JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Volume 18, Number 1, 1998 Page: 49
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Journal of Composition Theory and was provided to UNT Digital Library by the UNT Libraries.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
Encountering the Other 49
The literature of postcolonial theory is especially relevant to our own scholarship
specifically because it is so frequently concerned with articulatingthe interactions of
discourse, ideology, and authority-interactions compositionists have been analyz-
ing for well over a decade. For example, those postcolonial theorists who are most
concerned with the ideological power of discourse, such as Gayatri Chakravorty
Spivak, are particularly useful. In her noted"Can the Subaltern Speak?" Spivak argues
that despite well-intentioned efforts to give voice to the subaltern, there is little
possibility for recoveringthe subaltern voice, in that hegemonic discourse constitutes
and disarticulates the subaltern. This "epistemic violence" is a means by which the
oppressed subject, through a process of internalizing the discourse of the master,
learnstoconstructhisorheridentityasOther,torewritetheself astheobjectof imperialism.
Spivakconcludesthat"Forthe'true'subaltern group,whoseidentity is its difference,there is
nounrepresentablesubaltemsubjectthat canknowandspeakitself" (285).
Discussions such as Spivak's are relevant to our own theorizing about whether
we as teachers of discourse can help students take on subject position, to have agency
in their own worlds, andthey also shed light on questions of the balance of power and
authority in the classroom. While it would be a stretch, if not akindofviolence, to
liken the college student to a Third World subaltern, postcolonial discussions of
hegemonic discourse and power dynamics in relation to the latter can nonetheless
illuminate similar dynamics in our classes and can do so in a much more powerful and
useful way than the current liberal version of contact zones and utopic safe houses.
As another example, consider the work of Homi Bhabha. In "Signs Taken for
Wonders," he explores how the colonizer uses "the book" as an instrument of control
of colonized peoples because it carries with it a logocentric and "civilizing" power
that displaces the subaltern's authority of experience. The subaltern copes with the
colonizer's presence through imitation and mimicry, an ambivalent position involv-
ingthe attempt both to become like the oppressor andto resist the imperial presence."
The colonized at once adopt the master discourse and simultaneously rewrite it in their
own key, imitating while parodying, appropriating while subverting. Such subtle
misappropriation of the dominant discourse is thus an act of resistance, both against
the Word of the oppressor-the logos, law, language-and against the power over
the oppressed that the Word authorizes.Y
The colonial space, then, is agonistic, oppositional; yet, according to Bhabha,
resistance is "never entirely on the outside or implacably oppositional. It is apressure,
and apresence, that acts constantly, if unevenly, alongthe boundary of authorization
..." (152). In fact, such resistance is just as effective (if not more so) than more overt
forms in that it works imperceptibly from within the heart of colonial authority: its
discourse. BenitaParry calls this "a textual insurrection against the discourse of
colonial authority":
The argument is not that the colonized possesses colonial power, but that its fracturing of the
colonialist text by re-articulating it in broken English, perverts the meaning and message of the
English book ("insigniaof colonial authority and signifier of colonial desire and discipline"),
and therefore makes an absolute exercise of power impossible. (42)
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Periodical.
Association of Teachers of Advanced Composition (U.S.). JAC: A Journal of Composition Theory, Volume 18, Number 1, 1998, periodical, 1998; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc28621/m1/53/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .