Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
The Confessing Subject
As I have argued elsewhere, the academic industrial complex places the Native in the
positionofethnographicentrapment(A.Smith2009).DenisedaSilva's
Toward a Glob-
al Idea of Race
(2007) informs my analysis of ethnographic entrapment, in which she
holds that the Western subject is itself fundamentally constituted through race. She ar-
gues through her exhaustive account of enlightenment theory that the post-Enlighten-
mentversionofSubjectasasoleself-determinedactorexistsbysituatingitselfoverand
against “affectable” others who are subject to natural conditions as well as to the self-
determined power of the Western subject. In essence, the Western subject knows itself
because of (1) its apparent ability to exercise power over others; and (2) the inability
of others to exercise power over it. The “others” meanwhile, are
affected
by the power
of the Western subject (and hence are “affectable”) but they cannot
effect
power them-
selves. The anxiety with which the Western subject struggles is that the Western sub-
ject is in fact not self-determining. After all, nobody is actually able to exercise power
without being affected by others. Consequently, the manner in which the Western sub-
ject addresses this anxiety is to separate itself from conditions of “affectability” by sep-
arating from affectable others. This separation is fundamentally a racial one—both spa-
tially and temporally. That is, the Western subject is spatially located in the West in re-
lationship to the “affectable” Third World others. It is also temporally located in mod-
ernity in relationship to “primitive” others who are never able to enter modernity. The
Westernsubjectisauniversalsubjectthatdeterminesitselfwithoutbeingdeterminedby
others; the racialized subject is particular, but aspires to be universal and self-determin-
ing (da Silva 2007).
Silva's analysis thuscritiques the presumption that the problem facing Native peoples
is that they have been “dehumanized.” Antiracist intellectual and political projects are
often premised on the notion that if people knew us better, we too would be granted hu-
manity.But,accordingtoSilva,thefundamentalissuethatdoesnotgetaddressedisthat
“the human” is already a racial project. It is a project that aspires to universality, a pro-
ject that can only exist over and against the particularity of “the other.”
Consequently, two problems result. First, those who are put in the position of “af-
fectable others,” presume that liberation will ensue if they can become self-determining
subjects; in other words, if they can become fully “human.” However, the humanity to
which we aspire still depends on the continued oppression of other affectable others.
Thus,aliberationstrugglethatdoesnotquestionthetermsbywhichhumanityisconsti-
tuted becomes a liberation struggle that depends on the oppression of others.
Second, the assumption that “affectable others” have about liberation is that they will
be granted humanity if they can prove their worthiness. If people understood us bet-
ter, they would see we are “human” just like they are, and would grant us the status
