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that has also explained and justified the subjection, depression and
exploitation of non-western societies. Spivak has stressed the potential
usefulness of Derridas thought for making effective critical interventions
in the discourse of colonialism, the contemporary global economy,
and the international division of labour between the First World and
the Third World.
Deconstruction, a critical practice introduced by French
philosopher and critic Jaques Derrida, strongly serves to introduce
the assumption of Western thought by reversing or displacing the
hierarchical binary oppositions that provide its foundation. She
challenges the metaphysical premises that shape Western science
and philosophy. She argues that the structure determining these
discourses always presuppose a centre that ensures a point of origin,
meaning, being or presence. According to her, the centre (unique)
constituted that very thing within a structure which while governing
the structure, escapes structurally. Logocentrism, she says,
establishes the metaphysical imperatives of truth, consciousness and
essences that underwrite Western literature, theology and science.
As per her views, any attempt to interrogate or to destroy the centre
invariably causes the production of another centre. In other words,
the entire history of the concept of structure must be thought of as a
series of substitutions of centre for centre, as a linked chain of
determinations of the centre. Spivaks Translators Preface to Of
Grammatology was written at a time when Jaques Derridas work
was not widely known or understood, in the English-speaking world
of philosophy and literary criticism. Here she offers a comprehensive
account of the key philosophical debates that influenced Derridas
early work as well as providing an intellectual context for Derridas
deconstructive philosophy. Here she challenges the conventions and
expectations of a Translators Preface to produce a scholarly and
critical introduction to Deridas deconstructive philosophy that is equal
to many of the subsequent philosophical commentaries that have
been published about Derridas thought. Spivak has mobilized Derridas
deconstruction of western philosophy to expand and develop debates
among Third World intellectuals about the cultural legacy of
colonialism, the ability of western Marxism to describe the continued
exploitation of Third World workers by First World multinational
corporations; and the question of whether western feminism is
appropriate to describe the histories, lives and struggles of women in
the Third World.
Vol.-II 4 July-Dec. (Winter) 2010
66
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