlch, according to him;'w~11s th~ t. prize for epitomizing the problem ofLa.tin AJllerica's exclusion frovi post­

:;,:'colonial snidies (Fernandez Retamar i996). 'W'.is impossil;>le to summarize

r f~'s hlteiliitight synthesis, organized' arourld rhlrteert :41terrelated themes ,

identified·4'y key phrases or ideas that emboay political and intellectual

moven,ie~~. such as "Independence or death." Suffice ith~re to indicate that

his 'p~e:s.tf<;m lin!~~'fogetherpolitical struggles and i~~~l!ec~ual reflection$

as pan oF'i single/process of decolonization. Thus h0

e'j 6ins the Hairi:t?.

Revol,utioi.t; the war5»9f independence, the Mexican Revolu~on, the Cuban

R.evolutiodt'and i:li.e"fuovements of the Zapatistas and the Madres de la Plaza . . ·. t,,;;·.· ',f '.<·'":'.) . ·' , .,,

de Mayo With sucli.'i1iverse intellectual struggles as literacy modernism, the-

ology and philosQphy of liberation, dependency theory, pedagogy of the

oppreSsedflatin ~erican historiography, and ttStimonio. His wide selection

of a~tl1or~'~rtd. tdts aelebrates !:he~ ociginillity and heterogeneous sources

informing self-critical reftectio~ tibm the Americas. His examples are too

nutnerous:"to mention here, but they include Venezuelans Sim6n Rodrfguez

and And.ies' B'~ll.o; Mexkims Leopoldo Zea,,and Octavio Paz, Brazilians Os­

wald de Aiidt.tde a.Il.d Darcy Ribeiro, and CUbans Jose Marti and Fernando

Ortiz. He highlights the contemporary importance ofRlgoberta Menchu and

Subcoman\fante•Malicos as articulating in new ways the decolonizing proj·

ects of irtdige·no·us ' ana national sectors in Guatemala and Mexico. Fer­

nandez Retamar'is not concerned with defining or erasing the boundaries

between Latin American and postcolonial critical thought, but with appre­

ciating·tneir''~J:tJrcd.'~~agement'with decolonization.

The dllfefence b'et\veen Mendieta/Castro-Gomez and Fernandez Reta­

mar, like that be~ve~ Ashcroft and Young, reveals die difficulty of defining

the relati tu\ be~eerl'postcolonial and Latin American re~ections .on colo­

nialism ana frs :lftfu:math. As in Bustos's discussion ofi:he Mallon~Beverlcy exchange, a dialogue between.these intellectual traditions requires D..ot only

clearer classificatory efforts but also closerreading of texts, in order to refine

the criteria that· de.ilil:e: these fields. A treannent of authors who are not

considered part of the postcolonial canon as postcolonial thinkers may help

us appreciate different modalities of critical reflexivity, as Sandra Castto­

IGaren has db'he through her subtle reading ofGuaman Poma and of the Inca

( ~P!.:.lf!.i•n;1;, 1N Tt.\f AM:n.l<;ASI

. <.; :.::~ ').> 413 .

Garcilaso de la Vega (1999; 4001). Or ~~sbaps; as Hulme suggests, "the re~ advantage of considering distant figures.like Ralph ·wa1do Emerson or An" ··

• • < 'f . ·: . '. '.\~

dres Bello as postcolonial. writers i~ ~ll~~ this 1.eads us to read them a~ if ~e}t,° J· were new" (r996, 6). A particularlyprod1Jctive option is to engage the postc~};<' '' Ionia! debate through studies of specific ·postcolonfal encounters, as in die. pioneering integration of tf1eoretiq1J reflection and detailed historical ~a.$e- . . .

studies ofU.S.-Latin Ame&;m relations in the collection edited by ·diJO~t{> · .Michael Joseph, Catherine LeGrand, and Ricardo Donato Salvatore (r~98J: .. _

ELEPHANTS IN T HE AMERICAS? ·. ·•·.,,

This discussion has made evident how difficult it is to define "Latin Ameri­

can po'stcolonial studies." As in the well-known parable of the elephant and

the wjse blind scholars (each of whom visualizes the elephant as a different

creature by the part he or she feels) , this field, like the wider field of post­

colo.nial studies itself, can be represented .in as v~ied a manner as there are

cjitforent perspectives from which it cari be "seen." If this parable shows that

. knowledge of reality is always partial and inconclusive, its use to reflect on

Latin_Americao postcolonial studies raises two more fundamental points.

First; .the peculiar.object of pr;>stci>lol!ial studies ls not a natural entity, like ,

an elephant, or even a social;~tibject reg¥ded as sharing the cultural world

. of the observer, but one formed as a colonized object, an inferior and alien

•'. .. ':'0?1e.r" to be studied.by 11. liJl:F~§iQr a~q._central "Self." Since the "elephant" )cari ·speak, the problem is not just to represent it but to create conditions that

would ~nable it to represent;.J..tself. From the perspective of postcolonial . studies .• analysis should involve not just self-reflection (an inherent dimen­

. ,,:'~(pn~~f any, serious intellectual. ~nterpris.e) or granting subjectivity to the

·~ so'ctai.Subject studied (as anthropologists and cultu~al historians have typi­

cally sought to do), but d1e integration of these two analytical endeavours

'i lhto ,o~e unified intellectual pi;oj,ect direc;ted at countering this unequal,

colonizing relationship. Its epistemology is not just representational but

transfom1ative; it uses representational strategies to counter the hierarchies

a~d 'assumptions that turn some subjects .into ~bjects of knowledge of al­

iegedly superior subjects.

Second, insofar as postcolonial studies appears as the most evolved cri­ti9ue of colonialism, it tends to invalidate or diminish the significance of

.. reflections· on colonialism developed from other locations and perspectives.

lfth~~ise scholars were to act wisely, they would not privilege their respec­

tive.views of the elephant or isolate it from other creatures. As a reflection on

i;he . .relationship between postcolonial and Latin American studies, the para-

~: 44 l'~RN-'NO . ONIL :· .... :) •• , '} t .. * ,'~::~·:-; ,·.:.' ,. - . _.;.,·::;,::,·. .: ><·" . . '

•.-:, '•.<'.'(.·'~ .\.~.,1''"'~-.i :ri;f1:~;q'><4i~' -::,/ . . ble apP'ei1$ •lfs'¥a)lte , ry,~ the absence of Indigenous elephants in the

· Americas justify.in~ the. identification of postcolonia.1 studies with sch?lar-ship on Africa 3.na Asia. . . '·"' ":. ..

If we take the parable literally, since the only elephants that ~st. m 'tbe • ·~ Americas are imported ones, ·artificially·confined in zoos or cir~useli s~;w, prot~t thet11 from an.mhospita.!Jle terraiii, we may have the desire to sei6nly

'.t)l.~s~~. . t¥~~ffl;e$ll~~.)}o hav~;i'naged to mimic their Asian or African .. ,.,. . "" ·.-· . .. . . . ~ounterparts-our. Latin American "elephants.'" Rt:fusal is another opoon. Follt;>.w(ng thinkers who justitlably object to the ease with which metro­polimn ideas become dominant in Latin America, or who unjustifiably see' Latin America as a self-fashioned and boundecl re~on, and. arg:µdn defense ones adff5c'itilioHriuS-ltltellectiia't prochictions. <li~r doing$~r~nlj'y 1n1n~ti · ropolitan Jm1guages and.with arguments supported br.. the?xj~~ wbich·were

<'..>, ... ·:~#ef'c(6lful.cfetetl "for~ign"), orie could reJecf th'e attei1lpt 'tiWdefine Latin Fi~' American postcolonial studies, restricting postcolonial studies to other con­

tinents and regarding it as an imperial "import" that devalues;'~local" Latin Americ3n knowledge. ·· ' .,.;:;~;~ •. -i'ij~ ·

. . In my opinion, the yi:w . that. festri.css · P.c,ls't:'cfil.~n~~l ::r~fleiti.tf ,to certain currents of Western intellec'tual 'thebtY;"a/i11we1f'iis

1ilie"."pbsjtion that treats

g~stcolo-~ial sdidies as a,nother foreigi\fad tfiat urtde-rmines"loa1.I knowl­·~cige, reiilforces both tqe field'stheore~cal a.ml. ethno~phl~ provincialism a~d its de facto exclusiOn of La~ America, These two.sides of a protected ~a"rochial coin prevent· t~ from cillting :idvantage:~f the gioba.I circulation of postcoloriial studies as ·a potent lntellecrual currency for the exchange and development ofperllpectives o'n ~olonialism and its legacies from different regions and intellectual traditions.

The p{ob_)~i~ not'stitiplyi ~-s· some Latin American c~itic~ of_ po$tcolq-• · ~iallsrn ~~ie si:ffa~·tea~ tliaetatin Arnerkanists sbo~li be drawliig on f\1sch ~tforg;~tris ,Borges as rriuch as on Said or Derrida, blrt that knowl­edge. shciuicf be';gJo~af and 'acknowledge the worldwid·e f:i:fni#li¢os of Its p.roduct;ion. Jusr a~ Kusch drew on Heidegger, and Derrida ,,; s inspired by

•h': .• ·•':'n 'Jh~gef~is Borgds, Said and Ortiz developed independently of each other, fifiy years apart, a contrapuntal view of the historical formation of cuJrures a1id identities that disrupts the West-rest dichotomy (Coron'il1995 l. Critical responses to colonialism from different locations take different but comple­mentary forms. While from an Asian perspective it has become necessary to "provincialize" European thought (Chakrabarty 2000), from a Latin Ameri­can perspective it has become indispensable to globalize the periphery: to recognize the worldwide fonriacion of what appears to be self-generated modem mecropolita!l centers an·d backward peripheries.

'• •. . • •• ' ·• • '> ~·,~!li~1'. ·.,\fi • ~~. Et.~Ply>NT> IN THEAM~R;ICAS1 ;::~S ' ,''."·'

• j ~·".... ..,, ;_: ...

As it has been defined so far, :t4(! ·field: of postcolonial studi.es: tendih~ , 1

neglect the study of coll,f.C,~pow§1.forfI!(of political domina.ti~i1'sind (co-nomic exp\oi tationdlc:i:o~i~<ef~\py manyas one of the 6eldl.s .;fou11ders, Edward Said ~as dJstanced him.selffrom it, saying that he does not "bel~ng to that" ;mq arg\{l!ig. t'tl:lr;;iP.o,stcolpnialism is really a rn.isnomeii~. that does not suffidendy reC:ognize the persistence of n~ocolonialism, imperialism, and "structures of dependency" .(2002, 2 ). Said's concerns, so central to

Lati_n Amepcan thought;. ,)Hghlighi: the importanc;e of expinding postcolo-niaJ snici.i~by ~q4Jiin.g R~J4fiJ:l.Azpe~ican criticaiµ:;aditions, . ':·

1'I~~~r.~J~ti9ns~•h'etjv.1tel) colonialism ani~.~defAi~j}s 'thitore prob-leJll,for bo$ pos~colonia{ and Latin American ·s.tudies 'the fundamental confiib.11tiaP.ofLli.tin Aroe~ican ~tudies .is to recas~ this p;oblem by setting it in a ,wider historical conrext. The inclu~ion of Larin America in the field of postC::olonfa.l sntdies expands 1ts geograph'ical scope and also its temporal dept11. A wider focus, spanning from Asi~;wd.Aip_Fa to the Americas, yields .

( ;: :J c;l~eper vi~w, revealing tlie links lie;,we~il~~~e dey.~fc?pment of modem coli:>· . -· ·: rihilism bft'1orthern European pow~;s ahd:lis foupdadon in the col~ni.Z~tlon

oftlie Americas by Spain and Pomrga). Thl.$~lai:ger frame modifies prevailing · uudetstanclings of modern history. Capitalism and modernity, so ofte~ as­sumed both in mainstream and in_ postcolonial studies to .be a European process marl<ed by ~e Enlightenm.~.Qli.th~ 9awnln_g ofindusa:ialization, ~nd tbe forging of nations in the eighteenth century, can be seen instead as a global process involving the expansion of Christendom, the fonnarion, of a . global market, and the crf<!don of transc~ntinental emplres since.the s~­teenth century. A ~la,lo~~B~W-~~;i~atin American. and postcolonfoJ. studies. ought _not tQ, be p.oI@.fizlng;;and' m°fght range ovec Jocal · hi~ti1Eid ahd global designs, t~i$ andJ;heir .material contexts, and subjective· formations and strilftti.res ~.(domination.

This dialogue should bring to the forefront two interrelated areas of sig­nificaot·political relevance today: the study ofpostcolonialism itself, strictly understood as historical transformations after political independence, and the analysis of contemporary imperia.li~m" I.ronkally, these two areas, s~ .· central to Latin American thought. have: bee~ neglected by postcoloniil

•Studies. At the juncture ofi::olon_iallsm'.s,historical dusk and the dawn of new forms of imperial dominati.og, the field tends ro recollect colonial~

· • ism rather than its eventualities . .B~ilding on a Jong tradition of work ~o post-independence L:.itin America, ,!have argued for the need tp disti11gu.l~ll "global" from "national" and. "ct>lc?.ilial" imperialism as a phase charac.ter~ ized by the growirig abstraction and generalization of imperial nJcides of political and economic control (CoroniJ 2003). And drawing on postcolonial

( (

· g~(d,ies, I have proposed to understand wbat I c;a!LOccidei,talist representa-.. · tions .of culrural difference ~nder g'iob?t mip;tia,lism ·;i,~ involving a shift

frow "Eurocentrism" to "globalcentrl,sm:i~ii~e;g}~b'aicentrism as entruling iepresen~tion;u operations that: dissolve the .'!.West" into the market and

crystallize it in less-visible ttansnationat nodules 'of concentrated ·financial

and political power; lessen culrural antagonisms-through the integxation of distant cultures into a Go[bmon. global ;pae~;. iind emphasize subalternity

~ather than ~lterity fn the eons~µctiq~Rr · . . . , .~fer7nce. ~ an increas­mgJy globa!Lzed world, U.S. and Jilleop.e:i.n, p . . !i~e 1s a1.1:hieved through the occlusion rather than the affirmation ofr~dical differences between the

West and its others (Coronil 2oooc, 354).· ,, This dialogue should also redefine the terms of postcolonial _studies .

. ·Postcolonialism is a fluid and polysem.ic category; whose power derives in part from its ability to conde~se multlpte .tPl,l~~ngs and refer to different

locations. Rather than fix its. ~~~·~)~g, ~fQ.#~~/ormal definitions, I have argued that it is more productive eo 'deveJopJ~;sl~ficance through rese<irch and analysis on the histo,cjcal ~jectory of sq5=ieties and populations sub­

jected to diverse modalities of imperial power (i992, IOI). In the spirit of a long tradition of La.tin American transcultural responses to colonialism filld

"digestive" appropriation of imperial cultures, I thus opt for what I call

"tactical .POStcolonialism." While Spivak's notion of "&trategic essential­ism" seJves to fix socially constructed .identities ir\ or.det to advance politi­cal ends, tactical postcolonialism serves to open .Lip estabfished academic knowledge toward open-ended liberatory possibilities. It conceives post­

co.lonialism not as a fenced territory but as an expanding field for struggles against colonial and other forms of subjection. We may then work not so much within this field, as with it, treating it with Ortiz as a "transcultural"

zone of creative engagements, "digesting. it" ;as Andrade may playfully do, approaching it as a lirninal locus of erturii:fation .as Mignolo sL\ggests, ih order to decolonize lmowledge and build. a genuinely democratic world, "a world which would include many worlds," as Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatistas propose.

N OTE

This rext re.6.ects the lively discu~~ions of a postgr.iduate scnl.inar on postcolo· nialism and Latiil American thought that I taught during the summer of 2002 at the Uuivcrsidad Andina Simon Bolivar, Ecuador. lvly gratitude to all. Thanks also to Gencse Sodikoff and Julie Skurski for help with editing it.

Unless otherwise indicated, all English translations are my own.