Subjectivity Language And The Postcolonial

In Subjectivity, Language and the Postcolonial, Hannah Botsis draws on theoretical work that exists at the intersection of critical social psychology, sociolinguistics and the political economy of language, to examine the relationships between language, subjectivity, materiality and political context. The book foregrounds the ways in which the work of Bourdieu could be read in conjunction with ‘poststructural’ theorists such as Butler and Derrida to offer a critical understanding of subjectivity, language and power in postcolonial contexts. This critical engagement with theorists traditionally from outside of psychology allows for a situated approach to understanding the embodied and symbolic possibilities and constraints for the postcolonial subject. This exploration opens up how micro-politics of power are refracted through ideological categories such as language, race and class in post-apartheid South Africa. Also drawing on the empirical findings of original research undertaken in the South African context on students’ linguistic biographies, the book offers a unique perspective – critical social theory is brought to bear on the empirical linguistic biographies of postcolonial subjects, offering insight into how power is negotiated in the postcolonial symbolic economy. Ideal for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students on courses including social psychology, sociolinguistics, sociology, politics, and education, this is an invaluable resource for students and researchers alike.

Critiquing the positioning of children from non-dominant groups as linguistically deficient, this book aims to bridge the gap between theorizing of language in critical sociolinguistics and approaches to language in education. Carolyn McKinney uses the lens of linguistic ideologies—teachers’ and students’ beliefs about language—to shed light on the continuing problem of reproduction of linguistic inequality. Framed within global debates in sociolinguistics and applied linguistics, she examines the case of historically white schools in South Africa, a post-colonial context where political power has shifted but where the power of whiteness continues, to provide new insights into the complex relationships between language and power, and language and subjectivity. Implications for language curricula and policy in contexts of linguistic diversity are foregrounded. Providing an accessible overview of the scholarly literature on language ideologies and language as social practice and resource in multilingual contexts, Language and Power in Post-Colonial Schooling uses the conceptual tools it presents to analyze classroom interaction and ethnographic observations from the day-to-day life in case study schools and explores implications of both the research literature and the analyses of students’ and teachers’ discourses and practices for language in education policy and curriculum.

The contributors explore modes of social and psychological experience, the constitution of the subject, and forms of subjection that shape the lives of Basque youth, Indonesian artists, members of nongovernmental HIV/AIDS programmes in China and Zaire, and psychiatrists and their patients in Morocco and Ireland.

Glissant has written extensively in French about the colonial experience in the Caribbean. Britton (French, Aberdeen U., Scotland) situates Glissant within ongoing debates in postcolonial theory, making connections between his novels and theoretical work and the work of Frantz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhanha, and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Focusing on language and subjectivity, discussion moves between analysis of Glissant's theoretical work and detailed readings of his novels. Major themes central to his writing, such as the reappropriation of history, standard and vernacular language, and the colonial construction of the Other, are addressed. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In Post-Deconstructive Subjectivity and History, Aniruddha Chowdhury argues that deconstruction is not only not a dissolution of subject, as it is often opined, but an affirmation of the singular (ethical) subject and singular history, singularity conceived as alterity, difference and non-identity. Part of the emphasis of the singular history is to conceive the historical relation as figural and as one of repletion with difference. One of the distinctive aspects of the book is that it not only focuses on the tradition of phenomenology, but also extends deconstruction to critical theory, and postcolonial theory. Through his intimate reading of the canonical texts of the Continental philosophical tradition (phenomenology and critical theory), and postcolonial thought Chowdhury illuminates pertinent issues in Continental thought, and postcolonial theory.

Postcolonial studies, and the rich body of theory that it applies in its analyses, has transformed and unsettled the ways in which, across a whole range of disciplines, we think about notions such as subjectivity, national identity, globalization, history, language, literature or international politics. Until recently, the emphasis of the groundbreaking work being carried out in these areas has been almost exclusively within an Anglophone context, but increasingly the focus of postcolonial studies is shifting to a more comparative approach. One of the most intriguing developments in this shift.

This is the third volume in a trilogy on identity, memory and subjectivity. Contributors to the book share an ambition to combine personal, political and existential dimensions in detailed evocations of the ambitions and vulnerabilities of contemporary Africans. Their essays aim to forge alliances between patient local scholarship and adventurous theoretical speculation that should inspire new research and caution against bland generalizations about African marginality.

An essential guide to understanding the issues which characterize post-colonialism. A comprehensive glossary has extensive cross-referencing, a bibliography of essential writings and an easy-to-use A-Z format.