Postcolonialism and the Deconstructive Scenario: Representing Gayatri Spivak

Abstract

The reputed ‘difficulty’ of the texts of Gayatri Spivak poses an obstacle to potentially productive reflection on, and debate surrounding, her critical positions and analyses. Motivated by the attempt to address this situation, I offer this discussion as an exegetical account of some of Spivak's principle categories and arguments. I demonstrate how certain themes, such as the aporia, catachresis, subalternity, and the relationship between the narrow and the general, function in Spivak's work as signposts en route to her formulation of postcolonialism as a deconstructive scenario. Crucial to this formulation is a type of political economy of intellectual production and academic work and the situating of the latter with respect to the international division of labour, informed by a Marxian critique of capital and, in particular, Marx's concept of value. Spivak demonstrates, via Marx, that an economic logic underwrites the practice of representation, in general, and, hence, all intellectual and academic work, in particular. Ironically, Spivak's idiosyncrasy with respect to the mobilisation of Marx in her work, and one of the reasons for her perceived difficulty, lies in the unexpectedness of her orthodoxy.