Interventions: Postcolonial, Agency and Resistance

Abstract

(Yubraj Aryal interviewed Robert Young on postcolonial studies. Mr. Aryal focused his questions on the issues of postcolonial agency, resistance and new models of political and cultural practices in postcolonial studies.) Y. A.: Since you are editing a leading journal, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, what "interventions" are you making in the postcolonial fields in terms of postcolonial agency, modes of resistance, and the emergence of new models of political and cultural practice of alternative communities? What forms of new knowledge have you been attempting to produce in the field since 1998? How can academic and non-academic experiences of alternative communities, like that of Nepali communities, for instance, be of interest to your journal? What has characterized the postcolonia in the past decade from the point of view of my first three questions? R.Y.: Because it is conditioned by history, the postcolonial is always in a situation of transformation. The political context is always changing, and the interventions that we make will always be shifting as a result from year to year. The global political scene has altered profoundly since the journal began in 1998, most notably of course 9/11 and its aftermath, but also in other arenas such as the high profile developments of indigenous struggles in Latin America, Australasia, South Asia and elsewhere. I don't think there is anything that we could call "postcolonial agency" as such: rather there are forms of agency which manifest themselves in specific situations, particularly those of resistance and, one might add, triumph. Agency itself is governed by the conditions of its production. So if we take the Arab Spring, for example, we can see that the agency there is at once individual and collective, and takes the form not only of protest but a general withdrawal of consent to power. Ultimately, in a revolutionary situation, this is the most formidable kind of agency, because it means that the revolution is coming from below, rather than from a vanguard elite (a situation which always poses trouble). With respect to new forms of knowledge, we have not ourselves been trying to produce them as such, though we do when we can, but rather to see the journal as a vehicle by which others can be enabled to produce and articulate new forms of knowledge, particularly those which go outside conventional academic protocols. We are particularly interested in knowledge that proceeds from everyday life, from people whose knowledge does not typically count as real or authorized knowledge, and from those who are struggling to articulate their own knowledges within frameworks that do not easily accommodate them. With respect to Nepali communities, we have been much less active than I should have liked, and this is of course related to the material which we receive and the contacts which we have. But we should have been more proactive in seeking out material from (rather than merely about) Nepal. Y. A.: Who is the postcolonial subject (if there is any)? There is a general view that this subject is constructed by colonial residues. I see an ethical problem with this view because it assumes an impoverished form of agency. A dynamic understanding of the postcolonial subject, I believe, includes a conception of the self who resides outside of the postcolonial or outside of any set of political categories. It is not an effect of colonialism, but a difference a subject makes from colonialism. Do you agree? R.Y.: I'm not sure that there are 'postcolonial subjects' as such--that seems to me to give too much primacy to the postcolonial in the exercise and experience of everyday life. Of course there are subjects who are determined in various ways by the effects of the postcolonial, immediate or, as you put it, more with respect to colonial residues. To take one example, many subjects in postcolonial societies are subjected to the rule of law, and the legal system as a rule operates seamlessly with that which was established under colonial rule. …