Teilw. zugl.: Frankfurt (Main), Univ., Diss., 2007

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.

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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Por meio de uma investigação que incide sobre as práticas críticas, o trabalho apresenta uma elaboração sobre o potencial político da desconstrução para uma leitura de textos literários comprometida com reivindicações identitárias feitas às margens dos discursos hegemônicos. O gesto desconstrutivo, como proposto pelo pensador franco-argelino Jacques Derrida, desafia a estabilidade de categorias que fundamentam estes discursos, tais como “essência”, “natureza”, “origem” e outros nomes metafísicos que envolvem a idéia de identidade a si, demonstrando, desta forma, que toda estrutura é atravessada por uma falta constitutiva. Sugerindo uma noção de identidade enquanto diferença, o trabalho examina estratégias gerais da desconstrução e propõe uma análise de suas apropriações nos esforços teórico-críticos dos autores indianos Gayatri Spivak e Homi Bhabha no que diz respeito à leitura de produções textuais que articulam questões de gênero e diferença sexual e de nação e diferença cultural respectivamente. / By way of investigating critical practices, this work deploys an elaboration on the political potential of deconstruction aimed at a reading of literary texts committed to identity claims from the margins of hegemonic discourses. The deconstructive gesture, as proposed by French-Algerian thinker Jacques Derrida, challenges the stability of categories that ground these discourses, such as “essence”, “nature”, “origin”, and other metaphysical names which involve the idea of identity to itself, demonstrating, thus, that every structure is crossed by a constitutive lack. In suggesting a notion of identity as difference, this work examines general strategies of deconstruction and proposes an analysis of its appropriations by the theoreticcritical efforts of Indian authors Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha in the reading of textual productions that articulate questions of gender and sexual difference, and of nation and cultural difference respectively.

Por meio de uma investigação que incide sobre as práticas críticas, o trabalho apresenta uma elaboração sobre o potencial político da desconstrução para uma leitura de textos literários comprometida com reivindicações identitárias feitas às margens dos discursos hegemônicos. O gesto desconstrutivo, como proposto pelo pensador franco-argelino Jacques Derrida, desafia a estabilidade de categorias que fundamentam estes discursos, tais como “essência”, “natureza”, “origem” e outros nomes metafísicos que envolvem a idéia de identidade a si, demonstrando, desta forma, que toda estrutura é atravessada por uma falta constitutiva. Sugerindo uma noção de identidade enquanto diferença, o trabalho examina estratégias gerais da desconstrução e propõe uma análise de suas apropriações nos esforços teórico-críticos dos autores indianos Gayatri Spivak e Homi Bhabha no que diz respeito à leitura de produções textuais que articulam questões de gênero e diferença sexual e de nação e diferença cultural respectivamente. / By way of investigating critical practices, this work deploys an elaboration on the political potential of deconstruction aimed at a reading of literary texts committed to identity claims from the margins of hegemonic discourses. The deconstructive gesture, as proposed by French-Algerian thinker Jacques Derrida, challenges the stability of categories that ground these discourses, such as “essence”, “nature”, “origin”, and other metaphysical names which involve the idea of identity to itself, demonstrating, thus, that every structure is crossed by a constitutive lack. In suggesting a notion of identity as difference, this work examines general strategies of deconstruction and proposes an analysis of its appropriations by the theoreticcritical efforts of Indian authors Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha in the reading of textual productions that articulate questions of gender and sexual difference, and of nation and cultural difference respectively.

Por meio de uma investigação que incide sobre as práticas críticas, o trabalho apresenta uma elaboração sobre o potencial político da desconstrução para uma leitura de textos literários comprometida com reivindicações identitárias feitas às margens dos discursos hegemônicos. O gesto desconstrutivo, como proposto pelo pensador franco-argelino Jacques Derrida, desafia a estabilidade de categorias que fundamentam estes discursos, tais como “essência”, “natureza”, “origem” e outros nomes metafísicos que envolvem a idéia de identidade a si, demonstrando, desta forma, que toda estrutura é atravessada por uma falta constitutiva. Sugerindo uma noção de identidade enquanto diferença, o trabalho examina estratégias gerais da desconstrução e propõe uma análise de suas apropriações nos esforços teórico-críticos dos autores indianos Gayatri Spivak e Homi Bhabha no que diz respeito à leitura de produções textuais que articulam questões de gênero e diferença sexual e de nação e diferença cultural respectivamente. / By way of investigating critical practices, this work deploys an elaboration on the political potential of deconstruction aimed at a reading of literary texts committed to identity claims from the margins of hegemonic discourses. The deconstructive gesture, as proposed by French-Algerian thinker Jacques Derrida, challenges the stability of categories that ground these discourses, such as “essence”, “nature”, “origin”, and other metaphysical names which involve the idea of identity to itself, demonstrating, thus, that every structure is crossed by a constitutive lack. In suggesting a notion of identity as difference, this work examines general strategies of deconstruction and proposes an analysis of its appropriations by the theoreticcritical efforts of Indian authors Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha in the reading of textual productions that articulate questions of gender and sexual difference, and of nation and cultural difference respectively.

This dissertation critically evaluates the issue of the `silencing' of the subaltern woman in the 1988 version of Gayatri Spivak's essay `Can the Subaltern Speak?' The conclusions reached are then related to the novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by the Namibian woman writer Neshani Andreas. Chapter 1 deals with the essay `Can the Subaltern Speak?' and the `silenced' subaltern woman, examining both Spivak's theory on this issue as well as criticism of this theory by different postcolonial theorists. Chapter 2 presents aspects of both the creative and political practice of women, specifically the woman writer, in certain countries in Africa. Chapter 3 deals with the novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas and explores issues like the `silencing' of the subaltern women in the novel, opposition to patriarchal oppression and the engendering of agency by both the writer and the characters in the novel. / English Studies / M. A. (English)

This dissertation critically evaluates the issue of the `silencing' of the subaltern woman in the 1988 version of Gayatri Spivak's essay `Can the Subaltern Speak?' The conclusions reached are then related to the novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by the Namibian woman writer Neshani Andreas. Chapter 1 deals with the essay `Can the Subaltern Speak?' and the `silenced' subaltern woman, examining both Spivak's theory on this issue as well as criticism of this theory by different postcolonial theorists. Chapter 2 presents aspects of both the creative and political practice of women, specifically the woman writer, in certain countries in Africa. Chapter 3 deals with the novel The Purple Violet of Oshaantu by Neshani Andreas and explores issues like the `silencing' of the subaltern women in the novel, opposition to patriarchal oppression and the engendering of agency by both the writer and the characters in the novel. / English Studies / M. A. (English)

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak gilt als eine der Gründungsfiguren des postkolonialen Feminismus. Ihr Profil als postkoloniale Theoretikerin gewann sie mit der Veröffentlichung ihres Werkes In Other Worlds – Essays in Cultural Politics. In ihren Texten weist Spivak auf Widersprüche innerhalb der Nationen des Globalen Südens hin. Sie fokussiert, u. a. mit Hilfe der analytischen Konzepte Repräsentation (representation) und Subalternität (subaltern), insbesondere auf die problematische Rolle von Geschlechter- und Klassenverhältnissen in postkolonialen Widerstandsbewegungen, auf den Gegensatz zwischen den indischen Eliten und den unteren Bevölkerungsschichten und auf die gewaltsame Unterdrückung von Frauen des Südens.