Mimicry and Hybridity
In reply to what she considered “Imperial apologists peddling fairytales,” Priyamvada Gopal attacks Niall Ferguson’s assertion that “when a Chinese woman marries a European man, the chances are relatively high…that only the first child they conceive will be viable” in defense of his thesis that preference for the “Other” is unnatural while racism or, as is preferred today “preference,” is innate and instinctive. Such an allegation recalls the fear, resistance and disgust with which the colonizer approached hybridity. In the effort to constrain hybridity, the colonizer categorized the culture of the colonized, through mechanisms such as Anderson’s Census, Map and Museum. Nevertheless, it was to mimicry that the colonizer turned to rule over the colonized, at once weakening its claim to authority as mimicry encourages the hybridity that the colonizer resists and equips the colonized to resist the authority of the colonizer. By refusing to accept hybridity yet utilizing mimicry within the colonized, the colonizer becomes a manifestation of ambivalence as he creates the conditions necessary for the drive for liberation and inevitably further hybridity.
In a sense consideration of hybridity assumes the existence of distinct categories that must some how mix and merge; moreover, in its opposition to hybridity, the colonizer appealed to the concrete existence of these categories that it arguably created. Some of the methods through which the colonizer created the identity and hence category of the colonized were the Census, the Map and the Museum. The census demonstrates the colonizer’s preoccupation with category, more specifically, categories that held meaning only for the colonizer. In interpreting Hirschman, Anderson notes “as the colonial period wore on, the census categories became more visibly and exclusively racial…it is extremely unlikely that, in 1911, more than a tiny fraction of those categorized and subcategorized would have recognized themselves under such
In a sense consideration of hybridity assumes the existence of distinct categories that must some how mix and merge; moreover, in its opposition to hybridity, the colonizer appealed to the concrete existence of these categories that it arguably created. Some of the methods through which the colonizer created the identity and hence category of the colonized were the Census, the Map and the Museum. The census demonstrates the colonizer’s preoccupation with category, more specifically, categories that held meaning only for the colonizer. In interpreting Hirschman, Anderson notes “as the colonial period wore on, the census categories became more visibly and exclusively racial…it is extremely unlikely that, in 1911, more than a tiny fraction of those categorized and subcategorized would have recognized themselves under such
Cited: Bhabha, Homi. ¬The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge Classics. 1994. 2006. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communites. London and New York. Routledge 1991 Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of The Earth. 1959