Beyond Postcolonial Theory

Rocking the boat at the postcolonial establishment, Beyond Postcolonial Theory positions acts of resistance and subversion by people of color as a central to the unfolding dialogue with Western hegemony. What postcolonialism hides - racism and exploitation - assumes center stage here. Taking issue with the prominent postcolonial theories of Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak, acclaimed scholar E. San Juan, Jr. argues for a politically activist stance.

The testimonies and signifying practices of Rigoberta Menchu, C. L. R. James, and intellectuals from Africa, Latin America, and Asia are counterposed against the dogmas of contingency, borderland nomadism, panethnicity, and the ideology of identity politics and transcultural postmodern pastiche. San Juan questions the metaphysical premises of hybridity, deconstructed subalternity, the fetish of difference, and other cliches that stereotype supposed "Third World" cultures.

Analyzing a version of postcolonialism in current popular discourse on the Philippines, he also highlights the plight of the Filipino migrant worker while interrogating the academic versions of multiculturalism as well as civil society. Reappropriating certain ideas from Gramsci, Bakhtin, Althusser, Freire, and others in the radical democratic tradition, he recovers the memory of national liberation struggles (Fanon, Cebral, Che Guevara) on the face of the triumphal march of globalized capitalism.