Postcolonial agency and poststructuralist thought

Question 1

How can Deleuze’s concept of desire be used to counteract postcolonialism?

Answer 1

• Used to conjure a geographical materialism of desire to counteract the constant slippage of post- in postcolonialism (Noyes, 2010)
• “The analysis of desire, is immediately practical and political…for politics precedes being” (ATP: 203)

Question 2

What is the “constant slippage” of the post- in postcolonialism mean?

Answer 2

Constant slippage in the sense that the post- not only aspired to surpass an outmoded theoretical model but also implies going beyond a specific point in history, that of colonialism and Third World nationalist struggles

Sohat (1992)

Question 3

How is it more productive to view postcolonialism?

Answer 3

• It is more productive to view the postcolonial as describing a qualitative different, yet to come, in practices defining social construction, self-concept and attitude
• To this end, postcolonial has a past, present and a future

Question 4

Why is it hard to rework agency in postcolonialism?

Answer 4

Without an alternative conceptualisation of agency and ethical practices of social construction, attempts to transform cultures infused with the legacy of colonialism often remain in hiatus

Bignall (2008)

Question 5

How could postcolonial practice could assist in the resistance in contemporary forms of globalisation and Empire?

Answer 5

• Postcolonial practice could assist in the creation of new assemblages of the multitude
• Through the disposition of constructive agencies
• Beyond the scope of this essay, but a Deleuzean understanding can be highly influential here

Question 6

How can Deleuze be adopted to rework postcolonialism?

Answer 6

• Through geographical materialism of desire (Noyes, 2010)
  
  • Postcolonial theory can attempt to realise the political implications of a materialist theory of desire
• Deleuze can be utilised to refuse the distinction between historical and epistemological modelling to blur the boundaries between discursive action and the political

Question 7

Where does the political potential of geographical materialism of desire lie?

Answer 7

Lies in the conception of bodies outside the impasses of represented subject and subjective lack

Question 8

Where does the political force of the postcolonial idea lie?

Answer 8

Lies in its attempts to disable the global economy’s easy displacement of socio-political and economic disparities into the heart of the subject

Question 9

If political action is possible within the postcolonial idea, what is required?

Answer 9

It requires political agency to be ‘assembled’ in what D&G describe as a machinic manner

Question 10

What is the narration of flight in terms of a geographical materialism of desire mean?

Answer 10

• Ceconceptualization of subjectivity in terms of a geographical materialism of desire means that critical discourses becomes a matter of flight
• The flight of capital from the land and its abstraction of land development is mirrored in the dematerialisation of desire and its rematerialisation in the body of the split subject

Question 11

How do D&G’s Capitalism and Schizophrenia and postcolonial theory narrate the process of flight?

Answer 11

• Critical arration of the singular, contingent edifices of history as a shared project

Question 12

What are two main implications of desire and postcolonial theory for Bignall (2008)?

Answer 12

• Material disunity in postcolonial society as the creation of desire itself
• Reconciliation must involve a transformation of material reality, at the level of desiring-production

Question 13

If desire is not localed in a subject, where is it located?

Answer 13

• Desire directed primarily at the proliferation of desire
• Desire aims to produce: this production is itself the process of desire
• In AO, D&G argue that all production is “machinic” in the connection and aggregation of elements into a complex product

Question 14

How do desiring-machines shape productive processes?

Answer 14

• By coupling elements together or diving them, so they are free to couple with other elements
• Desire becomes “the principle…of composition which determines the existence of any machinic assemblage”

(Patton, 2002)

Question 15

How is desire itself actualised in concrete relations?

Answer 15

• Is actualised alongside with the assemblages it brings about
• Desire as an abstract cause it can only be analysed in terms of the particular instance and the concrete assemblages in which it is actualised
• For every desire, one must analyse how it is actually embodied

Bignall (2008)

Question 16

What does Deleuze’s focus with Spinoza enable?

Answer 16

Enables the development of ontological actualisation in terms of desire

Bignall (2008)

Question 17

How does Deleuze present the Spinozan concept of desire?

Answer 17

• Present the Spinozan concept of desire (conatus) that shifts desire from types of bodies and actions to the types of sociability they engage in and produce
• Desire orients a body in its relation to another -> this orientation “typifies” the relationship; giving it a particular character

Question 18

How does Deleuze find a method of social analysis in Spinoza?

Answer 18

Finds in Spinoza a method of social analysis that evaluates different types of social relation by considering the nature of productive desires at work and the types of sociability produced

Question 19

What does Conatus describe?

Answer 19

• Describes fundamental desire of any existing body to preserve in its being
• Bodies are never given but always sin process of being constituted by relations with other bodies
• Therefore, conatus refers to fundamental desire of bodies to form “joyful” associations that will maintain or enhance their power to exist

Question 20

How can the “ethics of joy” supplement Deleuze’s philosophy?

Answer 20

• Ethics of joy from conatus supplements Deleuze’s philosophy to be a useful guide for postcolonial practice
• Logically requires creation of compatible associations in which participants in the relation refrain from destroying or detracting from each other

Question 21

What does the notion of postcolonial gestur etowrads?

Answer 21

• Gestures towards a historically different quality of relationship between formerly colonising and colonised bodies
• Beginning a new kind of sociability that enables their joyful “compossibility” (Bignall, 2008)

Question 22

In relation to conatus how can colonisation be related to bodies?

Answer 22

Colonisation involved imposition of one body upon another, creating sad association historically marked by the loss of indigenous traditions and the closed insularity of the colonial culture that resisted learning anything from indigenous knowledge

Bignall (2008)

Question 23

WHy is there no realistic topiton of ending the assocation that was born with colonisation?

Answer 23

• In postcolonial nations, indigenous and non- indigenous bodies occupy same territory -> each experience a significant sense of belonging
• This sense of belonging is now a commonality
  
  • Challenge faced is to develop compatible ways of belonging together; refrain from destroying potentially joyful complexity of association
• Enrich both communities that form new and more complex practices of interaction and belonging
• Process of becoming-compatible, guided by an ethic of joy or “compossibility”

Question 24

What does enabling a novel conception of agency develop?

Answer 24

Develops a creative, productive and associative (rather than imposing and dominating) that is fitting for practices of post-colonial selfhood

Question 25

How should D&G’s social philosophy of desiring-production be interpreted?

Answer 25

• Should be interpreted in light of Deleuze’s reading of Spinoza
• Enables us to discern, within their philosophy, appropriate tools for a future-directed social practice guided by an ethic of joy
• Put to work the incremental development of a common notion of postcoloniality