This project seeks to address issues in cultural politics brought on by difficulties in cross-cultural communication, particularly as these problems manifest themselves in twentieth century Latin American testimonial narratives. By developing a critical line of questioning drawn from Gayatri Spivak's influential article "Can the Subaltern Speak," one aim herein is to analyze and describe the ways in which the narrative, Me Llamo Rigoberta Menchú Me Nació la Conciencia, translated into English as I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, exemplifies the incommensurable nature of cross-cultural discursive attempts. This is done through a twofold method: one, by placing heavy emphasis on the role of the reader as constitutor of meaning in a (textual) discursive transaction between culturally-different agents, and two, by drawing attention to the role of historically-determined interpretive frameworks in the reception and interpretation of Subaltern ennunciative acts. The latter, I argue, is necessary for gaining an adequate understanding of receiving and conveying meaning within cross-cultural paradigms. To this end, as an example of the problems, contextual and methodological, that arise in such communicative attempts between cultures, I take up the academic controversy stirred up by the publication of David Stoll's Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans. Lastly, I investigate the socio-political implications of such failures in intercultural communication, giving rise to secondary lines of questioning such as finding ways to create favorable conditions for the possibility of genuine cross-cultural dialogue. One possibility, I suggest, is adopting a method of reading/listening which, borrowing from phenomenology, is continually on the way, always unfinished, and lets the life of the subaltern emerge by remaining open, not just to what is said, but to what is left unsaid.

This dissertation analyses a number of key themes in the work of postcolonial theorist and literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and uses her ideas to argue for the usefulness of both deconstructive and postmodern thought in a postcolonial context generally, and in South Africa in particular. The early part of the thesis presents a brief overview of Spivak's work (Chapter 1) and discusses its relationship with Derridean deconstruction and what I have called "progressive postmodern thought". Chapter 2 explores in detail Spivak's use of theoretical concepts adapted from, or closely related to, deconstruction. Perhaps the most important of these is catachresis - the idea that all naming is in a sense false, and the words we use to conceptualise the world must be seen as "inadequate, yet necessary". The thesis looks at how Spivak foregrounds the methodological consequences of this insight in her own practice of constantly revisiting and rethinking her own conclusions, and also at the political consequences of recognising specific terms like "nation", "identity" or "woman" as catachrestic. Closely related to this area of Spivak's work are her idea of "strategic essentialism" and her adaptation of Derrida's concept of the pharmakon -- that which is simultaneously poison and medicine. Chapter 3 relates Spivak's work to three key areas of postmodern thought: alterity, and the ethics of the relationship between self and other; Lyotard's notions of the differand and the "unpresentable"; and aporia, or the ethical and political consequences of undecidability. I argue here that all of these emphases are potentially very useful in postcolonial studies, particularly in relation to the predicament - of the gendered subaltern, and that they help to define a progressive postmodern politics. The remainder of the dissertation discusses individual essays at greater length. Chapter 4 focuses in the main on "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1988) and Spivak's arguments concerning the nature of subalternity and the politics of representation. Chapter 5 examines Spivak's engagement with French Feminism and her feminist critiques of mainstream deconstruction, arguing that Spivak's use of deconstruction undermines the opposition between linguistic and material forms of oppression and hence between theory and practice. Chapter 6 focuses on Spivak's reading of literary texts and raises issues concerning, inter alia, the production of the first world self at the expense of the third world other; the limits of both metropolitan theories and narratives of national liberation, democracy and development in relation to the experience of the gendered subaltern; reading the text of the subaltern body; the (impossible but necessary) ethical relationship between first world feminist and the subaltern in neocolonial space; rights and responsibility; the need to respect subaltern selfhood; and the possibility of what Spivak calls "learning from below". Finally, I look at the relevance of Spivak's thought to three areas of South African political and academic life: conflicts over representation within the local Women's movement; notions of national origin and national identity; and debates over deconstruction and the relationship between the academy and society. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

The exploitation of land in Northern Sweden has caused a significant depletion of grazing grounds for semi-domesticated reindeer. This is a threat to the indigenous Sami reindeer herders of Sweden, who rely on the grazing ground in order to sustainably feed their herds. In the last decade, a significant amount of grazing land has been lost due to the construction of wind power parks (WPP) in important grazing regions. This thesis examines the discourse surrounding a WPP built in Härjedalen for IKEA. The WPP was built on Glötesvålen, a unique highland used for grazing by Mittådalen, a local herding community. Through a dissection of electronic sources and semi-structured interviews, the author conducts a discourse analysis to identify the most prevalent narratives surrounding the construction of IKEA’s WPP on Glötesvålen. An inductive approach is used to identify underlying ideologies present in the discourse through a relevant theoretical framework. The results show a pervasive enthusiasm for the WPP as a pivot towards renewable energy which mirrors the ideology of ecological modernization. The results also find a critical narrative which lifts the uneven power dynamic experienced by reindeer herders. This narrative is understood through the lens of Spivak’s (2010) “Can the Subaltern Speak?”. An additional discourse found is the symbolic issue between industrial ecological transitioning and the right to reindeer husbandry as a cultural heritage. / Exploateringen av mark i norra Sverige har orsakat en betydande förlust av betesmarker för renskötare. Detta hotar den svensk-samiska rennäringen, som förlitar sig på betesmarken för att hållbart mata sina hjordar. Under det senaste decenniet har en betydande mängd betesmark gått förlorad på grund av den ökande mängden vindkraftsparker (WPP) på, eller intillrenbetesmarker. Denna avhandling undersöker diskursen kring en WPP byggd i Härjedalen för IKEA. WPP byggdes på Glötesvålen, ett låg-fjäll som tidigare haft strategiskt viktiga betesmarker för samebyn Mittådalen. Genom en dissektion av elektroniska källor och halvstrukturerade intervjuer genomför författaren en diskursanalys för att identifiera de vanligaste narrativen om IKEAs vindkraftpark på Glötesvålen. En induktiv metod används för att identifiera underliggande ideologier som finns i diskursen genom ett relevant teoretisk ramverk. Resultaten visar en genomgripande entusiasm för vindkraft som ett steg mot förnybar energi. Detta narrativ speglar ideologin för ekologisk modernisering. Resultaten hittar också ett kritisk narrativ som lyfter den ojämna maktdynamiken som renskötarna upplever. Detta förstås genom Spivaks (2010) "Kan den underordnade tala?". Ytterligare en diskurs som upptäcks är symbolfrågan mellan industriell ekologisk omställning och bevarandet av renskötseln som kulturarv.

<p>The purpose of this paper is to analyse how work by Swedish artist Ylva Ogland (born in 1974) function as an eye-opener for the social marginalisation of people identified with homosexuality, prostitution and drug addiction. Although highly present in reality, these phenomena were historically, and are still today, hidden from view in public discourse. I have focused on the installations Rapture and Silence and Things Seen, and the still-life painting called Xenia. I argue that these artworks carefully represent the above-mentioned marginalised groups, by way of references to comparable motives in the history of art, from neoclassicism in France, to realism and romanticism.</p>

In this essay I have read the novels Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys 1966), Desirada (Maryse Condé 1997) and Invisible Cities (Italo Calvino 1972) through Édouard Glissant’s notion of the primary scene in Philosophie de la relation. Poésie en étendue. I have examined how the primary scene can be seen as a political/an aesthetical strategy in the three novels. This was done in order to question the blunted tool of the notion of the identity, which is often considered in studies regarding ”postcolonial novels”. Invisible Cities is not belonging in this tradition, the method I used was ”The travelling theory” of Edward W. Saïd that proposes to let theories travel through different fields instead of trying to understand their ”original” meaning. I compared these novels in accordance to Glissants theory of questioning the notion of origins. The analysis compares how the novels depending on in wich tradition they have been read is being seen with different eyes. Novels interpreted as ”postcolonial novels” are usually read as a symptom of lack of origin. Whereas the protagonist tryes to understand the loss of identity. Glissants theory eases the analysis to reach other possible meanings of the novels, where they both meet and differs. My results indicate that The Wide Sargasso Sea and Desirada create a complex relation to time and space, where the primary scenes in these novels are steeped through different time levels. The two novels present a new way to understand time that rejects historicity, create new tools for thinking and evaluates new strategies to exist in the world, without origins in the classical meaning; Rhys through her imagery and Condé through her weave of times. The same goes for Invicible Cities, only though Venice the primal scene in the novel stays the center of interest, and even though borders of time and space are being questioned, the novel tends to make Venice the guzzling synthesis. / Édouard Glissant, Jean Rhys, Maryse Condé, Italo Calvino, Édward W. Saïd, Mary Lou Emery, Spivak.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how work by Swedish artist Ylva Ogland (born in 1974) function as an eye-opener for the social marginalisation of people identified with homosexuality, prostitution and drug addiction. Although highly present in reality, these phenomena were historically, and are still today, hidden from view in public discourse. I have focused on the installations Rapture and Silence and Things Seen, and the still-life painting called Xenia. I argue that these artworks carefully represent the above-mentioned marginalised groups, by way of references to comparable motives in the history of art, from neoclassicism in France, to realism and romanticism.

With the progress of globalization, it is becoming increasingly evident that there lies within it a Westernizing thrust that forms a part of the European colonial legacy. Postcolonial theorists, exemplified by Homi K. Bhabha, Edward W. Said, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, have, over the last twenty years, produced some of the most influential discourse-analysis of colonialism, and critiques of neocolonialism. Their works, committed to various streams of poststructuralism, nonetheless exhibit some debilitating epistemological problems this thesis demonstrates by recourse to Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard. In conclusion it offers an alternative approach to globalization derived from Kierkegaard's dilemma of first principles in Either/Or, and Wittgenstein's discussion of language games in Philosophical Investigations .

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<p>My aim with this essay is to examine the relationship between identity positions and spatial positions in Jean Rhys novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). Through this I wish to show how Wide Sargasso Sea problematize the analytical cathegory "women", as well as classic western canon, and feministic eurocentric readings of the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte to which Wide Sargasso Sea correspond.</p>

My aim with this essay is to examine the relationship between identity positions and spatial positions in Jean Rhys novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966). Through this I wish to show how Wide Sargasso Sea problematize the analytical cathegory "women", as well as classic western canon, and feministic eurocentric readings of the novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte to which Wide Sargasso Sea correspond.