The Cunning of History:

Abstract

Part polemic, part theory, part history, part personal narrative, this essay charts the volatile terrain of multiculturalism. As a metaphor of empire, the approaching Columbian Quincentenary serves as the symbolic vehicle to thread together postcolonial discourse, feminist theory in the flesh, and identity politics. The explosion of issues of diversity, pluralism and anti-racism in social theory-particularly feminist theory and politics- has engendered a passionate debate over identity and experience in the construction of oppositional "subjects." Against the hegemonic cultures-whether Euro-American or mainstream white feminist-activists of color are creating counter representations of "self" and theories of identity politics. The argument developed here celebrates such decolonization moments in feminism but critiques certain implications of identity politics. When "identities" become pure, exclusive, innocent, the potential for diverse and democratic collectives is threatened. The essay reminds "us" that we are all others of invention, and asks that otherness not be reified, but put forward as one fertile resource of feminist solidarity.