The thesis explores the political dispositions lurking within the practices of vision, construed here in terms of the visible and invisible. It locates this investigation firstly, in the representational culture of colonial Singapore and secondly, in postcolonial Singaporean performances. Although the thesis takes as its point of departure conceptualizations of the practices of vision by Bhabha, Foucault, Lefebvre and Lacan, as the argument proceeds, the exploration takes its cue increasingly from the thought of Derrida. The chapters explore how the relationship to Otherness is variously effaced or enacted in practices of the visible and invisible. The thesis starts with an exploration of the practices of the visible in colonial power relations and postcolonial multiculturalism, construed here as a metaphysical sovereign political disposition, the predicates of which are the theological-political securing of the I Am Who I AM. Within this relationship to Otherness is a violent ethico-political relation to Otherness. However, in the thought of Derrida and Levinas, the relationship between 'us' and the 'Other' is the condition of possibility for both the Self and Other, for justice, responsibility, associated by an openness to the Other, including the willingness to be unsettled by the surprise of the Other-to-come. The second half of the thesis investigates the possibilities of a radical relation to the radically non-relational. Firstly, this radical relation to radical alterity is construed as encompassing a practice of the invisible, that of a poetics of the (im)possible. Secondly, this radical relation to Otherness is conceptualized as a 'writing in blindness', the counterpart of which is eschatological desire, accompanied by the 'art of the perhaps'.

The core of this essay is the book "The God of Small Things" written by the Indian novelist Arundhati Roy. The strong power of both caste systems or traditional principles and politics is the starting-point of this essay. For this reason, as the center of this tale is a Hindu family of high caste, and consequently very traditional, the identity of the women in the book are of great interest. The women in "The God of Small Things" are very fascinating not only for the reason that they are strongly influenced by their life stories, but even more for the influence their actions and identities have on their children. Of course, none of them can be judged for the shape of their identity, as they all are a merger of culture, religion and politics. More exactly, the divided identities of these women are discussed in relation to firstly their Hindu identity acquired by their society and traditions, and secondly their colonial/post-colonial identity nearly imposed upon them by the colonial forces. In this essay I discuss and analyse three generations of women, a total of four characters. In addition, two other characters are used in order to illustrate the differences that women from the colonizing country (Great Britain) hold in contrast to women from the colonized country (India).