Epistemic daring: an interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

Abstract

Gianmaria Colpani (G.C.) and Jamila M.H. Mascat (J.M.): Let us start this conversa-tion from a rather conventional place: the matter of pre fi xes, which relates to substantial problematics of periodization and historiography. As we know, the ‘ post ’ in ‘ postcolonial ’ has long been debated, especially through the 1990s. 1 From those debates two key under-standings of the ‘ post ’ emerged. On the one hand, it has been argued that the postcolonial is also post-anticolonial, that is, postcolonial theory inherits a world radically trans-formed not only by the processes of decolonization but also by their limits and failures. On the other hand, the ‘ post ’ in ‘ postcolonial ’ is paradoxical as it registers both ruptures and continuities between the colonial past and the postcolonial present. There has not been an equivalent debate about the ‘ de ’ in ‘ decolonial ’ , so less e ff ort has been put into clarifying the periodizing and historiographical work performed by this di ff erent pre fi x. Could you situate yourself in this discussion and speak about the frictions you see between the two approaches?