Postcolonial Ecofeminism (Robert J. C. Young)

You would not come to this class to read and learn about what you would normally get from standard media. So, the title of Monday’s discussion should not be a complete surprise. Its newness may require that you would read and meditate about these issues more carefully than you would with more familiar topics. These types of topics, nevertheless, would surely help you appreciate the human experience on the other side of nationalism.

You already know that in this context postcoloniality means the people’s ambivalent experience and subordinate position even after independence from a colonial power. In other words, it is that state in which a former colony has nominal sovereignty because the former master (or new foreign ones) has not left entirely or has taken on new forms of domination. The struggle for freedom, thus, continues, not so much by pushing the foreign away, but in redefining the social structures that continues to promote inequality and subordination, which colonialism donated to the new nation (“inherited from colonialism”).

But what do ecology and feminism have to do with postcoloniality?

Robert J. C. Young’s challenge in chapter 5 is simply asking us to appreciate the perspective of the women who struggled against colonial and later postcolonial domination in India and other parts of Asia and Africa. Their experience is not totally transferable to other postcolonial female experiences because each group had faced different set of trials and had had different types of needs. Rather, it is the overarching theme of resisting a modern patriarchal nationalism that puts them together in the same crowd.

The section titled “Gender Politics in India” illustrates how notions about traditional roles for women are hard to reject. Even Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the great reformer who appropriated ‘feminized’ modes of struggle, came at times to reinforce, instead of reject, conventional Hindu and puritanical Victorian concepts of women and femininity. Young vindicated Gandhi, though, by showing that he genuinely realized that women’s politics were more radical than most nationalism. It argued for equitable relations between men and women, sustainable connections to the land, and a life-style and medicine that encourage collective health. These are the contributions of postcolonial women and their politics.

In “Gender and Modernity” Young threw us several ideas about modernity that could easily mystify if you fail to pay close attention. On the one hand he wrote technology and a politics of egalitarianism defines modernity. On the other, he asserted that (mythical) cultural nationalists and their obsession for a fabled past, where women stayed at home and were submissive, is all part of modernity. But his more interesting contribution, by far, was that there are several types of modernities, that there are different types of Third World modern experiences, and that even the West represent a diversity of modernities (think about how different is New Zeeland from the U.S.). The best explanation of modernity, however, is Young’s, and it appears in this section: the interaction of the West with the Rest.

Women’s struggle for equality and sustainability is the epitome of the postcolonial predicament according to the section “Women’s Movement after Independence.” While nationalist movements sought desperately to present a unified face during the conflicts against the direct colonial rule, after impendence, the same nationalists (i.e., Religious nationalisms) who preached equality and freedom tried relegating women to submission. Since the role of women actually degenerated with the “nation,” postcolonial feminism had been at the forefront of a “politics of egalitarianism that supports diversity rather than the cultural uniformity demanded for nationalism.” (99)

The section “Feminism and ecology” shows how “macho” nationalism continued with the same colonial politics of exploitation. It reinforced the same old social hierarchy; it exploited workers, women and the environment. Like the colonial government, the new nations colonized forests and minds in responses to market-oriented and scientific notions of the time. This brought deforestation and desertification to local economies and otherwise clean ecosystems.

All of this colonization was for the short-term commercial values of the marketplace, “trying to control nature just as patriarchy tries to control women.” (102) Women, however, because of their experience as cultivators and family enablers possessed repositories of knowledges about balances in nature and the effects of ecological disruptions. It is no wonder, then, that it were women activists who began the Chipko (tree huggers) movement and developed a philosophy of politics that resisted centralization, corruption and exploitation. Instead, they promoted justice, self-sufficiency, and empowerment of local knowledges.

In the section “What makes postcolonial feminism ‘postcolonial’?,” Young asked if postcolonial feminism amounted to a separate strand within postcolonial thought. His answer was simply no. In this section Young addressed the malleability of postcolonial theory by explaining how feminism is at its core, and thus inseparable. It is also applicable to a wide variety of politics, and even though they might not include obvious gender perspectives, they all work from the same paradigm: the pursuit of collective justice and equality. These struggles may be waged inside the nation or in exile, as the examples of Radia Nasraoui and Gisèle Halimi shows.

In the last section, “The untouchables: caste,” Young readily admitted that postcolonial struggle is not limited to the legacy of the colonies. There are older vices that plagued modern society. In the Indian example, we see the caste system, which is much older than the British colonial government. The plight of the Dalits is its most explicit case injustice. “A quarter of the Indian population is made of such Dalits.” And they do most of the menial jobs, and live segregated from the rest, with little access to anything we normally see as good from modernity.

In class I want you to think seriously about the meaning of feminism and its opposite, namely, patriarchalism. How women’s social position as historically close to the land and responsible for sustaining families shaped their politics differently to that of men.

You should also ponder over the dark side of macho-nationalism, its insistence on cultural uniformity. Most importantly, I expect you to deliberate on the reasons and causes of nationalisms continuing with the same unfair hierarchies imposed by colonial rules, and with the exploitations inaugurated by the colonial masters.

How do you fit Young in Benedict Anderson's frame of thought? What parts correspond, even if slightly, and what elements are diametrically apart?

Official Nationalism and Imperialism

The incompatibility between nationalism and imperialism.

This is an entry for Anderson’s chapter, “Official Nationalism and Imperialism.” This may be his most thoughtful chapter yet. It feels long because it is long; and it is long because he made a sincere effort to evidence (though always on the shoulders of secondary sources) the historical arguments for this chapter’s thesis, namely, that the popularity of nationalism in the early 19^th century pressed the empires to appropriate it to avoid demise. Yet, since nationalism is incompatible with imperialism (his illustration of the thin skin over a large beast), it determined the destruction of old polyglot empires (in the case of Britain and Japan it was a radical transformation that rendered the monarch virtually useless). The emphasis here is on the Russian, Austrian-Hungarian, Ottoman, British and Japanese empires, and Hungarian and Siam's kingdoms.

Pay attention to the Pals and gastarbeiters (and compare it with the American Creoles), to the vernacular (again), to the program for education and greater political inclusion. How all these empires compare in regards to their official policy of nationalism? But, that seems contradictory: isn’t nationalism supposed to come from below? So, how this contradiction played a role in dismantling the empires? Is this a lesson to learn regarding the dangers of playing or trying to “manage” nationalisms from above?

On Familiar Grounds

The familiarity of Anderson’s argument might escape you among the many interesting stories about the falling and conquering national empires. But if you look carefully at familiar themes, concerns that the author continues to bring up, you may notice that the vernacular and the imagination cut across chapters.

In the previous chapter the new European nationalisms of the 19^th Century came into being because the bourgeoisie started reading, and this led to them imagining being part of a larger group of equals (the print media and capitalism). In this chapter the European Empires tried holding the nationalist tide by choosing a vernacular and elevating it to the status of state language. The reason for this was not simply as a reaction to nationalism, but for what could be seen as practical purposes. It seems ironic that the emperors that tried hard to make their empires work were the ones that ultimately sent their empires crumbling.

Look for example at the choosing of the German vernacular as the state’s language (the most logical choice for effective governance); it had the unintended effect of awakening all sorts of nationalisms among the Hapsburgs’ possessions, which ended breaking the empire (this chapter did not make reference to the 20^th Century, but it was this rivalry against the Germans in the former Hapsburgs’ possessions that set the stage for the bitter nationalist wars of the 20^th Century—the latest being the Balkan Wars, in which the U.S. troops were involved in the 1990s).

Imagination continued being the main and yet most subtle of Anderson’s proposition. In the previous chapter he argued that people began imagining a common nation with the reading of the vernacular; that national myths and legendary histories (which pretended to show readers that their nation was actually ancient) arouse the interest of people linked together by a vernacular, and led to the first stage in the formation of a nation.

In this chapter Anderson, again, showed how the way people imagined as a group itself, though they had not met each other, through the vernacular divisions created by imperial policies. In other words, the empires’ attempts to create state-languages forced imperial subjects to identify themselves with either the chosen imperial language, or with the ones left out.

The Newest of the New

The most original, and in my opinion, most important contribution of this chapter is appreciation of nationalism as a form of reaction to threats. With a broad comparative view Anderson gave its reader a clear sense of how the ruling classes took on the hobby of nationalism in order to maintain power and survive.

Though the Hanoverian (British), Romanovs (Russians), Hapsburgs (Vienna-Hungary) and Meiji (Japanese) converted, with varying degrees of success, to nationalism because of the threat of popular nationalism or external pressures, the most appalling example is that of the Magyar’s aristocracies. They resisted Vienna’s reforms for fear of losing power, and in turn created what today we could easily considered as fake nationalism.

The most unique and interesting case of nationalism from above, however, came from Siam (Thai). Chulalongkorn defended his kingdom from the same Western threats that had swallowed the entire continent of Asia (except Siam and Japan) with pure negotiation. He pitted European imperial powers against each other, and imported a politically powerless class of mostly Chinese, to work on his imperial projects.

But this political bonanza did not last long. After his death, Chulalongkorn’s son, Wachirawut, felt he had to promote a repressive nationalism against the second generation Chinese. He did not turn against the Westerners, but against the laborer immigrants that had established themselves there. This was the time, again, to promote the previous models (US and French) of nations, and enforce education, and the establishment of a state language.

Significant

We are starting to see the negative side of nationalism, particularly if it falls in the hand of a ruling or one with expansive pretensions (i.e. Japanese).

The heroic spirit of nationalism paints better memories when it is the engine behind an oppressed, ignored, and marginalized group. It is then seen, and often even justified as the case of the little guy against the mighty, David versus Goliath. It is then the case for asserting justice.

But, when an already powerful group harnesses the energy and creativity of nationalism, the destructive possibilities are countless. That is what the 20^th Century came to show.

Questions

What did Anderson mean with lexicographic revolution?

What is the link between this revolution and the imagined communities’ wish for territory?

What are the differences in forms of governance and risks between an absolutists (divinely appointed) monarchy, and a nationalist one?

What were the roles of Thomas Macaulay, and Sergei Uvarov?

What was the main risk that monarchs would have if they would try turning their empires into nations?

How Siam’s early nationalism differed from Japan’s?

The Creole Consciousness

My Senior Seminar Class is studying about Nation Building in the 19^th Century Caribbean. The emphasis will be on Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Haiti’s national ideologies of the time. But before arriving to the writings of the leaders and intellectuals of these countries we are studying some major works on nationalism and histories of the period.

The purpose of the following entry is to serve as a commentary and an introduction to the reading of chapter 3 and 4 of Anderson’s Imagined Communities. This is the 1991 edition reprinted by Verso in 2006. The chapters’ titles are 3) The origins of National Consciousness, and 4) The Creole Pioneers (follow this link for a more comprehensive overview of Anderson and his book).

We should begin by acknowledging that despite any limitation of Anderson’s thesis (and that of his many propositions), he has forced the scholarly community to reframe the idea of nationalism and nation-building, and help us reconsider many aspect of political and anthropological history, which used to be taken as given. At the end of this book we will read and study a few reviews that have criticized, and by doing so, have dig deeper into the subject, giving us a clearer view of the enigmatic historical process of nation-building.

As with all major works that purported to offer broad explanations of deep historical process, Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities is rigged with problems and critical historical errors. However, his concepts still illuminate, and his propositions challenge us to both accept and accept partially, and/or to contest them. And in order for us to develop healthy and honest postures of our own regarding his statements on nationalism we need to first read the original and learn his positions directly from him.

Wikipedia has an entry on him that may serve you as an introduction, but keep in mind that this entry (as with everything in Wikipedia) is an ongoing form of knowledge, and we are supposed to soon supersede it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagined_Communities

Sample of a Protestant pamphlet. Heavy use of printing, in the form of publications like this one, was a common Protestant strategy during the Reformation.

In the Third Chapter, Anderson’s main focus was on the development of the Print Media in conjunction with Capitalism as the propeller of proto-national consciousness. Look carefully at how he explained that both, Print Media and Capitalism, laid down the foundations for a collective sense of imagined community, which slowly came to supplant the Imagined Sacred Community—meaning: the Catholic community at large. Keep clearly in mind the period of time in which this is happening: the slow end of Feudalism, the birth of the “early modern age,” at the turn of the Renaissance, and the beginning of the exploration age and the beginning of absolute monarchies in Europe—he assumed that you would be familiar with the bare-bones of World and Western History.

Absolute monarchs believed that they owned their political powers to divine appointment rather than to common people wishes.

Become familiar with the meaning and significance of vernaculars, class differentiation and religious rivalries in Europe, the end of the “sacred imagined community,” and what he termed as “unselfconscious” processes (I will ask about this in class).

In the Fourth Chapter, Anderson tried hard to explain that not everything of importance in World History has happened only in Europe (in the 1991’s Preface he mentioned how horrified he was to notice how most people in Europe had ignored this chapter when he published it first in 1983, so in 1991 he renamed it as such: “Creole Pioneers,” to make greater impact). It were the Creoles, American-born Spanish and British descendents, which first created modern nations. Why and how come? These are the two most important questions he tried to answer in this chapter, and by doing so, he gave the reader a crash-course in comparative colonial history of the Americas (Spanish and British Colonial Americas).

As you read this chapter, keep in mind the differences and similarities of both histories (south and north), and how the issue of race, and distance (separation of the Atlantic, for example), made such an impact in creating a new group, which could be seen as a class and as an ethnic group: The Creoles. Take into account, also, how the late Bourbon administration in Spain, an enlightened monarchy, tried to make the empire more efficient and by doing so it pushed the American Creoles aside and helped create a sense of nationalism in colonial Latin America—which is somehow similar to what happened in British America (try noticing the way Anderson belittled the Spanish Empire).

Come prepare to class to discuss these issues, to produce your own questions and answer new ones.

The Great Divide: The first steps in the fabrication of the Eurocentric “me” and the non-White “other.”

It was during the third decade of the 16^th century, in the midst of the European Renaissance and of the religious Schism, which non-Catholics prefer to call The Protestant Reformation. Leo Africanus, a man that toddled the worlds of the Christian West and Africa, who was between Christianity and the Islam, published then the first modern ethnographic work about Africa. Since he knew both Europe and Africa well, and had been both Christian and Muslim, he could interpret both universes fairly well. In his effort to “explain” Africa to the European mind he emphasized the similarities: how both were not that different (though some critics have correctly made him responsible of helping in "creating" the false concept of "Africa" as a particular place).

But as the European world expanded beyond its original physical borders, and Europeans saw themselves masters of the rest, they found Africanus's description of the African person insufficiently disparate. There should be more striking differences between the Christian and the Muslim, between the civilized European and the barbaric African. The African and the European, no matter how pale the former would be, should be fundamentally distinct, different in kind, and altogether entirely dissimilar. Otherwise, how could you justify the swelling number of slaves being transported from Africa to the Americas, and some even taking residence as subservient individuals in marginal sectors of European cities? How can you call yourself a "master of equals"? That title did not ring attractive. Enter the Spanish adventurer and writer, Luis del Mármol Carvajal, with a revised edition of the Description of Africa. The first part came out in 1673 (BTW, there is no entry for Mármol in the English Wikipedia as of today).

Differently from Africanus, Mármol stressed the differences between the African, who is more African as he becomes darker, and the European, who is more European as he is more refined, Christian, and of course, lighter. In a recent article Mar Martínez Góngora tells us that Mármol helped initiate the imperialistic discourse, which Edward Said studied, that consisted in circulating a series of knowledges, real and imaginary, about the “Orient.” In other words, this is arguably our first Orientalist. I am not going to spoil the reading of this article, just to encourage you to read it. It is in Spanish, though, but a very readable one. Let me know if you would like a copy.

Mar Martínez Góngora, “El Discurso Africanista del Renacimiento en La primera parte de la descripción general de África de Luis del Mármol Carvajal,” Hispanic Review (spring 2009): 171-189.

The Hidalgo Family Celebrates Earth/Arbor Day in Blacksburg, VA

Just today a friend asked me why, considering the controversy around the politics of the environment and the few but loud dissenting voices about climate change, I celebrated the arbor and earth day with my family. In short, I told him that the way I thought about history compelled me to do it, and that if I was to err I would err on the side of precaution.

To use Logic and reason rather than emotion and tradition is what we try to teach our kids. This is the same lesson that my colleagues and I try to impart when we challenge students to study the past through critical analysis, instead of habitual ways of interpreting history. Applying the same thought processes to present times should be so simple choice as to require no further thought. And yet, it is not that easy to view our lives as historical because we are frequently caught in the same web of daily contingencies as the people from the past were.

We indeed live in a historical age, as every other individual in history has lived, and taking responsibility for our actions today is in a way applying logic and reason over emotion and tradition. In scholarly jargon this is akin to the awareness of personal agency. And as students of the past we are certain that our shifting relationship with nature has always had consequences.

We study the long term effect of human actions, and understand that often historical individuals do not realize how their behavior may translate into reverberations for generations to come. But we have no excuse now: because of the long view that history affords us we do notice the cost.

The logic is that even if we did not know the future in its fullest extent we can still figure out its probabilities. If we play with fire we run the risk of getting burned. Reason, the same analytical tool we ask our students to employ, requires us to weigh our prospects carefully.

The scientific community has reached a rare consensus about the human causes of global warming—a consensus that could easily leave other disciplines green with envy. Historians, for example, have not even reached a consensus on fundamentals like the origins of modern racism, and the impact of modernity.

This is not to say that the green consensus is uniform. Most scientists are scholars, and as scholars we tend to perceive the world in complex ways. We are likely to appreciate ideas as in transition and could definitely hold opposing views. Thus, not all of the scientists that have thrown their lot with the green community necessarily think like Al Gore.

Yet, that most scientists admit that the changes in climate and the environment that we are starting to witness are largely our responsibility should move us to action, not because they are unquestionably correct, but because they may just be right.

Scientists have erred before. There was broad scientific consensus on the biological formation of races, and similar support for eugenics. Indeed, most late nineteenth century scientists believed that geography determined race and social temper.

This racialism helped them explain why races living in the southern hemisphere appeared inferior and uncivilized. These premises resulted in large part because of poor empiricism and cultural myopia. They also suspiciously collaborated with Western imperial longings of domination and preservation of the status quo. But it was the scientific practice of unrelenting skepticism in sync with political activism that successfully challenged them.

The scientific community today, however, is not advocating conservatism. In fact, climate-change scientists are launching a frontal assault on the status quo, and reformists, taking their cue from them, are again on the streets holding everyone accountable.

The underlying message resonates with that of the 19th Century abolitionists. They asked their audiences to recognize how the consumption of sugar and cotton related to slavery. Today environmentalists and social justice activists continue to draw attention to seemingly indiscernible links that may also render our society immoral. For example, they say, New Englanders should know that Colombian coal, from one of the most hazardous open pits in the world, fuels their electricity. In other words, you may not know the origins of what you consume, but that ignorance is dearly expensive and cumulative.

That we have chosen to celebrate Earth Day by planting trees and by appropriating measures that will gradually decrease our carbon footprint, should not be seen as illogical fanaticism. It is, actually, the most reasonable course of action: it would be totally reckless to have seen the possibility of disaster and not have done anything about it. If by any chance it happens that our modern way of living turns out to be harmless, and that the green community’s suggestions for change were unnecessary, nobody is hurt, and nothing terrible would have come from this movement for change. What we would have, regardless, is a more politically and socially aware community.