52, voLXXV147-158 Dispositio/n ofMichigan andLiteratures, ofRomance 2005Department University Languages

THESES AND THE

ON

HYBRIDITY, ANTAGONISM, AMERICA* IN LATIN SUBALTERN

Bruno Bosteels Cornell University

1 atin American subalternstudies emerge out of two related but source,which is priheterogeneoussources. The first apparently nature,comes in response to the marilyof a historico-political with the rise to the continent, on last successful revolutionary experience power and the subsequentelectoral defeatof the Sandinistasin Nicaragua. that correspondsto this More generally,the strandof subalternthinking of most,if not all, the loss of referentiality first source is forcedto register to the rationalcore related or indirectly political projectsthatwere directly of Marxism. 4

* This LanModern ofthe 2001Annual atthe wasfirst Meeting presented paper toexpand I hadhoped washeldinNewOrleans. which Association, guages that tothe texts more a much so as toincorporate eachthesis reply painstaking John for this debate: interlocutors constant as the serve Subalternity Beverley, DukeUniversity inCultural andRepresentation: (Durham: Theory Arguments of ThePolitics ofDifference: TheExhaustion Alberto Moreiras, Press, 1999), Duke University Studies Cultural LatinAmerican Press, 2001), (Durham: andSubalterNeoliberalism Sideofthe TheOther Gareth Williams, Popular: andthetwo Duke in America Latin Press, 2002), University (Durham: nity American TheLatin andintroduced editions byIleanaRodrguez, prepared DukeUniversity Reader Studies Subaltern Press, 2001)andConver(Durham: latinoamericanos subalternos/contextos Estudios de tiempos: estado, gencia andonly subalternidad 2001).Maythisfirst cultura, Rodopi, (Amsterdam: to indebtedness ofmytremendous however be a token, footnote insufficient, for future as wellas anearnest this collective work, repayment.

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to its endlessly which remainsirreducible As an intervening doctrine, version as an academic body of knowledge, Marxism indeed rewritten gatheredits historicalforce froman indissociable tie to threebasic referin thelatter halfof thenineteenth theworkers'movementstarting ents: first, of communist and/or the creation centuryin Western Europe; second, fromthe Soviet Union all the way to Cuba; and, socialist nation-states, finally, the anticolonial liberationiststruggles, with their concomitant cenin the mid-twentieth search fornational-popular starting sovereignty, defeat of the electoral turyin the so-called ThirdWorld. In Latin America, the Sandinistarulingpartyin 1990 mightwell signal an eventsimilarto the the fortheEuropean Left,namely, one thatSolidarityin Poland represented which,while followinga gradjoint collapse of all threeof these referents ual and relativelyautonomouspath in Europe, had oftenbeen fused intoa movein the case of various revolutionary synchronicity nonsynchronous Latin America. mentsthroughout doctrine crisis of theMarxistintervening If thisglobal and immanent historicaland political, source of subaltern embodies the first, studies,then and of a theoretical which is more its second source, philosophical nature, comes in response to the so-called closure of metaphysicsand the deconThis strandof subalternstudies of modernfoundational struction thinking. thelimitsof cultureand politicsby expandingthe to think through attempts radical critiquenot just of essentialismbut also, or even more so, of the and social constructivliberalmulticulturalism, verykindsof particularism, without ism that oftentake up the place vacated by essentialistthinking a different logic of the social, thepolitical,or thecultural. reallyoffering of For this second source of subalternstudies, the deconstruction the metanot of and active only degrounding unworking metaphysics-the as yet physics of presence but also of the new metaphysicsof difference anotherpresence, as the presence of "the other"-isprecisely the strongest intellectual weapon against the persistent"othering" of the subaltern, includingby intellectualswho otherwisewould want to be loyal to the latter'sveryown cause.

2 These two sources are of unequal weightforthe various groups and subgroups that give shape to the field of subalternstudies in and about Latin America. Thus, JohnBeverley and Ileana Rodriguez can easily be

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THESES ON ANTAGONISM,HYBRIDITY,... 149 while AlbertoMoreiras orientation, seen as having led the way forthe first the second one. Aside of the burden much of and GarethWilliams shoulder issue of generabut perhaps not wholly indifferent fromthe circumstantial to me is the crucial seems tional distinctions, however, what absolutely the encounterbetween these two question of how we ought to understand thepeculiar articuof thought strands and, thus,how we should understand in Latin and the historico-political lation of the theoretico-philosophical in earlier that American subalternstudies. That is something,of course, days- who knows if they can still be called the "good old" days might have been compared to the fusionof theoryand practice.From both sides, however,the possibilityof such a fusionnowadays appears to be compromised, not in the least because the typical formsof political organization but to bringabout this fusion-aboveall, the party-form, thatwere thought or the guerrillagroup-seemto have completely also the vanguardminority exhaustedtheirhistoricalpotential. a deep sense of Latin American subalternstudiesthusbringtogether wake of uprisings defeat,in the past revolutionary crisis,if not of outright or at theveryleast theclosure of a longstandand an acute sense of failure, stilloperativein the dialectic and in of metaphysicalthinking, ing tradition the accompanyingphilosophy of consciousness in general. Both of these of subaltern mergeat theprecise pointwheretheproblematic developments studies comes to coincide with the impasses of modernformsof political new fieldof experiand practice.Indeed, as thename fora relatively theory of metathe subalternemergeswhen the deconstruction ence and thought, physical thinkingand the critique of the philosophy of the subject as while at habits of dialectical thinking, consciousness clash with persistent the same time having to come to termswithall the traditional presupposithat still and tions regardinghistory underpineven, or espesubjectivity

doctrineof Marxism. cially,the intervening both individually to be distinguishable In sum, even while continuing the two strandsthat togetherprovide the ground for and generationally, Latin American subalternstudies are, on the one hand, Marxist and hisand philosophico-theoretideconstructive and on the other, torico-political, now famous in a reference, cal. Thus, when Florencia Mallon, compared who influencedthe emergence of subalternstudies in the major theorists of theApocalypse, she could have addedLatin America to thefourknights these imposing figurescame as was already implicitin her critique-that on and Foucault sitting Gramsci with ridingin by pairs on two high horses,

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one, and Derrida and Spivak on the other.However, I do not thinkthatit is a matterof choosing, say, in favor of "good" historical work over and Rather,the whole point of subalagainst too much "evil" deconstruction. ternstudies lies in the combination,no matterhow uneven in its development, of both strands. In other words, and to returnto the knightly metaphor:insteadof checkingwitha hammerwhich horse'sarmoris better the equipped against the onslaughtof criticisms, includingself-criticisms, task is to putbothunderone and the same yoke. The proper articulationof these two sources of subalternthought, allows the criticin new and unheard-of then, ways not only to theorizethe demise of revolutionary politics,but also to politicize the theoryof differof metaphysics.The most thorough-going ence and the deconstruction passage throughthis double movement is in my eyes not only useful but absolutely indispensable for anyone who is criticallyengaged today with culture,and politics-inLatin America as much as questions of literature, elsewhere. 3 What I would call the subalternpredicamentderives fromthe parafusion doxical tensions and incompatibilities that,despite theirattempted into a unique historicaland theoreticalconjuncture, beset the two sources of subaltern studiesin Latin America. These two strandsof subalternthinking time and again split offand become discernibleprecisely at the point where one eitherputs forth the to the aporias of a deconstruction of wager of a decision or remainsfaithful all such wagers and decisions,by pushingthemto thelimitof theirinherent in thename of whattheynecessarilyhave to exclude, or leave impossibility as a stubborn remainder. behind, Subjectivelyor affectively speaking,this forcedchoice makes itselfheardin different by a pessimistic ways, whether or nostalgic judgment regarding the possibility and durabilityof new social agents, or by a more radical, even messianic counter-hegemonic outside of all establishedhorizons,foran end to all traditional expectation, formsof agency and hegemonyin general,includingabove all thepromise of reconstituting a populistcounter-hegemony.

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THESES ON ANTAGONISM, HYBRIDITY,... 151 4 Despite this predicament,in the realm of cultural practices with which they are most commonly associated, the two strandsof subaltern share a common opponentin therecentproposals for,and hopeful thinking of,phenomenaof culturalhybridity. descriptions Instead of interpreting the exchanges betweenhighand low, between elite and mass culture,between the modernand the native or indigenous, wherebythe latteralways tend to be considered more primitivebut also more genuine,proponents of "hybridcultures"such as Nstor Garca Canclini privilegethe inventivenegotiations thattake place, in both directions, betweenthesebinaries.From thestandpoint of thesubaltern, however,such no matter how flexible and creative precarious exchanges, theymay well remaininscribedand containedin a longstanding appear to be, nevertheless and dominantreconciliatory tradition of dealing with social, economical, in Latin America. political,and culturalcontradictions in other not words, Hybridity, only when seen as normativeor probutperhapseven froma purely, if disingenuously, or grammatic descriptive of remains close to the much phenomenologicalpoint view, suspiciously older modernizingideological projects thatwere aimed at forgingan allinclusivenational or even continental based on the overcomingof identity, In sharpcontrast, differences. thenotionof the subaltern, followingits hisis inseparablefromthebasic factof antagonistic inflection, torico-political social relationsand theunequal division of labor and power,while, followdeconstructive the subalternis in factpreorientation, ing its more strictly that which resists sublation in any process of cisely always already whether culturalor otherwise. hybridism, 5 The polemic over hybridity and the subaltern is perhaps nothing morethanan updatedrevision,in thecontextof rampant of a neoliberalism, earlier the one the notionsof transculturation and debate, major regarding heterogeneity. Here, too, the former categorypretendedto account forthe renewal of mostlydominant culturesby theincorporation of elementsfrom themaror from social strata. A canonical example, oftendiscussed by gins popular Josefina Ludmerin herown analysis,would ngel Rama and confirmed by

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be the integration the complete absorptionof various oral and, ultimately, traditions of gaucho songwriting into high so-called gauchesque literature forthe purposes of nation-building and its culturalor ideological legitimation of a moderncentralizedstateapparatus.Such processes of transculturwere of course neverfar ation,as theexample can barelybegin to illustrate, removedfromstate-sponsored to a thistime projects produce similarunity, in termsof ethnicand racial identity-projects which in realitymeanta systematicwhitening of thepopulationand the spreadingof nation-widepoliin cies of assimilation and miscegenation.The categoryof heterogeneity, contrastto thatof transculturation, is presentedby way of acknowledging the insuperableplurality and diversity of social, cultural,ethnic,and racial in the of all societies of Latin Americacomponents contradictory totality even if the principalsite of emergenceforsuch attempts at recognizingthe fact of heterogeneity is found in the Andes, as in the work of Antonio rather or Mexico. Polar, than, Cornejo say,in Argentina 6 If we compare both debates, we can state thatheterogeneity was to transculturation what the subalternis to hybridity, thatis to say, a radical to the of resist erasure and/or proposal reinscription antagonisms-whether on behalfof thestateor (even) through the ideological supportof civil sociIn in another turn of the screw,unlikelyto be the last, Alberto ety. fact, yet Moreiras has poignantlyredirectedthe notion of the subalternagainst the devised by older criticaltraditions. verycategoryof heterogeneity All hitherto existingformsor models of culturalpolitics,whetherin termsof transculturation, or heterogeneity, would thus in the hybridism, final instance give up on the radical desire of somehow coming to terms withthe recalcitrance of the subalternin Latin America. Today, all proposals forthenegotiation, or even thebare affirmation, of difference, in princimost often also in of remain close to, if uncannily ple yet spite themselves, not complicitouswith,the otherwiseuniform trendtowardsthe globalization of capital. Difference, to be more precise, risks always already being or necessaryunderside,of the nothingmore thanthe intrinsic counterpart, toward the of the world market ravaging identity homogeneous tendency is today and its attendant Difference ideology of wall-to-wallconsumerism. of the form of of the law generalperhapsonly barelydisguised apparition ized equivalence.

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THESES ON ANTAGONISM,HYBRIDITY,... 153 Latin Americanculturalstudieswould stillhave to learnto foregothe - a heritageat workeven in therevand profoundly liberalheritage humanist olutionarymovements in Cuba and Nicaragua which puts a conciliatory of cultureat the service of the modernstateor civil society, understanding - lliterate, all the while ignoring or continuingto exclude the subaltern in the name of progressand indigenous,peasant, and urban poor-whether or by way of pastiche and nomadic play. Thus, whereas trandevelopment, all risk to and even the proposal of heterogeneity sculturation, hybridism, followed by the have become ideologies of failed modernnation-building, of transnational capital, only the sustainedrecognition reignof postmodern instance of social and of theantagonistic thesubaltern structuring any given holds thepromiseof a radical-democratic society. 7 and identity, Behind the interplay of difference then,what is actually or theorized turns out to revolve around an at stake unspoken, insufficiently hislogic of contradiction includingthe logic of how a given contradiction to begin with. Even more broadlyspeaking, toricallybecomes antagonistic as an the possible renewal of such a theoryof antagonisticcontradictions obscure fateof dialectiunfinished task is bound up withthe stillrelatively the crisis and historicaldemise of Marxism. cal reason after no Dialectical thinking, according to a firstcritical reformulation, of the alienation and objective subsequentreapprolongerproceeds by way priationof histoiyby a unitarysubject but by way of the internalscission, as well or division,of any subjective forceby its structural determinations, back upon the latter a torsionor as by the possible torsionof the former in theend. at theoutsetand destructive forcedtwisting thatis symptomatic all thinkIn a second and more openly deconstructive reformulation, in a to be or continues to be dialectical ceases dialectical, only negative ing intoa sense, when it no longerproceeds by the finalsublationof difference in the of the nationthat is embodied unity ultimately figure higherspiritual state or the sovereign,but by the interminable acknowledgementof what thisveryprocess of overcomingalways necessarilyleaves behindas a stub- namely,thatwhichby definition has no proper or supplement bornremnant name but only a genericone, and which mightas well be called the indivisible subaltern remainder.

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mentionedearlierfinda comIf thetwo strandsof subaltern thinking and hybridof transculturation in thecontemporary mon target propositions the doctrineof in a common ally ity,thenI should add thattheyalso share or structural overdetermination, causality,which in one of the latestavatars of dialectical materialism at the very point of its imminentcollapse- was borrowed fromthe theoryof the subject in psychoanalysis.According to this doctrine,any given social formationis overdetermined by a cause of which it is the whose effectsvanish completelyinto the very structure a paradoxical is thus order absent cause. What gives coherence to a social technicalsense of theword as used in set thestrict termor class, in a fairly whatsoeverotherthan those thatcan be read ory,which has no properties off symptomaticallyout of the structurefrom which it is inherently excluded. causality,which in my Following the doctrineof absent or structural not only eyes still marks one of the most productivepoints of transition more and but and poststructuralism also, between structuralism importhe and of deconstruction the between psychoanalytical metaphysics tantly, critiqueof the humanistsubject, the subalterncan thenbe definedas that exclusion to thehegemonic. which standsin a relationof internal outcome of thevarious projectsof subIn thissense, thefundamental alternstudies comes down to the recognitionof precisely such inevitable antagonismsand relationsof internalexclusion thatdefinethe social field fromwithin.Even the Maoist line, so oftenquoted by JohnBeverley,about at the perin the midstof the people" is aimed historically "contradictions bloc- including,or espesistenceof antagonismwithinthenational-popular cially,under socialist rule. Finally,the logic of internalexclusion can also outside. The subalternis then that be phrased in termsof a constitutive which paradoxically lies both inside and outside the sphere of the hege- being the wild embodiment of all that has to be monic social regime included out in orderforthereto be a social orderand the possibilityof a political decision to begin with. 9 outside of to articulatethe subalternas the constitutive Any attempt in the hegemonic into a viable political or artistic projectruns my eyes the

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THESES ON ANTAGONISM,HYBRIDITY,... 155 risk of fallingback into the melodrama of consciousness and the predicamentsof thebeautifulsoul. Of course, in principle,therecan be no such thingas subalternconclass consciousness,insofaras thedialectic sciousness,let alone a subaltern of consciousness has since its very inceptionbeen wound up in its own inherent limit,and in the relationof internalexclusion between the cogito and the unconscious. In this sense, the subalternis thatwhich should radiHowever, thereremains a cally break with all melodramatictemptations. risk that the about the inevitablepresincreasingself-reflexivity tangible remainder would become in turnthe irrefutable ence of a subaltern guarantee of radicalism in the purest sense. This would explain the trend to all hitherto continueupping the ante in the debate regarding existingforms of culturalpolitics in Latin America. Every social order is ultimatelyoverdetermined by that which it excludes and includes as its constitutive outside. Any simultaneously intothepolitical arena,though, runstherisk projectto bringthisremainder of always alreadybeing nothing morethana reactionformation thatas such What is remainsinscribedwithinthebounds of the existingstateof affairs. built upon the conmore, insofaras all hegemonic regimes are inherently trolled production and reproduction of marginal counter-hegemonic built and projects,insofaras power and the moral law too are inherently fortified their infraction and affirmaby transgression, any straightforward tive projectmustaccept thepossibilityof alreadybeing partof the cycle of what a social order needs for the sake of its sustained existence. What remainsproblematicabout this otherwiseacute insightis thatany specific change will inevitablybecome liable to the criticismthatit misrecognizes its own conditionsof possibility, insofaras these are also at the same time In many quarters,in fact,a radical philosophy conditionsof impossibility. has indeed already come into existence thatderives its irrefutable strength A of this from such metacritical awareness arguments. heightened precisely should neitherserve as an alibi forradical quietism nevertheless, liability, nor allow the criticalthinker to hide behindthe mask of the beautifulsoul, freeof all worldlyguilt. 10 Faced withtherelationof internal from exclusion,withheterogeneity or with the constitutive outside inherent in what within, any given identity,

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and acting,aside from ifanything can be thetask of radical criticalthinking the so-called politics of recognition?Recognition,thatis, of the structural of the necessaryfailureof all articuof closure and therefore impossibility latorypractices, precisely because of the resistance of the subaltern?In theirsearch forproductiveanswers to these questions, the various strands of subalternstudies can also be seen as leading the way in the directionof two distinct alternatives. stillinvolves thesearch fora viable populist A first answerultimately Faced with the unlikely durationof any contestatory counter-hegemony. social movement today, however, this response often involves a turn move back upon the limits of academic disciinward,in a self-reflective reason. Subaltern studies,fromthispoint of view, signals the need plinary the structural to register inadequacy of the discourses and practicesof universityknowledge, precisely by teaching and .learning,as much as by unlearning,fromthe absence, or vanishing presence, of the subalternin theirmidst. not A second answerinvolves an even moreradical problematization, but of the whole the of future of projects, counter-hegemonic just viability thispointof as such. Subalternstudies,from horizonof hegemonicthinking the future but for dreams onto view, no longer projects the nostalgia past an as yetundreamt-of raises thequestionwhether rather politicsof thepostcan be conceived at all. Is there,in other hegemonic,or infra-hegemonic, - a words, a retreatfromthe double bind of hegemony and the subaltern withdrawalthatwould not be an escape but ratheran exodus, and thusthe promiseof a new beginning?

11 Latin American cultural studies, in theirvarious subalternorientations,stillhave to come to gripswithan even deeper problem,namely,with the veryrelationbetween artand politics,and by extension,between literwhich seems to underlie an ill-defined ary criticismand political theory, notionof cultureas such. trends of critithe most important For much of thetwentieth century, cal and dialectical reason have tendedto sutureartonto politics,and to delegate the capacities for thought to the twin operations of either Subalternstudiesare aestheticizing politics or politicizingartand literature. perhaps no exception in this regard. In fact,the critical insistenceon the

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THESES ON ANTAGONISM, HYBRIDITY,... 157 in theunmaskingof theideologsubaltern remainder has been instrumental ical complicitybetween the formation of a vibrantnational cultureand the reproductionof the entire state apparatus in its properlymodern guise. However, the factthatthereare past sequences when art and politics were should not make us forget indeed suturedby statistformsof thinking that, art and in principleand withoutwantingto ringthe formalist bell, politics materials and according to a different work with different sequencing of theirthought procedures.Politics, forexample, deals withthe collective or of inegalitarian statements multipleas its materialand withthe subtraction deal rather withthelimitsof representaas itsprocess; but artand literature as theirmeans, and in this sense tion as theirend and with formalization tend to out a carry figurative undoingof thesocial bond. they an exclusivelypresenstudiesto continuewithout Thus, forsubaltern and relativeautonomyof the proceduresof art tisi agenda, the specificity or genealogically,ratherthan and politics must be established historically in or the search if not exactly foran Otherwise, formally transcendentally. or exposureof thesubaltern, illustration thanat least fora properenactment artand literature riskto become the site fora purelyaestheticor even archas a process, if it does not fall forthe aestheticact, while political thinking of an equally radical or arch-politicalact, becomes objectified temptation into mere political philosophy,as the quest continuesfora regimecapable of assumingthe fundamental of the subalternas the constitutive negativity outside of each and everysociety. More generally, because of thepredicament mentionedearlier,a tension has yetto be solved in subaltern between,on the one hand,a thinking and transcendental to the point of its extreme logic thatremains structural limitand imminent on the other exhaustion,and, hand, formsof thought such as artand politics thatare sequential and eventmental, and thus are to be thoroughly historicizedwithoutgiving in an inch on the rigorof deconstructive Thus far,subalternstudiesoftenseem to have avoided negativity. thetrapsof historicism and aestheticism onlyby havingrecourseto radical, or arch-aesthetic, acts. Artand politics,however,can and perarch-political must be forwhat theyhave been, what theyare, capturedhistorically haps and what theystillcould be in the future: formsof thought withtheirown kernelof truth and of the repressed.Otherwise,the factthatall tends to be political forcertainformsof subaltern thinking mightlead one to conclude the that claims to criticize both aestheticism that,paradoxically, thought

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thepolitical by failingto historicize and historicism, ends up aestheticizing politics. then,let me suggestwhat I see as some of thetasks ahead Concretely, in the practice of criticaltheorythatwould have to be of a largertradition in Latin America: theproblematicof the subaltern capable of traversing 1) unsutureart and politics, withoutsimply fallingback on theirinstitutional autonomy which is itself of course a historical and not a structural condition; as singuartand politics,as well as theirpossible suturing 2) reconfigure lar thought procedures,according to theirspecific sequences, conand theories; cepts, of these forms and transmission 3) revisitthe problemof thepresentation ifnotby remaining of thought, outside,which is of course impossible, then at the very least by adamantly going against the constraints of purelyacademic power. In the future, though,I cannot imagine the continuationof such a thepossibilityof its collective reappropriation. projectwithout