Dear all,
I was saddened and not a little disturbed to read of Kudjoe's decision
to leave the Caribbean Studies mail list, though able to guess something
of his reasons. I am very grateful for his decision to allow his thoughts
to be circulated, and for Amanda's recognition of the importance of
encouraging Kudjoe to write back to the list.
I am one of the white, British Ph.D. students towards whom his comments
are (in part) directed, and if I may, I would like to make a few points.
I joined this list about a month ago, partly to discover what other
researchers in the field were doing, partly to establish contacts, and
partly to engage in critical discussion of the methodological, theoretical
and ethical issues which many of us face. I have not been disappointed on
the first two points, but I have been - despite Amanda's valiant
promptings - on the third. Is there no one out there concerned with the
sort of issues Kudjoe raises?
My own work is on the ending of slavery in Barbados in the late
eighteenth- and early nineteenth-centuries. In so doing, I am drawing
heavily on the work of a series of post- and anti-colonial theorists, be
they from a literary mold (Brathwaite, Spivak, Said, Bhabha) or of a more
traditionally-oppositional type (Beckles, Williams, Genovese). To SOME
extent, the connections between this sort of historical investigation and
the structures of power mentioned by Kudjoe are less direct, though no
less important. Myths of emancipation as the white man's gift to the
grateful, passive slaves must be challenged.
Despite my uneasiness with using the study of slavery as the basis for a
thesis, I believe that bell hooks' call for the interrogation of
white identities, instead of the usual focus within colonial discourse
analysis on alterity/otherness (typically blackness), offers the basis for
a form of study of the culture of colonialism which does not replicate
patterns of speech and silence, domination and subjugation. In this way,
perhaps white, British researchers can contribute to the critical analysis
of Caribbean societies, whose histories are intimately bound up with our
own.
Just a few thoughts, perhaps many will disagree. Please tell me so.
Finally, can I urge Kudjoe NOT to leave the list. His critical edge will
be missed.
Yours,
Dave
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David Lambert
and
Department of Geography, Sidney Sussex College,
University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
Downing Site, CB2 3HU, UK.
Cambridge,
CB2 3EN, UK.
Tel: (01223) 740878 (home)
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