Post-Colonial practices and narrative nomads

Abstract

I begin by assuming three things. First, I assume that the institutions of colonization continue to function in a colonized culture even after the withdrawal of a physical colonial presence. Second, I assume a particular type of colonization phenomenon among indigenous elites which involves appropriating the Master Narrative. My third assumption is that human experience, cognition and identity are fundamentally narrative in nature. Having made similar assumptions, a number of theorists have focused on issues of cross-cultural conflict, physical dislocation and experiential rupture in the formation of subjectivity. Critical engagement with colonial narratives and the re-examination of indigenous pre-colonized narratives has been recently popular. Some have engaged in unlearning privilege, while others have examined the practical methods, and unique position, of subaltern subjects who have managed to maintain indigenous ways of being while simultaneously adapting to colonial impositions. Following this line of inquiry, I am interested in the possibility of the formulation of new narratives which make sense of (but do not necessarily integrate) one's cultural past with the subject effects of colonialism. I will suggest that rather than attempting to create a central space, the project should be to fully embody hybrid ontologies and to identify with dislocation. The project should be to fully occupy marginal space.