Ethical encounters: Spivak, Alexander and Kincaid

Abstract

This essay seeks to engage with the idea of the possibility of meaningful ethical encounters with another. It does not attempt to engage with the broader discourse of ethics. Its purpose is simply to read a few of Gayatri Spivak’s discussions about ethics and alterity and offer a reading of three postcolonial texts in the context of that reading.

Keywords:

• ethical encounters
• alterity
• critical multiculturalism
• Alexander
• Meena
• Kincaid
• Jamaica
• Spivak, Gayatri