THE LOCATION OF CULTURE Homi K. Bhabha R London and New YorkFor Naju and Krarshedi Bhabha onary of Caares Catalan in Pubcon Dats ‘Scaogu od fort Bok ava te Lary of CongressJon "Tam loving my face so much Tan tj of oe 1 Kring ay neo a THE COMMITMENT TO THEORY LOOKING FoR THE FON ‘To end, as Ihave done, with the nest ofthe Phoenix, not its pyre is, in another way, to retum to my begining inthe bond. I Gordimer nd ‘Morrison describe the historical world, forcibly entering the house of art and fiction in order to ln 1 ‘Thee isa damaging and self-defesting assumption that theory is neces sarly the elite language of the socially and culturally privileged. Its said that the place of the academic ere is inevitably within the Eurlite to produce a discourse of the Other that reinforces ts own power Knowledge equation? Before [azn accused of bourgeois voluntariem, Uberal prgenatism, seademicit "Among the major conte tors to the development of the Third Cinema as precep and practice ‘why the West caries and exploits what Bourdiew would cal ts symbole Capital The condition is all too familar, and it bs not my purpose ‘he vicious circuits of surplus value tht ink ld capital to Thirdthe one ae an enabling ‘the recto and verso ofa shet of paper to uae & in the uncommon context of politics. th the process of intervening ideologically’, as describes the ole of imagining’ or representation in the practice of politics in his response to the British election of 2987 For Hal, the notion of hegemony implies a politic of i feinvestment, any alteration i ts field of experience oe verifical indeed any diference in the problems to be solved, can led #0 the ‘emergence ofa new statement the diference ofthe same. Tn what hybrid forms, then, may a polis ofthe theoretical statement merge? What tensions and ambivalences matk this engimatc place Foucaul’s sense of the strategic the theoretical enterprise has 10 2fn his argument, the unveal neutral space of the Third Person as the of the po the ambivalent point of textual addeess, ts emergence through a forst of political projection. dng Ml through the stateges of writing’ that Ihave suggested, reveals that one cannot passively follow the line of argument running ‘through the logic of the opposing ideology. The textual proces of polit cal antagonism initiates 3 contradictory process of reading between the lines; the agent ofthe discourse becomes inthe same time of utterance, tough the enunciation of a politics. and the closure of the rea, that ensure the efficacy of stategc thinking in the discourses of Reupalitk Tis this to-and-o, this ora of the symbolic process of political negotiation, that constitutes a politics of Address. Is importance gom beyond the unsetling of the essentials the rane of an theoretical discourse The language of extgue is efecuve not because {i keeps forever separate the terms of the master and the slave, the aercantlist and the Mardi, but to the extent to which it overcomes ‘he given grounds of opposition and opens up a space of translation: a ‘only to stes the fully toca ahd discursive diferance between them. vould not like my notion of negotiation to be confused with some syndiclist sense of reformism because tat is not the politica level tat 25is being explored here. By negotiation I atempt to draw attention #0 the strat ty of negotiation or translation, as Thave sketched it hat ‘oro main advantages, Pst it acknowledges the historical connectedness between the subject and objet of critique 0 thal there can be no ~ class sexuality ot ‘ae always in historical and philosophical tension, cor cross-reference with ‘ther that this considerable soc 2 ange was a spinoff the assstruggle or that it was a repudiation of the pots of class from 2 ‘This has two significant effects. It enables Hall to see the agents of For the moment, the act of negotiation will only be interrogatry, Can such split sub Sexcialst hegemony to feflect the divided wil, the fragmented 2% : 21 tocanios on cotrone "Conant To THEORY popultn? Ifthe poly of hegemony i, quite Mera, smigne Which 1 thik & crcl in srctring ou sense of what the sit of rhea mae aon ii a et theory may be inte ct of determing our speci pital oes u ‘What s at stake in the naming of eiieal theory as “Western”? It viously designation of iaiional power nd ideological Eurocen. tect. Critical theory offen engages with texts within the familar tra Inlet have tro ned fos crain lat to Srnedge 0 4‘THE coMITMENT T0 THEORY lations of indigenous traditions in thei opposition to colonial authority demonstrate how the desire of the signe, the indeterminacy of inter textuality, can be deeply engaged in the postcolonial struggle against dminant relations of power and knovledge, Inthe following words of the missionary master we hear quite distiney, the oppositional voces ofa culture of resistance; but we also hear the uncertain and treatenlng process of cultural transformation. I quote fom A. Duffs infuenti India aed nia Missions (1839 ‘Come to some doctrine which you believe tobe peculia to Revel- tion; tel the people thet they must be regenerated or bor agai HE LOCATION OF CUETURE eee ae See ty and voc, Fucus archeology of i emerge of ee, {for the colonial condition than the Marsisant reading of the master-slave snes. 1H may be posible to produce such a translation or transformation i ‘we understand the tension within erical theory between is instititional zesistance of the colonized populations tothe Word of God and Man — (Christianity and the English language. The transmutations and trans ten authority ofthe Bible was challenged and together with it 3 34 Ramemghnent noon oft ‘rience of Chita and ‘Sdierntiaon. And t's the very nebony of clture asa Knwwedge By IE COMMITMENT TO THEORY of see tah which a ue in the conept and moment of ‘But native intellectuals) forget thatthe forms of thought and what [they] fed on, togeter with ‘The enunciation of cultural seeps iy Si, of past and present, tr 35disruptive temporality of enunciation displaces the narrative of the Wester nation which Benedict Anderson so perceptivly describes as being writen in homogeneous, serial ime” __fuboniy when we understand atl ctrl statment nd systems radictory and ambivalent space of enanc vison of revolutionary cultural and politcal change as ac of ect could nt be aad a that the meaning and eymbas of culture have ni Primordial unity or uty; that even the same signs can be appropriated, Tealated,rehistorcized and read anew: Fanon’s moving metaphor ~ when reinterpreted for & theory of cu: ‘url signification ~ enables us to see not o ly the necessity of theory,‘THE LOCATION OF CULTURE