Identity Politics and the Third World (original) (raw)

I also wish to thank the team at Academica Press for their promptness and ready support for the publication of this work. Critically analyzing Said's system of binary oppositions, which necessitates the fabrication of an 'other' to define the 'self', and Homi Bhabha's concept of postcolonial ambivalence, which forms the basis for a hybrid identity, the discourses of identity can be analyzed and their authenticity and applicability in postcolonial contexts can be questioned. preference to those narratives of identity fixation that are based on homogeneity, timelessness and popular belief. A perception of discursive identity is created out of traditional and inherited definitions and is often depictive of a sense of doubtless permanency and lack of transmutability. It is such definitions of identity that support global discourses about Americans and progress, Islam and terrorism, women and oppression, thirdworld cultures and backwardness, and so on. It must be noted however that identity in terms of discourse theory is not 'essentialist' without purpose and is more 'strategic and Identity is then a 'patchwork [that] lives no less from its seams and ruptures than from individual patches of social affiliation of which it is made up' (Meyer, 2001: 16). Identity is not only an attempt to negotiate conflicts without, but also to negotiate the conflicts that exist and erupt within. Further identity includes not only what one projects the 'self' as, but also what the 'other' perceives this 'self' to be. It is an 'open process of negotiation between the self-image that the individual conjures up of himself and the image that his partners in social interaction form of him in changing contexts' (15). 'know[ing] thyself' (Forgacs, 1988: 326); the inherent narcissistic impulse to superiority; and the Nietzschean 'will to power' (Nietzsche, 1967). The history of imperialism (colonial or economic), is driven by the reins of discursive practice and hegemonic control. Be it the imputed Darwinism of 'survival of the fittest' (Spencer, 2002: 444), the so-called civilizing mission that forms the 'white man's burden' (Kipling, 1954: 280), or the current popular/mass culture of cosmopolitanism, representation is never a 'nonpower laden discourse' (Kahn, 1995: 7). The broad understanding of identity refers to the location of one's 'self' in order to describe who and what one is. But this act of locating one's 'self' is not simple. It is underlined with an all-pervading sense of paradox and politics. 're-presenting' or presenting again, and representing or politically standing for. The act of politically "speaking for" as well as that of 're-presentation as in art or philosophy' includes a certain politics and arbitrariness and in both these aspects the act of representation becomes a function of power (Spivak, 1995: 28). 'third-world' may be euphemistically liberating but in the current scenario too, the hierarchies, imperialisms and the self/other dichotomies exist and govern the politics of identity. The term 'third-world' then occupies a significant space in the context of identity politics as it is evocative of subservient and regressive communities. It brings memories of the myths of oriental inferiority and the colonial 'mission civilisatrice' (Said, 1994a: 33) to the continuing western claim to supremacy. Thirdly, and on a slightly different plane, in the The common cultural and historical experience of the peoples of a nation is discursively employed by the means of 'stories, literature, popular culture and media' and together creates a shared imagination which manifests itself in the form of national identity (Barker 253). 'other' that national identity is determined against is the extranational and the international. It is ironic though that the extranational and the international both include the national to some extent or the other: the former in the sense of a default opposite, and the latter as a constitutive element. Whereas the creation of an extra-national identity is analogical with the While moving from the metaphor of the national to the extra-national, or the international, identity undergoes a change of scope and constitution. With colonial advancement identity and culture come to a space of interaction. The hegemonic discourse of identifying the west as a superior 'self' and the