Postcolonial Agency: Critique and Constructivism

273 Pages·2010·1.32 MB·English

by  Simone Bignall

PLATEAUS • NEW DIRECTIONS IN DELEUZE STUDIES
Series Editors Ian Buchanan and Claire Colebrook
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This book complements and balances the attention given by postcolonial
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theory to the revitalisation and recognition of the agency of colonised peoples.
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It offers new conceptual scaffolding to those who have inherited the legacy B
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of colonial privilege, and who now seek to responsibly transform this g
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historical injustice. Simone Bignall attends to a minor tradition within Western a
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philosophy including Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson and Deleuze, to argue that
a non-imperial concept of ethical and political agency and a postcolonial
philosophy of material transformation are embedded within aspects of post-
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structuralist social philosophy. O
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Postcolonial Agency provides readers with a significantly new understanding O
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of the processes of social transformation faced by many societies as they O
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struggle with the aftermath of empire. It does so by engaging readers with
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respect to their affective communities and their concrete ethics of relationship, L
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providing them with a valuable new way of conceptualising practices of post- G
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colonial sociability. It will be of interest to students and researchers in political N
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and postcolonial studies, cultural studies, critical theory and Continental
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philosophy. C
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Simone Bignall is a Visiting Fellow in the School of History and Philosophy at Q
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the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She is the co-editor, E
with Paul Patton, of Deleuze and the Postcolonial (EUP, 2010). A
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Cover image: Bronwyn Oliver, Ammonite,
2005, copper, 95 _ 90 _ 90cm.
Courtesy of the artist and Roslyn Oxley9
Gallery, Sydney.
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Edinburgh University Press barcode in
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22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF u
www.euppublishing.com rg
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ISBN 978 0 7486 3943 4
Postcolonial Agency
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Plateaus – New Directions in Deleuze Studies
‘It’s not a matter of bringing all sorts of things together under a single
concept but rather of relating each concept to variables that explain
its mutations.’
Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations
Series Editors
Ian Buchanan, Cardiff University
Claire Colebrook, Penn State University
Editorial Advisory Board
Keith Ansell Pearson
Ronald Bogue
Constantin V. Boundas
Rosi Braidotti
Eugene Holland
Gregg Lambert
Dorothea Olkowski
Paul Patton
Daniel Smith
James Williams
Titles available in the series
Dorothea Olkowski, The Universal (In the Realm of the Sensible):
Beyond Continental Philosophy
Christian Kerslake, Immanence and the Vertigo of Philosophy:
From Kant to Deleuze
Simone Bignall, Postcolonial Agency: Critique and Constructivism
Jean-Clet Martin, Variations: The Philosophy of Gilles Deleuze (translated
by Constantin V. Boundas and Susan Dyrkton)
Forthcoming Titles in the Series
Miguel de Beistegui, Immanence – Deleuze and Philosophy
Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Badiou and Deleuze Read Literature
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POSTCOLONIAL AGENCY
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RITIQUE AND CONSTRUCTIVISM
2
Simone Bignall
Edinburgh University Press
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For Katija, and in memory of Jim, Doris, Pat and Norm
© Simone Bignall, 2010
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
22 George Square, Edinburgh
www.euppublishing.com
Typeset in Sabon
by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and
printed and bound in Great Britain by
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 7486 3943 4 (hardback)
The right of Simone Bignall
to be identifi ed as author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgements vi
Introduction 1
I Critique 27
Chapter 1 The Problem of the Negative 29
Chapter 2 Postcolonial Appropriations 60
Chapter 3 The Problem of the Actual 100
II Constructivism 129
Chapter 4 Power/Desire 131
Chapter 5 Subjectivity 155
Chapter 6 What is ‘Postcolonial’? 192
Conclusion: Postcolonial Agency 231
Bibliography 238
Index 253
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Acknowledgements
Many people have assisted me in the production of this work, and to
each I extend my gratitude. In particular I thank Moira Gatens, who
gave wonderful support, encouragement and criticism on the whole
draft at various stages of production. I am extremely grateful for her
attempts to save me from my worst naiveties and for sustaining me
with her sense of humour and her timely help. Paul Patton, Diana
Coole and Leela Gandhi also gave invaluable advice on the manu-
script in its entirety, and while I have no doubt that many weaknesses
remain, I hope that I have accommodated their sternest criticisms. In
any case, their advice has immeasurably improved the work, and for
this I thank them.
I have greatly benefi ted from my long associations with Paul
Patton and with Duncan Ivison, both dating from a very early time in
the writing process when I took courses of study under their respec-
tive instruction. I appreciate their comments on parts of the work
written early on, and their assistance in helping me arrive at useful
ways of conceptualising the material. Kay Schaffer also gave early
advice on how to approach postcolonial theory as a problem, and
Carol Bacchi taught me how to ‘think the problem’ in the fi rst place.
I am most grateful to Victor Wilson for taking the time to talk with
me about ‘listening respect’, and the Ngarrindjeri community from
whom I have learnt so much about micropolitical practice. I also
owe thanks to Mark Galliford, Anna Hickey- Moody, Peta Malins
and other anonymous readers who offered collaboration, helpful
criticism and input on the sections of chapters submitted for pub-
lication in various journals and books along the way. With respect
to these, I gratefully acknowledge the permission given to include
material drawn from prior publications. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 develop
aspects of the work previously appearing in ‘Indigenous Peoples and
a Deleuzian Theory of Practice’ in A. Hickey-M oody and P. Malins
(eds), Deleuzian Encounters: Studies in Contemporary Social Issues,
Sydney: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007: 197–212. An expanded version
of Chapter 4 appears as ‘Postcolonial Agency and Poststructuralist
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Acknowledgements
Thought: Deleuze and Foucault on Desire and Power’, Angelaki
13(1), 2008: 127–49. The fi rst section of Chapter 5 initially appeared
as ‘A Superior Empiricism: The Subject and Experimentation’, Pli
18, 2007: 204–21, while the last sections of Chapter 5 and the third
section of Chapter 6 contain material also considered in ‘Affect and
Assemblage: Ethics beyond Enjoyment’, in S. Bignall and P. Patton
(eds), Deleuze and the Postcolonial, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 2010: 78–102. Chapter 6 develops ideas that were fi rst pre-
sented in an article co- authored with Mark Galliford: ‘Reconciling
Replicas: The Second Coming of the Duyfken’, Cultural Studies
Review 9(2), 2003: 37–68. The benefi t of an Australian Postgraduate
Award gave invaluable fi nancial support in the crucial early stages of
writing. I was fi nally privileged to welcome the assistance given by
Máiréad McElligott, Carol MacDonald, Claire Colebrook, Nicola
Wood, Eliza Wright, Ian Buchanan and others at EUP.
I acknowledge, with love and thanks, the supportive roles played
by my friends and family. I am particularly thankful for early talks
with Mike Pulsford and Sarah Fairhead, and the support given by my
parents Kathy and Robert. Special thanks are also owing to Maxine
Daly and Stan Woods, for helping in many ways. Finally, I am grate-
ful for my most joyful relationships: I give thanks to Greg Dayman
for sustaining me with love, faith and encouragement; to Lydia
and Oliver; and to Katija, who inspires me and makes me proud.
This work is dedicated to her. My hope is that she will inherit, and
create with others, a society that strives to develop its capacity for
experiencing joy.
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Introduction
Ours is a birth-t ime and a period of transition to a new era. (Hegel 1977:
¶11)
Twilight of the Idols – in plain words: the old truth is coming to an end.
(Nietzsche 1992: 86)
Critiques of colonialism and of associated forms of imperialism –
territorial, cultural, epistemological and so forth – are well estab-
lished and provide ongoing fuel for the deconstructive task of
decolonisation. However, certainly in the former imperial centres,
conceptual tools for imagining modes of constructive agency suited
to the reconstruction of post- imperial forms of society remain woe-
fully underdeveloped. For example, in their collaborative work on
Empire, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt argue that ‘the multi-
tude’ must ‘confront directly and with an adequate consciousness the
central repressive operations of Empire. It is a matter of recognising
and engaging the imperial initiatives and not allowing them continu-
ally to re-e stablish order.’ However, when they ask what ‘specifi c and
concrete practices will animate this political project?’ they admit: ‘We
cannot say at this point’ (Hardt and Negri 2000: 399–400). Without
an alternative conceptualisation of agency and ethical practices of
social construction, attempts to transform cultures infused with the
legacy of colonialism often remain in hiatus, structured by a form of
agency that has been complicit with practices of Empire, and which
postcolonial society must surely reject.
In later work, Hardt and Negri (2004) return to the crucial
problem of the practical political organisation of the ‘multitude’ in
resistance to Empire. However, in truth, their notions of Empire and
resistance signify something quite different from the familiar political
practices of European imperialism and national processes of decolo-
nisation, which have indelibly shaped the modern world. For them,
Empire describes a new form of global social control, which does
not function primarily through binary class hierarchies prompting
dialectical struggle, nor through a sovereign imposition of power,
1
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