Culturalism and Occlusion: Arguments against Alternative Modernities 1: Complicating Alternative Modernities In his introduction to the Public Culture

volume Alternative Modernities (2001), entering into a longstanding debate about the meaning of modernity and its location throughout the globe, postcolonial scholar Dilip aon!ar puts for"ard a case for the thesis of #alternative modernities$, "hich has been paradigmatic amongst many scholars in the field of postcolonialism% aon!ar conceives of modernity as #an attitude to &uestioning the present$ and by this licenses the #alternative modernities$ thesis%1 It offers a corrective to the perspective of modernity as singular, but more importantly as #born of the 'est$2 (and therefore belonging to the 'est alone) and (urocentric% )uch a strategy falls "ithin the broad ambit of the discipline of postcolonialism%* +i!e postcolonialism, it commits to a systematic redress of the effects of colonialism, amongst "hich, according to the thesis, is the idea that modernity is 'estern and that all nations and places "hich do not correspond to the frame"or! of this 'estern modernity are thereby non,modern or pre,modern- essentially, these nations and their peoples are condemned, as another postcolonial scholar, Dipesh Cha!rabarty, puts it, to the #"aiting room of history$ . until they are sufficiently 'esternised (or #modernised$ / the terms are often used as e&uivalents as I "ill demonstrate later)% 01odernity2 is a contested term3% It has been understood through the lenses of culture, cognition, time, societal processes and often through a combination of factors% 4egardless of its multivalency, it has become a thing of desirability- the modern is, at its most simple, the ne" as opposed to the old5 it is the terrain of the vanguard, the mar! of progress, a time free from the #not yet$, the condition of being #up to date$6% #7lternative modernities$ allo"s postcolonial scholars to announce postcolonial sites as
1

)ee #8n 7lternative 1odernities$, the title essay of a volume "hich directs several essays by several postcolonial scholars in defence of the concept% aon!ar, Dilip (ed%) Alternative Modernities% Durham- Du!e 9niversity Press, 2001%
2

aon!ar, page 1%

:or a representative frame"or! of the discipline, see ;oung, Postcolonialism (2001), +oomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism (2003), andhi, Postcolonial Theory (1<<=) and >oehmer, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (1<<3)%
4

Cha!rabarty, Dipesh% Provincializing Europe% Princeton- Princeton 9niversity Press, 2000%

Perspectives "ill be e?plored later, but 'illiams, Keywords (1<=3), iddens, The Consequences o Modernity (1<<0) and @aylor, Modern !ocial "maginaries (200.) offer useful perspectives%
6

:erguson, Aames% #lo$al !hadows% Durham- Du!e 9niversity Press, 2006 at page 1=3%

modern, "hile renouncing that in order to be modern they must first become 'estern% It ruptures the (urocentric narrative of modernity as decisively 'estern% #7lternative modernities$ / li!e most models in the discourse of the human and social sciences / might be assessed according to its enabling properties- "hat does it ma!e possible that conceiving of modernity as singular does notB 'hat "or! is re&uired / consider aon!ar2s reformulation of modernity , #an attitude to &uestioning the present$ / to ma!e the thesis tenableB @his paper "ill argue that the thesis is an occlusive one "hich reduces the structural problems of a globalised modernity to civilisational, cultural, discursive, and ultimately, local ones% >y #structural$ problems, I refer to the net"or! of relationships (governing flo"s of culture and capital) "hich act as an organising force in the composition of the contemporary "orld% I refer also to a set of material constraints effected by this une&ual structure, and the 1ar?ist problematic of global scarcity and e?cess it allo"s% 7lternative modernities shares the tendency to #culturalise$ these structural issues "ith a lineage of philosophical thought in postcolonialism called #culturalism$% C I "ill argue it is prey to several of the errors and oversights that culturalist tendency is guilty of% I "ill argue, furthermore, that this occlusion from vie" of these same structural problems might lead to a disablement- an inability to thin! through the "orld in terms of its structure, and thus an attention to culture at the e?pense of this structure% I "ill also argue that the singular modernity "hich alternative modernities scholars see! to reDect, is based on a stra"man argument- they conceive of this position essentially as mid,20th century convergence theory (e?panded upon belo")% @he purpose of my argument is to rehabilitate modernity from the charge that conceiving of it as a singularity necessarily renders the concept a (urocentric one, in the vein of this convergence theory% @he brea! of modernity from its 'estern conception is a move that is only re&uired once a culturalist perspective has already rendered modernity 0'estern2, in other "ords culturalising that "hich I argue is not simply a matter of culture% @here are other "ays of conceiving this modernity / the singular modernity thesis I "ill argue in favour of / as not necessarily a 'estern phenomenon, even though it first too! root there% @his conception re&uires the recognition, as :redric Aameson has argued, that modernity can be understood more helpfully as a code"ord for the ascension of global capitalism%= Aust as masculinity does not
7

Culturalism, in some of its strongest incarnations, is to be found in 'a2 @hiongo, &ecolonising the Mind (1<=6) and Chin"eiEu, The 'est and the (est o )s (1<C=)% It is not restricted to postcolonial scholarship, and notable e?amples else"here include Funtington, Clash o Civilisations (1<<*) and von +aue, The 'orld (evolution o 'esternization (1<=C)%

belong to men, so capitalism does not belong to the 'est% @he late 20th century is the history, to mis&uote 7rDun 7ppadurai, of #Capitalism at +arge$%< @he route this essay "ill ta!e is, firstly, to e?pand and criti&ue aon!ar2s #8n 7lternative 1odernities$% @he second gesture is to locate the mode of thin!ing "hich reigns "ithin this essay as belonging to a strong culturalist lineage in postcolonialism dating to at least the 7frican critical theory "hich emerged during the final phases of that continent2s decolonisation process% @he problems of these perspectives "ill be located "ithin a broader theoretical frame"or! / informed by 1ar?ism/ "hich argues that culturalist theses mista!e the nature of global,structural forces% 8ne such position is that of 7rif Dirli!, "ho "rites that postcolonial scholars are complicit in an #une?amined totality$ / #they #GproDectH globally "hat are but local e?periences%$10 @hat modernity is e*perienced as different at every national and cultural site is not sufficient to render modernity itself plural- there are common forces of unity and division at "or!% I organise these forces under the phrase #structure$, to give a sense of its agency in #structuring$ and #organising$ the "orld% 1y final aim in the theoretical section of this paper, is to argue that alternative modernities is a less capable theory of the global dynamics of the postcolonial era than my proposed singular modernity% @o assist this, I "ill demonstrate that "here alternative modernities might be merely controversial as deployed in the )outh,(ast 7sian conte?t, it provides no analytic value on the 7frican continent% In the final sections, I "ill aim to thin! through some of these problems by a relevant cultural te?t- the novel #od+s ,its o 'ood by )enegalese author 8usmane )embIne%

2: The Persistence of Culture

8

Aameson, :redric% A !ingular Modernity% +ondon5 Je" ;or!- Kerso, 2002%

7ppadurai, 7rDun, Modernity at Large% 1inneapolis- 9niversity of 1innesota Press, 1<<6% 7ppadurai2s te?t is another canonical te?t in favour of alternative modernities%
10

Dirli!, 7rif% #@he Postcolonial 7ura- @hird 'orld Criticism in the (ra of lobal Capitalism$% Critical "nquiry 20, 2- 1<<. at page *.3%

aon!ar2s stated intention is to #revise the distinction bet"een societal moderniEation and cultural modernity%$11 Fe spea!s of them as the #t"o types of modernities Gemphasis addedH$ "hich already suggests an impulse to fragment% 7lthough he may spea! of a #t"in matri? of change and routine$ or a #double consciousness$, I argue that these are not #t"o types of modernities$% @hey are rather t"o processes (cognitive,social and cultural) "hich constitutively ma!e one category called #modernity$% It is impossible to conceive of cultural modernity "ithout its antecedent modernisation (no matter ho" it is articulated), as it #rose in opposition$% 7ccording to aon!ar, modernisation allo"ed the sociopolitical configuration of forms "ithin "hich the agent "as freed #from constraints imposed by tradition to pursue its o"n private ends$% @his ne" sense of subDectivity in (urope is thus made possible by a prior modernisation% It "as commuted to the former colonies as #modernity$ through the proDect of colonialism% 1odernity is almost al"ays conceived of / even by aon!ar , as having #arrived and emerged$ through colonialism5 it "as not al"ays,already part of non,(uropean civilisations, but rather transmitted and transmuted through contact "ith difference% @o separate colonialism from modernity does the "or! of forgetting or erasing the fact that, as @ani >arlo" "rites, #Colonialism and modernity are indivisible features of the history of industrial capitalism%$12 1odernisation has traditionally had "ithin it the connotations of a teleological, stage,ist, (urocentric vie" of history% @his is a vie" congruent "ith that of #convergence theory$% In other "ords, one #modernises$, one becomes modern according to a set of developments already e?perienced by (urope5 one #converges$ "ith the sociopolitical forms and ultimately cultures of the 'est% 'hether one uses the terminology or not it is indisputable that colonial contact and the #modernity$ it brought "ith it engendered a ne" !ind of subDectivity to non,(uropean civilisations% @his ne" subDectivity is integral to alternative modernities, as it proclaims that #creative adaptations$ of colonially,transmitted forms ma!e ne" culturally,specific forms of modernity% @o repeat aon!ar, this subDectivity is concerned "ith the possibility of an agent #free from the constraints imposed by tradition%$ It is "orth noting that the #diffusionist$ argument for this modern subDectivity above / the idea that the modern subDectivity is created in (urope and then spread throughout the "orld , is not the only perspective% 7nother "ay of apprehending the subDectivity is through "hat "e might call an idea of

11

aon!ar, page 1% >arlo", @ani% -ormations o Colonial Modernity in East Asia% Durham- Du!e 9niversity Press, 1<<C at page 1%

12

#colonising subDectivity$%1* @his "ould see a ne" subDectivity produced for the colonisers as much as the colonised during their contact "ith each other% @his is a perspective I ally myself "ith, although it does not, strictly spea!ing, contradict the diffusionist argument as they operate in different directions% @he former concerns the colonised (and has space to incorporate the #colonising subDectivity$ argument "ithout full contradiction) and the latter concerns the coloniser% aon!ar2s perspective, regarding the modern subDectivities of non,(uropean civilisations is essentially diffusionist, but "ith a difference% @he modern subDectivity doesn2t simply arrive, but / for the agent of this non,(uropean civilisation / it adapts, producing a ne" !ind of modern subDectivity, an #alternative$ modern subDectivity% 'hile I don2t dispute the e?istence of alternative subDectivities (as a !ind of set of divergent e?periences), I regard this logic of emphasising difference as falling into the same category of confusion by "hich he believes that because there are alternate e*periences of modernity, modernity itself is therefore not a singular% @here are certainly alternate e?periences of the modern subDectivity, but #modern subDectivity$ as a category has enormous theoretical value as an organising lens through "hich to understand the various articulations of this subDectivity% @his ne" agent #freed from the constraints of tradition$, aon!ar admits, "as called into e?istence (in (urope) by #the development of capitalism in the 'est$%1. (lse"here he "rites that #the 'est remains the maDor clearinghouse of global modernity$% 13 @his admission is one of several in the essay in "hich aon!ar unsettles his o"n argument by using phrases "hich could "or! to argue against alternative modernities% Fe admits of a #global modernity$ "hich is precisely the phenomenon he see!s to undermine% Fe "rites of #the 'est$ as persisting as an organising force in the "ays modernity may be approached% In other "ords, this is an admission of structure, but a structure in "hich the term #'est$ comes to act as a civilisational pro?y% @his "ord #'est$ acts here, as Jeil +aEarus has observed, #an ideological referent mas&uerading as a geographical one$16% It uses the civilisational mar!er #'est$ to conceal the socio,historical ground of the civilisation% 7s a possible substitution for aon!ar2s phrase, leaving intact the deep structure of meaning "hich is in the current incarnation ciphered in cultural terms, I "ould "rite- #Capitalism remains the organising principle of global modernity$% (lse"here
13

@his perspective is detailed in such "or!s as @aylor, !ources o the !el (1<=<) and also his Multiculturalism (1<<.)% aon!ar, page 2% aon!ar, page 1%

14

15

16

+aEarus, Jeil% #@he :etish of the 'est in Postcolonial @heory$ in Mar*ism. Modernity and Postcolonial !tudies (edited by >artolovich and +aEarus)% Cambridge- Cambridge 9niversity Press, 2002 at page ..%

aon!ar dra"s on Larl 1ar?- #1ar? unambiguously names the $ourgeois as the author of those revolutionary changes that ushered in the modern age Gemphasis addedH%$ 1ar? does not construe the authors of modernity as (uropean or 'estern% @hese agents occupy (urope but are not occupied by (urope- their logic is that of capitalist accumulation and e?pansion% It is this driving capitalist logic "hich in 1ar?2s o"n "ords steers an age of #everlasting uncertainty and agitation$1C% @his phrase is congruent "ith aon!ar2s phrase "hich sees the era of modernity as #a "orld of incessant change%$1= It is in this "orld / the modern "orld fashioned by capitalism2s purposive rationality , that, according to aon!ar, #received traditions of religion, philosophy, myth and art GareH in disarray$ (as this applies to (urope undergoing modernisation, so it applies to the former colonies under the aegis of colonial modernity)% 7nd it is under these conditions that aon!ar "rites #the 0life,"orld21< GMH begins to command attention as an autonomous domain of cultural practice%$20 It is this suggested autonomy of the #domain of cultural practice$ that re&uires dispute and finally reDection% @his is the #autonomous domain$ of a cultural modernity perceived as unanchored from its location inside the net"or! of capitalist political economy% @his #autonomous domain$ is the space in "hich the dematerialisation of capital becomes possible% Culture is firstly embodied in the subDect "ho practices it and secondly embedded in the net"or! of relations by "hich this cultural practice is rendered meaningful% @his #net"or! of relations$ at a local level refers to language, culture, political institutions, attitudes to religion and spirituality, economics and so forth- in essence, the ma!e, up of a particular society, it2s #life,"orld$, and ho" it allo"s for the generation of meaning and coherence% 9nder the sign of global modernity, this net"or! is implanted in a larger net"or! of nation, states given global coherence and contact through colonial e?pansion% @o remar! of the #life,"orld$ as autonomous is a!in to thin!ing countries as not constituted by and constitutive of the constellation by "hich geopolitical units are given significance% :urthermore, this autonomy reifies culture as something
17

1ar? and (ngels% #1anifesto of the Communist Party$ in The Mar*/Engels (eader (edited by 4obert C% @uc!er)% Je" ;or!- '% '% Jorton, 1<C2 at pages **=,**<%
18

aon!ar, page *%

19

@he #life"orld$ or le$enswelt "as first introduced by Fusserl in The Crisis o European !ciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (1<*6)% It2s less technical meaning, of relevance here, is the idea of the human environment and its role in the study of everyday life% )ee >uchanan (200<)% +ife,"orld, obviously constituting culture, is of especial significance to postcolonial scholars% @he site,specific readings of Alternative Modernities (2001) for e?ample, can all be said to engage the life,"orld of particular communities%
20

aon!ar, page .%

e?isting outside of its dependencies on the global net"or!s outside the life,"orld% It thus allo"s culture a uni&ue po"er of retaliation- to oppose culture to culture / as though this is sufficient in a struggle for emancipation , "hile ignoring the broader net"or!s in "hich they are situated% @his foregrounding of the po"er of culture mar!s the entry of alternative modernities into culturalist territory% I have suggested that alternative modernities has its lineage in culturalism% Culturalism, as is demonstrated by the problem of the #autonomous domain of cultural practice$ above, is the perspective "hich reifies culture and understands phenomena li!e oppression and hegemony through the lens of culture% It #culturalises$ these issues% I "ill argue here for alternative modernities2 location in the culturalist frame"or!, to ultimately criti&ue alternative modernities on the same grounds that culturalism has come under criti&ue% Culturalism, I argue, might cynically be apprehended as a thesis of surrender% It is a thesis cast in the umbra of an economic and political disconsolation% >iodun Aeyifo isolates three themes "hich can be discerned in 7frican literature "hich act as the necessary premises for the development of culturalism%21 @hey occur as far bac! as the 1<10s but are most pronounced during the 1<60s and 1<C0s / the period "hich )oyin!a dar!ly named #the abyss of transition$22 , as the literary, cultural imagination of 7frica struggles adapt itself to the refigured terrain of the postcolonial condition% @hese themes occupy a range of te?ts2* , many "ritten before the precise moment of independence / in "hich the common engagement is one of a cultural incommensurability- the accrual of perspectives "hich mar! an essential disDuncture bet"een the colonising 'est and the colonised 8ther% )oyin!a has remar!ed that to phrase this disDuncture in terms of a #clash of cultures$, as one critic remar!ed of #"estern method GandH 7frican tradition$2., is to commit a critical reductionism% Jevertheless, "hile the binarism traditionNmodernity is necessarily unstable and dynamic, it has proven paradigmatic in the literature23 both critical and literary% Ideas of cultural incommensurability, in the very phrasing of the

21

Aeyifo, >iodun% #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity- 7chebe, :anon, Cabral and the Philosophy of DecoloniEation$% 7vailable at- sdonline%orgN.3Nan,african,cultural,modernity,achebe,fanon,cabral,and,the,philosophy,of,decoloniEationN (last accessed*0 8ctober 2011)
22

)oyin!a, 'ole% &eath and the King+s 0orseman% +ondon- 1ethuen Drama, 1<<= at 7uthor2s Jote%

23

7 representative sample of such te?ts include )e!yi, The ,lin1ards (1<13), Fampate >a, The -ortunes o 'angrin (1<C*), 7rmah, The 0ealers (1<C<) and )oyin!a, &eath and the King+s 0orseman (1<C6)%
24

)oyin!a, 7uthor2s Jote% eorge 8lan!ule% (elocating Agency% 7lbany- )tate 9niversity of Je" ;or! Press, 200*%

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thesis, suppose t"o (une&ual) cultures "hich are irreconcilable% @his irreconcilability has supported the maintenance of an #autonomous domain of cultural practice$%26 @he first theme might be apprehended under the sign of an #epistemic impasse$% It entails a realisation that "ith the violence of colonial contact, 7frica had been propelled into a #historical space "hich GseemedH to ma!e invalid all pre,e?isting cognitive systems%$2C Invalidation is a strong charge but a necessary one to found culturalism% It suggests that "hile precolonial cognition survives, it does so depleted and devalued% 7ll attempts to access them in their prior "holeness are discursively managed by the postcolonial present% )ystems of comprehensibility no longer have their original referents2=% 1odernity fundamentally transforms the nature of these practices% 1asao 1iyoshi remar!s on this impasse, as Aeyifo calls it, a #fragmenting of vast temporalities and synchronicities-2<$ #8nce absorbed into the #chronopolitics$*0 of the secular 'est, colonised space cannot reclaim autonomy and seclusion5 once dragged out of their precolonial state, the indigenes of peripheries have to deal "ith !no"ledge of the outside "orld, irrespective of their o"n "ishes and inclinations Gemphasis addedH%$*1 @he second theme / "hich Aeyifo designates #radical alterity and hegemony$ / has t"o components% @he hegemonic component is overtly political, "hile the radical alterity commits a (conscious) culturalisation of this politico,economic hegemony% @he first premise is the recognition that #in the modern "orld and more specifically the global order of late capitalism, very po"erful, almost insuperable e?ternal forces and interests are ranged against 7frica%$*2 7 brief elaboration might point to
26

@his is demonstrated in practice through culturalist proDects loosely termed nativism, "hich Chin"eiEu, for e?ample, demonstrates tendencies of in his "riting% Jativism is the desire to valorise and restore pre,colonial indigenous practices and oppose these to #'estern$ colonial practices% )ee >uchanan (2001)%
27

Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$% )ee Aean Comaroff and Aohn Comaroff, Modernity and its Malcontents (1<<2) for anthropological "or! in this vein% Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$%

28

29

30

1iyoshi himself does not clarify the term, although in the conte?t of his essay, it points to the relationship bet"een time and practice and their inseparable complicity% In other "ords, the "ay in "hich the passage of time changes the politics of culture and its practice%
31

1iyoshi, 1asao% #7 >orderless 'orldB$ in Critical "nquiry 1<, .- 1<<* at page C*0% Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$%

32

the structural,adDustment programmes "hich commit 7frica to neoliberal (neocolonial) economics%** 9pshots of this include / and "ill be e?panded upon belo" / #collective debt peonage$, control by creditor nations, reduction in credit and investment capital- in sum, the #immiseration and pauperisation of virtually all urban and rural producers%$*. Cast against this almost insurmountable disadvantage, I argue, culturalists see! out a civilisational logic to account for "hy 7frica is incapable of meeting the teleology of the neoliberal developmental narratives% @he #mostly 'estern$ interests complicit in this hegemony are, it is argued by culturalists (and suggested by the 7frican literature &uoted above), at such staggering odds "ith 7frican interests as to constitute a #difference that is radically incommensurable%$*3 @hat this charge does not commit to #'estern$ / it is disclaimed by the phrase #mostly$ / is telling% @hese interests cannot be e?clusive and characteristic of the 'est alone, although they may arrive from this broad location% @his suggests implicitly a non,cultural aspect of the hegemonic component "hich is unspo!en in this move to culturalise% It shrouds the capitalism "hich is at odds "ith 7frican interests through the use of #'est$ and thereby licenses the move by "hich the #cultural and civilisational ensembles of 7frica and the 'est are reified in the form of difference made so incommensurable as to be endlessly inimical and threatening%$*6 >ut furthermore, it fails to account for the fact that e?ploitative forces in 7frica are not solely of foreign e?traction% In their stance against the #'est$, culturalists do not appear to ac!no"ledge the role of a comprador 7frican bourgeoisie and 7frican capitalism in the continued #disadvantage$ of 7frican countries% )uch an ac!no"ledgement "ould deeply complicate the use of the "ord #'est$, by sho"ing up the complicity of capitalism (regardless of the culture "hich operates it) in these perceived disadvantages% @hat colonial po"ers have ranged a systemic (and physical) violence against 7frican "ays of !no"ing (7frican culture, or the 7frican #life,"orld$) is an indisputable part of the colonial legacy% >ut this culturalist move does not simply add the cultural incommensurability but phrases the interests of

33

)ee Farrison, 2eoli$eral A rica (2010) for a summary of the effects (and limitations) of *0 years2 "orth of neoliberal influence on the continent%
34

Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$% Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$% Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$%

35

36

capital as #'estern interests$% @he politico,economic hegemony against 7frica thus becomes unavoidably a matter of 'estern culture% @he third and final theme in Aeyifo2s argument #derives dialectically from the second$%*C :irst is the recognition of the #the vastly une&ual technological, military and economic dimensions of the encounter of colonised 7frica "ith the colonising 'est$, the #massively disproportionate distribution of po"er and advantage$% )econd is the vie" that thus #0culture2 constitutes the only real bul"ar!, the last redoubt, the !ernel of both effective resistance to the 'est and neutralisation of 7frica2s enormous disadvantage Gemphasis addedH%$*= @his third theme is reactive to the second, and Aeyifo e?plicitly calls it #culturalism$5 the culturalist refle? to the umbral disconsolation of the enormous politico,economic disadvantage% Culturalism is the moment "hereby unable to challenge the geopolitical barrage outlined above (foreign hegemony, #'estern interests$) a license is given to pursue retaliation in the domain of the cultural (as though culture has the po"er to neutralise material disadvantage)% 4esistance thus moves from issues of modernisation to issues of modernity5 "hat is material becomes a matter of discursivity% @hat this material domain is prior to the cultural / admitted in aon!ar2s phrase, #rose in opposition$ / becomes lost "hen the cultural is given autonomy and resistance is relocated% I ac!no"ledge that the material is also cultural / to propose such a clean brea! "ould occlude their points of overlap% Fo"ever, my concern is firstly that culturalism disconnects culture from its situation inside a material domain (a #net"or! of relations$ as I called it earlier)% 7nd secondly, that "here culturalism encounters material disadvantage, it perceives them as matters of discourse% @his is the reason "hy culture becomes #the !ernel of effective resistance to the 'est$ / because it opposed the #'est$ as opposed to the material constituents (the socio,historical ground) of the 'est% 'alter >enDamin "rote of his method of observation (as a form of retaliation) as dra"ing attention to changes in the conditions of production and thereby #intervening in the process$*<% I argue that culturalism loses sight of this same process and its global nature%

37

Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$% Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$%

38

39

Phillips, Aohn '% #8n 'alter >enDamin$% 7vailable at- courses%nus%edu%sgNcourseNellD"pNaura%htm (last accessed- *0 8ctober 2011)

Aeyifo "rites of culturalism2s capacitating property that #7frican culture is saved by the very fact of its presumed difference from the 'est Gemphasis addedH%$.0 @hat alterity e?ists is undeniable% @hat #radical$ alterity e?ists / of the poststructuralist vein "hich undoubtedly has informed many postcolonial perspectives on difference.1 , is presumed5 it is a hypothesis% >y reDecting or even disagreeing on the nature of alterity as #radical$, culturalist conclusions become deeply complicated% @he presumed &uality of culture2s retaliatory potential resides "ithin this alterity% If cultural incommensurability "as not absolute then culturalism "ould have no po"er and the life,"orld could not stand in as a fortified refuge for the dispossessed% It is only possible to opposeNresist through acts of culture if that culture itself is radically other, so as to contain a retaliatory potential "ithin its difference% In the absence of this radicalism, cultural acts of resistance are condemned to reiteration / or in the vocabulary of media theory / 0recuperation2% In other "ords, culturalism ma!es it possible to resist the #'est$, but not resist capitalism% 1y argument so far has been that this is complicated by the fact that culturalism fundamentally mista!es "hat the #'est$ actually is% @he deep threnody of 7frica "hich accompanies this culturalism suggests that the proDect "as the product of e?haustion and disconsolation% It "as not an assertion of agency but rather the lac! thereof% It "as motivated by the victory of #insuperable Gpolitico,economicH forces%$.2 @he portrait of 7frica during this period is one of anomie% @o give one e?ample, as a result of failing economies, child mortality in 7frican countries is ten times higher than that of #developed$ countries%.* I "ill develop an e?plicit portrait of this 7frican disadvantage belo", but for the moment, I reassert my suggestion that culturalism is a thesis of surrender borne of politico,economic disconsolation% Culturalism relocates conflict from the material domain to the cultural domain% In this relocation, culturalism fails to register that acts of cultural retaliation are embedded "ithin a material net"or!% Culturalism thus mista!es (or reduces the importance of) the influence of this #net"or! of relations$ on their #autonomous domain of cultural practice%$ @here is the possibility, once this net"or! is ac!no"ledged, that acts of cultural retaliation are condemned to a systemic failure / they "or! "ithin in a system called capitalism, "hich as len Daly "rites, possesses a #universalism G"hichH fundamentally reproduces and depends upon a
40

Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$%

41

7nna,1aria Carusi e?plores this phenomenon, and its disabling potential, in #@he Postcolonial 8ther as Problem for Political 7ction$ in 3ournal o Literary !tudies C, *N. 1<<*%
42

Aeyifo, #7n 7frican Cultural 1odernity$% )mith, > C% )nderstanding Third 'orld Politics% +ondon- Palgrave, 200* at page C%

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disavo"ed violence that e?cludes vast sectors of the "orld2s population%$.. @he defeat of culturalism is contained in its refusal to not engage "ith economic reality, #implicitly accepting the latter as a basic horiEon of human e?istence%$.3 7lternative modernities, li!e culturalism, is a gesture to relocate the agency of the postcolonial populations in, as aon!ar "rote, the #autonomous domain of cultural practice$% In doing the discursive "or! it must in order to #seiEe the apparatus of meaning,ma!ing$.6 by "hich modernity is conceived as singular, it has led to a discourse "hich tends to not recognise economic reality and has, I argue, refashioned modernity as a conceptual tool "hich is thus occlusive and culturalist- one, moreover, "hich loses more theoretical agency than it gains% I "ill no" e?plore the method and logic by "hich the alternative modernities attempts to disprove that modernity is singular% 7lternative modernities relies on the e&uivocative potential of the signifier #modernity$% It also relies on a series of redefinitions% @here is nothing harmful about redefinitions in principle, e?cept "here they alter referents and thereby multiply the possibilities of that e&uivocation% 7lternative modernities has at least three components% @he first is the reDection of a #governing centre to modernity$, the belief that modernity has, to &uote aon!ar, #no master narratives to accompany it%$.C >y this, aon!ar dra"s on postcolonial scholarship "hich argues that there is no transcendental and overarching narrative against "hich all modernities, places and cultures must be Dudged% @his belief is at a tension "ith aon!ar2s claim that #the 'est remains the maDor clearinghouse of global modernity$% 7 0clearinghouse2 (notably the clearinghouse, not one of many) "ith its connotations of collection and distribution is sufficient to at least point in the direction of a master narrative (or organising narrative), and certainly to admit of a governing centre to modernity% Aohn )tephens referred to a master (or meta,) narrative as #a global or totalising cultural narrative schema "hich orders and e?plains !no"ledge and e?perience%$.= 4eplacing #'est$ "ith #Capitalism$, as per the refiguring of aon!ar2s &uotation this essay performed above- the capacity to #order and e?plain$
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Daly, lyn% #)lavoD OiEe!- 7 Primer$% 7vailable at- http-NN"""%lacan%comNEiEe!,daly%htm (last accessed- *0 8ctober 2011) Daly, lyn% #)lavoD OiEe!- 7 Primer$% )piva!, ayatri Cha!ravorty% 4utside in the Teaching Machine% Je" ;or!- 4outledge, 200< at page i?% aon!ar, page 1.%

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)tephens, Aohn (etelling !tories. -raming Culture% Je" ;or!- 4outledge, 1<<=% (Jotably, he "as spea!ing on literary matters% @he transposition to this conte?t continues to be illuminative)

!no"ledge is the "or! global capitalism does as part of its naturalisation, and precisely "hat aon!ar2s clearinghouse metaphor implies% 1aster narratives should not, of course, be above rigorous criti&ue% Fo"ever, alternative modernities2 discursive management of modernity prevents engaging "ith the systematicity of global capitalism% Capitalism2s #mastership$ (master,narrative) is not essential, but naturalised and part of the criti&ue of capitalism is to e?pose its gentrification and self,engendered universalism% In short, regarding this problem of the e?istence of master,narratives, to &uote Cha!rabarty, #analysis does not ma!e it go a"ay%$.< Discursive refiguring cannot remove a material fact% @he second component is to emphasise local difference, and thus #historicise the conte*ts, and pluralise the e*perience of modernity Gemphases addedH%$30 @his logic is then applied to both aon!ar2s #modernities$ / societal modernisation and cultural modernity% In reDecting the bourgeois and 1ar?ist narratives of modernisation, it reDects the teleology "hich represents #colonial modernityM as economic development%$31 Postcolonial countries are modern because modernity is an #incomplete proDect$32, as Fabermas declared (even in the 'est), and in the absence of a linear progression suggested by this permanent incompleteness, no country or place can claim a hierarchically higher modernity than any other% 7s regards cultural modernity, site,based readings "ill al"ays affirm that after colonial contact (the encounter "ith 0modernity2) a uni&ue, local articulation of cultural modernity remains5 necessarily, because of the difference encountered in each instance% 7s cultural modernity is a reaction, its particular constellation of cultural factors "ill al"ays give it a correspondingly particular reaction% @his reasoning follo"s an element in the scholarship of postcolonialism "hich, as Dirli! remar!s, is #born of a contradiction bet"een an insistence on heterogeneity, difference, and historicity and a tendency to generalise from the local to the global "hile denying that there are global forces at "or! that may condition the local in the first place%$3* It is for this reason that aon!ar can move from a different #e*perience of modernity$ to assert that, as a global condition, modernity itself is plural% @hese contradictions are borne out in the restlessness of his essay, "hich continues to admit of modernity as an
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Cha!rabarty, page 2=% aon!ar, page 13%

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51

Pra!ash, yan% #'riting Post,8rientalist Fistories of the @hird 'orld$ in Comparative !tudies in !ociety and 0istory *21<<0 at page *<*%
52

Fabermas, Aurgen% #1odernity / 7n Incomplete ProDect$ in The Anti/Aesthetic (edited by Fal :orster)% Port @o"nsend>ay Press, 1<<*%
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Dirli!, page *.1%

organising force, but then argues that each local e?perience of modernity is modernity itself% 7lternative modernities is an e?tension in postcolonialism "hich has, Dirli! "rites, #mystified the "ays in "hich totalising structures persist in the midst of apparent disintegration and fluidity%$ 3. In doing this / and this is one of its more e?plicit claims to culturalist discursivity / it has #rendered into problems of subDectivity and epistemology concrete and material problems of the everyday "orld%$33 7 third component of alternative modernities is its stress on developing a #cultural$ theory (as opposed to an #acultural$ theory) of modernity% aon!ar "rites, #1odernity al"ays unfolds "ithin a specific cultural or civilisational conte?t$ and that #different starting points for the transition to modernity lead to different outcomes Gemphasis addedH%$36 In other "ords, it "ishes to culturalise modernity as a #distinctive moral and scientific outloo1 consisting of a constellation of understandings of person, nature, society and reason% Gemphasis addedH$3C 1odernity is conceived here as an #outloo!$, a matter of mere discourse% @his gives me an appropriate occasion to discuss some of modernity2s natural polysemy and "eigh aon!ar2s discursive conception of modernity (#an attitude to &uestioning the present$) against the ones I deem more durable and theoretically valuable5 definitions of modernity "hich, in effect, service my argument in support of a singular modernity% 3: Equivocations of Modernit Is modernity an epoch or an attitudeB Part of the confusion surrounding it is to be found in its e&uivocative potential% It is a fraught signifier "ith a comple? history, used to mar! a range of phenomena- consider, as a sample, its derivatives #modernist$, #modernism$, #modernise$% >efore in&uiring into the attitude o modernity, one might in&uire into the attitude to modernity% @his attitude is defined by a decisive shift in the late 1<th and (mar!edly) 20th centuries%3= Prior, the modern "as the unfavourable opposition to the venerable ancient, captured in the querelle des anciens et des moderns%3<

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Dirli!, page *36% Dirli!, page *36% aon!ar, page 1C% aon!ar, page 1C% 'illiams, 4aymond% Keywords% +ondon- :ontana, 1<== at page 20=% 7n artistic debate "hich flared up in the 16<0s concerning the merits of instructive value of ancient "riters on the modern%

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It "as the fleeting and the fashionable as opposed to the #eternal and immovable$%60 >ut in the 1<th century a movement began in the other direction, "herein the modern became synonymous "ith #improved, or satisfactory or efficient%$ In the early to mid,20th century, modernity had come to indicate something #un&uestionably favourable or desirable%$61 It is this desire (of alternative modernities and its scholars) to o"n or participate in modernity that re&uires investigation% I in&uire on "hose behalf they desire this modernity5 or "hy they support a discursive refiguring of modernity to allo" all national and cultural sites to ans"er to that description% @he multivalency of the concept of modernity allo"s at least three distinct referents- societal modernisation, cultural modernity and contemporaneity, e?isting in the present% aon!ar dra"s on a :oucauldian heritage to declare that modernity is #best assumed as an attitude of &uestioning the present%$62 1ichel :oucault syntheised the ree! notion of ethos (as #the concrete form of freedom$) "ith >audelaire2s conception of modernity (a relationship to contemporary reality)% @o this he added Lant2s insight that the (nlightenment signaled the beginning of modernity as a philosophical discourse% 1odernity thus becomes, according to :oucault, #a mode of relating to contemporary reality%$ 6* @his notably discursive conception of modernity is rooted in the subDect "ho &uestions% In this sense, it e?pands upon and comple?ifies the presuppositions already held "ithin the notion of (uropean cultural modernity (as used by aon!ar above) / that moment in response to the perceived meaninglessness of societal modernisation2s instrumentalisation of the "orld% Cultural modernity "as a reaction to a set of social and cognitive processes that are constituted by societal modernisation% If the >audelarian attitude to &uestioning the present is a response, then the postcolonial moment of &uestioning the present is e&ually- a response to the transmission of modernity through the arrival of colonialism% 6. I argue this &uestioning of the present might ta!e the form, then, of the interrogative #"hat is my present constituted byB 'hat are the conditions of possibility for the modernity by "hich I &uestion my presentB In &uestioning my present, "hat am I responding toB$ @he responsive &uality of cultural modernity thus
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>audelaire, Charles% #8f the Feroism of 1odern +ife$ in !elected 'ritings on Art and Literature% Je" ;or!- Penguin >oo!s, 1<C2%
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@hese &uotations are ta!en from 'illiams, Keywords at 20= / 20<% aon!ar, page 1*% aon!ar, page 1*%

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aon!ar conceives of modernity as a #transition$ (at page 1C)% @his gives modernity a temporal dimension% 1odernity is the movement of one state to another%

re&uires an attention to the colonialism "hich produced it, but curiously, aon!ar mentions the term #colonialism$ only once in his analysis% yan Pra!ash, another postcolonial scholar, "rites that #the postcolonial e?ists as an aftermath, an after / after being "or!ed over by colonialism%$63 @he colonialism "hich produced the possibility of modernity disappears in the discursive conception% In its place, a historically deconte?tualised and dematerialised version of modernity is posited% In this conception, after modernity has arrived, it is free to be appropriated by the locals% Fo"ever, the constitutive factors of modernity are impossible to ignore / even for aon!ar , producing an oscillatory logic% aon!ar, for e?ample, reveals the e?istence of that "hich he see!s to deny, "riting that although modernity e?presses itself multiply, #the !ey elements in the narrative are present and active%$ (lse"here, he "rites #many of the aforementioned66 cultural forms, social practices, and institutional arrangements GMH surface in most places in the "a!e of modernity%$6C aon!ar "rites that the creative adaptations "ith "hich modernity is received complicate a theory of convergence, as I mentioned above% >y #convergence$, he refers e?plicitly to 20th century modernisation theories "hich see all sites ultimately moving to"ard an institutional and social state convergent "ith that of the 'est% Fe is certainly correct that this #convergence theory$ is complicated by these creative adaptations% >ut nevertheless, he still mar!s them as #adaptations$, because by his o"n admission #!ey elements$ and #institutional arrangements$ are in effect% In other "ords, such adaptations are not free% @hey react to conditions already in effect% >y opposing convergence theory to alternative modernities, ho"ever, aon!ar has erected a stra"man argument% Convergence theory has long been superannuated by more sophisticated "ays of thin!ing modernity% 7 theory of modernity as singular and global is not necessarily congruent "ith convergence theory% Indeed, in the section follo"ing, I "ill argue against convergence theory "hile upholding modernity as singular and global% I argue that "e should recognise the e?istence of a global system "hich does not end up, as 20th century modernisation theory holds, #ma!ing all cultures loo! ali!e$%6= In fact, my argument suggests precisely the opposite of convergence theory% Conceiving of
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Pra!ash, #Postcolonial Criticism and Indian Fistoriography$ in !ocial Te*t *1N*2- =

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Fe spea!s here of the cognitive and social processes of modernisation- #scientific rationalism, pragmatic instrumentalism, secularismM popular government, bureaucratic administration, secularism$%
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aon!ar, page 16% aon!ar, page 16%

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modernity as singular allo"s us to move beyond the temporal dynamics of convergence theory and thin! modernity as a matter of space, relationships and ran! in a global system% aon!ar "rites that the proDect of these brea!a"ay modernities is to #provincialise 'estern modernity%$6< @his is the conse&uence of a thoroughgoing culturalism% It locates its conflict against a hegemonic cultural modernity% It opposes the #universalist idioms$ of 'estern culture% Compare this to len Daly, "ho "rites that the true tas! of emancipatory politics is to provincialise the #universalism$ of capitalism- a culturally unspecific phenomenon "hich has also cast itself as a global system "hich produces coherence (a master,narrative)% @he ascendancy of multinational and transnational corporations points to a "orld in "hich capital is unmoored from specific geographic locations% @he role of the #'est$ / itself a homogenising signifier / diminishes along "ith the economic strengths of India and China% In t"enty years time2, the firm distinction bet"een 'estern culture and capitalism "ill be borne out by the continual decentering and relocation of capitalism2s "ealthiest fortresses% @he adaptations of capitalism, creative or other"ise, continue to derive themselves from a system cast in #universalist idioms$% 4egardless of "here it originates or operates from, capitalism continues to effect huge asymmetries in global (and hence, local) distribution of resources, "ealth and privileged access% aon!ar see!s to oppose the cultural hegemony of the 'est by declaring ne" cultural modernities, asserting #creative adaptations$ and their discursive potential to #ma!e$ modernity as opposed to be made by it% I "ould argue in support of Daly, ho"ever, "ho insists against this proDect that #freedoms are meaningless "ithout the social resources to participate in those freedoms%$C0 aon!ar2s method is to #historicise the conte*ts$ and #pluralise the e*periences of modernity%$C1 >oth of these phrases ac!no"ledge that his multiple modernities derive their source of meaning from something greater than themselves- modernity is indeed in e?cess of the #interrogation of the present%$ :irstly, the #conte?ts$ in "hich modernity occur are not modernity itself / they are #conte?ts$, particular circumstances "hich inform the setting of an event% )econdly, an #e?perience$ of modernity is e&ually not modernity itself% It is an encounter "ith an event% @o assert from this e?perience of modernity that modernity is therefore multiple commits precisely the error postcolonial scholars have charged against their 'est- it operates as a #universalist idiom$ "hich proDects from the local to the global%
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aon!ar, page 13% Daly, lyn% #)lavoD OiEe!- 7 Primer$% aon!ar, page 13, emphases added%

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7 radical relativisation of each nationalNcultural site in relation to modernity immediately declares all sites modern% @his commits t"o errors% :irstly, it automatically declares these alternative modernities on behalf of everyone% @his negates the voice of those impoverished masses, "ho have remar!ed disconsolately of their o"n site #this place is not up to dateP$C2 @hese disputers simply are modern, not by virtue of belonging to a global modernity, but by having a discursive local e?perience proDected onto them by the culturalist thesis of alternative modernities% )econdly, the term 0modernity2, ans"erable every"here, becomes so diffuse as to have no theoretical value% 7s )teve Corcoran has remar!ed in parallel, if #everything is political, then nothing is%$C* In light of these criticisms, I "ould reassert the value of a singular, global modernity% It is more valuable because of the forms of resistance it enables and its consciousness of the global processes "hich are in effect in any e?perience of modernity% >ut I also see! to rehabilitate the idea of singular modernity as a conceptual tool contrary to culturalist criticisms that is it irreparably (urocentric (belonging to the peDorative #'est$), ethnocentric and teleological% @hese criticisms are guilty of the stra"man argument I suggested above / they are directed at an outdated convergence theory% )uch criticisms are also guilty of the culturalist occlusions of capital and globality I outlined above% @hat is to say, they concentrate on matters of local culture at the e?pense of global structure% @hat old colonial,era and post,colonial developmental narratives had positioned modernity as a matter of linear se&uence, marching to"ard the 'est, is borne out by the continuity of the #common,sense$ interchangeability of 'estNmodern% In this sense, )tuart Fall remar!s that societies "hich e?hibit the characteristics of being capitalist, urbanised, industrialised and secular are called 'estern, regardless of geographic location% 'est is thus #a historical not a geographic constructM the meaning of this term is therefore identical to the "ord 0modern2$%C. 7lternative modernities first affirms and then denies this "idespread conception% @he affirmation consists in the culturalist act in "hich modernity is first identified as #'estern$% +aEarus "rites of a similar tendency to #situate the global dispersal of capitalist modernity in terms of the universalisation of 0the 'est%2$ @he 'est, he argues, functions here as a civilisation% Fe "rites,

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:erguson, at page 1=3% 4anciIre, Aac&ues% &issensus% Je" ;or!- Continuum, 2010 at page *%

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Fall, )tuart% #@he 'est and the 4est of 9s- Discourses of Po"er$ in -ormations o Modernity (edited by )tuart Fall)% Cambridge- Polity Press, 1<<2%

#the inevitable result of this construction is a dematerialised understanding of 0the 'est2 / and its modernity, its socio,historical ground / as being in a fundamental sense a sort of cultural disposition%$C3 8nce alternative modernities has already read the socio/historical ground of modernity as coeval "ith the 'est / thus committing to a civilisational pro?y "hich absorbs multiple processes into a universalised, homogenous, transmittable #culture$ / it then see!s to deconstruct this same culturalist conception% In this case, it is attac!ing a stra"man of its o"n creation% @he denial consists in a detemporalised modernity "hich does not ta!e the linear progress of the 'est as its model% @hat is to say, it does not see modernity, as per convergence theory, as marching to"ard the 'est, but rather sees it as developing according to its o"n local time% Fo"ever, postcolonial critics "ho see detemporalisation (the radical relativism afforded by #historicising the conte?ts$) as being sufficient to inaugurate multiple modernities have misunderstood the #discontinuity of the historical narratives of 0the 'est2 and the perduring porousness of Gits borders "ith its 8thersH%$C6 Indeed, cultural anthropologists li!e 9lf FannerE chart the traDectories of transnational e?change as being an old phenomenon, "hich as :erguson remar!s, #ta!e on their significance "ithin social relations of interconnectedness$%CC @his renders incorrect attempts for modernity to be subsumed by the reductionist category of #'est$, "hich commits to an enduring and isolative cultural difference% @he singularity of modernity thus transcends the #'est$% I have already demonstrated ho" the singularity of modernity / the fact that #modernity$ derives its meaning from a global condition , continually reveals itself in aon!ar2s essay, unsettling his argument% 1odernity has an essential structure created by globlisation- this structure consists of its material net"or!s, its flo"s of capital and culture5 the connectedness and complicity "hich means no place stands in isolation to the others% @he occlusion of this structure and subse&uent focus on the discursive e?perience of the individual "ho &uestions hisNher present leads to a denial of its necessity in thin!ing through any account of modernity% )uch an approach, as Dirli! "rites, focuses on #the postcolonial subDect to the e?clusion of an account of the "orld outside the subDect%$ lobal conditions of postcoloniality from this perspective become #a proDection onto the "orld of postcolonial subDectivity
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+aEarus, page .3% +aEarus, page .<% :erguson at page *0%

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and epistemology%$C= @his renders the "orld a matter of discourse, "rought from a particular postcolonial epistemology% It opposes the earlier colonial epistemologies "hich constituted the "orld by using its selfsame logic% @he global net"or!s in "hich postcolonialism operates are thus occluded by an emphasis on subDectivity% Dirli! "rites that this stems from #a period after colonialism, "hen, among other things, a forgetting of its effects has begun to set it%$C< 4osalind 82 Fanlon and David 'ashbroo! have commented on the inefficacy of the solutions offered by this "ay of thin!ing the "orld% @hey "rite that the modes of action it gives rise to / #methodological individualism, the depoliticising insulation of social from material domains, a vie" of social relations that is in practice e?tremely voluntaristic$ / do not constitute a retaliation #radical, subversive or emancipatory%$=0 Criti&uing Pra!ash as a representative of such thin!ing, they locate the same contradictions in his "riting as I have found in aon!ar% @he negligible status of capitalist modernity for Pra!ash threatens to render it #nothing more than a potentially disposable fiction%$ >ut else"here, Pra!ash "rites that the obDective of this thin!ing is to challenge the #homogenisation of the "orld by contemporary capitalism%$=1 7s I remar!ed earlier, the evasion of global structuring ma!es itself apparent in aon!ar2s often contradictory argument% @he occlusion present in the essays "hich deny modernity2s singularity and global structuring is disingenuous, self,defeating and dishonest% @hese essays actively suppress and occlude the structure that continually emerge in their analyses%

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Dirli! at page **6% Dirli! at page **<%

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82 Fanlon, 4osalind and 'ashbroo!, David% #7fter 8rientalism- Culture, Criticism and Politics in the @hird 'orld$ in Comparative !tudies in !ociety and 0istory *.- 1<<2 at page 166%
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82 Fanlon and 'ashbroo!, page 1.C%

!: Africa and Cultural Modernit 7ccording to aon!ar, site,specific readings "or! to complicate our understandings of modernity because they reveal the polymorphous "ays in "hich an attendant cultural modernity has responded to modernisation across the planet% 'hile the volume Alternative Modernities produces such site,specific readings from places as remote as >engal and 1e?ico, it incuriously Doins the ran!s of literature on globalisation "hich #have had remar!ably little to say about 7frica$% Indeed, only a single chapter is devoted to the OanEibar archipelago- mainland 7frica is left untouched% @his might be due to the fact that site,specific readings from regions of 7frica deeply complicate the notion of #modernities$5 they raise the &uestions of modernisation and material net"or!s "hich aon!ar tries to suppress% In the phrase of Aames :erguson, in the discourse on globalisation and its related phenomena, 7frica e?ists as an #inconvenient continent$% =2 @he conditions of various 7frican regions attest to the political and economic disconsolation in "hich I argued intellectual culturalism arose% 7t present, the Democratic 4epublic of Congo, areas of )outh )udan and almost all of )omalia have no central nation,state government% In Oambia, poverty
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:erguson, page 23%

rates are estimated at C*Q%=* )ince the 1<=0s, high interest rates coupled (across the continent) "ith adverse trade balances have led to a situation in "hich various 7frican countries are obliged to spend a greater percentage of national DP servicing debt than education, health care, sanitation and clean "ater% International development agencies (such as the International 1onetary :und and 'orld >an!) have demanded enormous political agency (promotion of particular political agendas such as neoliberalism) on the continent in return for financial aid%=. @here is also the matter of corruption and "ar- in 7ngola, according to :rederic Cooper, oil e?ports service government armies and #diamonds ban!roll the rebels$%=3 :oreign commentators have characterised 7frica as a #global ghetto$ (Jeil )mith) or a continent of #"asted lives$ (Oygmunt >auman)%=6 >ut 7fricans on the ground have their o"n sense of immediate anomie, seeing themselves #simply as less%$ @hey see their future as #blea!, even apocalyptic%$ =C In this conte?t, I return to aon!ar2s stated intention to #revise the distinction bet"een societal modernisation and cultural modernity$, and demonstrate their inseparable complicity% I aim to rescue the 1ar?ist problematic of social resources and their distribution, "hich aon!ar ignores% Indeed, the phrases #poverty$ and #ine&uality$ do not feature at all in his essay% I also hope to present the argument / "hich regions of 7frica amply provide evidence for / that not all #&uestioningGsH of the present$ are underta!en as voluntaristic and independent5 occurring, in short, in an #autonomous domain of cultural practice%$ In most cases such modernity, if it can be argued to e?ist in any valuable sense, is underta!en under conditions of pressure and desperation% Congolese film director DDo @unda "a 1unga, "hose cinema is violent and blea!, has remar!ed that in Linshasa, #(veryone2s in survival mode GMH 7t this level of desperation you Dust do "hat you have to do to survive%$== In the section follo"ing, I "ill develop these themes through a literary analysis of 8usmane )embRne2s novel #od+s ,its o 'ood %

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:erguson, pages 2C / 2=% )mith, pages C / =% Cooper, :rederic!% A rica !ince 5678% Cambridge- Cambridge 9niversity Press, 2002 at page 11C% :erguson, page 2<% :erguson, page 1=<%

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De 'aal, )haun% #'here am I in the :ilmB$ at http-NNmg%co%EaNarticleN2011,0<,2C,"here,am,i,in,the,filmN (last accessed*0 8ctober 2011)

Cultural anthropologists li!e Peter eschiere and Aohn and Aean Comaroff=< have historicised diverse 7frican cultural practices% )uch "or!s conclude that 7frican countries have their o"n alternative modernities, e?pressed through the persistence of cultural practice% @he decision to rescue as #modern$ practices (li!e Cameroonian "itchcraft) "hich "ere once consigned to the #pre,modern$ is congruent "ith aon!ar2s perspective that modernity is #every"here$ and #not one but many$% <0 It "as anthropological and cultural "or! of this variety "hich led to 7ppadurai2s canonical Modernity at Large- born out of an attention to cultural flo"s and migrancy% )uch a spirit survives in aon!ar2s essay, "here he conceives of modernity as a discourse of culture "hile, as I have argued above, he disavo"s or occludes #the force of global norms$ and the #institutional and organisational domains$ in "hich one finds a #high degree of standardisation%$<1 @his #standardisation$ (:erguson2s term) points to "hat I called an essential structure / that creative adaptations adapt from a set of standard elements left in the "a!e of societal modernisationNcolonial contact% I posed the &uestion earlier, on "hose behalf postcolonial critics proclaim the "idespread modern% It is not certain that they pronounce the sentiments of 7fricans, "hom as :erguson has encountered in his travels, #are often puEEled by such claims$<2 in an environment of crumbling infrastructure, pauperisation and abDect health conditions% @he e?ample of 7frica demonstrates that for )outh,(ast 7sian postcolonial critics to declare modernity as #every"here$ is a proDection of their o"n local circumstances as a discordant global totality% @his is not to imply that 7frica is someho" e?cluded from modernity, or that capitalism is not in effect there% 1y conception of modernity as a singular global system means, rather, that 7frica faces asymmetries in this system5 its integration is not conducted on e&ual terms because capital flo"s in this system are not e&ual% Its modernity must be "eighted against the modernity of others% @his emphasis on relations produces a more helpful understanding of modernity in 7frica, as opposed to seeing it as made of a series of discrete, #autonomous domainGsH of cultural practice%$

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eschiere, Peter% The Modernity o 'itchcra t% Charlottesville- 9niversity Press of Kirginia, 1<<C% Comaroff, Aohn and Comaroff, Aean (eds%) Modernity and its Malcontents% Chicago, 9niversity of Chicago Press, 1<<*%
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aon!ar, page 2*% :erguson, page *1% :erguson, page **%

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Does the discourse of )outh,(ast 7sian postcolonial critics on the modern even spea! on behalf of the impoverished masses of their o"n countriesB Perhaps, as Dirli! has cynically remar!ed, they have produced a #discourse that see!s to constitute the "orld in the self,image of Gself,identifiedH postcolonial intellectuals%$ If that is the case, then their discourse is not one of #an agony over identityM but of Gtheir o"n particularH ne"found po"er%$ @he marginalised of 7frica lac! the po"er to participate in or o"n modernity in the same "ay these critics do% @heir #modernity$ is confined to a specialised anthropological usage as a set of coeval cultural practices% In "orld in "hich economists remar! that the balance of economic po"er "ill #shift to the (ast as China and India evolve$<*, alternative modernities as discourse ma!es conte?tual sense in 7sia in a "ay that is inapplicable in 7frica% )uch changing economic realities have results on the ground- a 9J 1illennium Development oals report points out that India had a poverty rate of 31Q in 1<<0 "hich is e?pected to drop to 21Q by 2013%<. In 7frica, such economic convergence is not li!ely%<3 7gainst this bac!drop, cultural conceptions of modernity become less useful analytic tools for thin!ing through the problems of 7frica and its #lo" global status$%<6 I argue that the inability of alternative modernities to account for anything other than a historicised cultural congruity should compel a re,thin!ing of the globality of alternative modernities% 7lternative modernities ac&uires the aspirational values of modernity by default5 by a simple discursive refiguring that does not rec!on "ith the essential lac1 (of resources, but certainly not of capitalism) of many postcolonial places% @his is a lac! in capitalism (that is to say, inside capitalism, e?isting "ithin its logic and system), not a lac! of capitalism, and this is precisely the reason "hy 7frica and other #third,"orld$ nations need to be situated "ithin the net"or! of a capitalist modernity% @his attention to space and relationship complicates any easy assertions of modernity% I "ould follo" :erguson "hom I believe has a non,occlusive alternative "ay of conceiving the problem of modernity% Fe offers up the model of #decomposing modernity$ to challenge both the
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(ngardio, Pete% #7 Je" 'orld (conomy$% 7vailable athttp-NN"""%business"ee!%comNmagaEineNcontentN03S*.Nb*<.=.01%htm (last accessed *0 8ctober 2011)
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)taff 'riter% #India2s Poverty 'ill :all :rom 31Q to 22Q by 2013- 9J 4eport$% 7vailable at http-NNarticles%timesofindia%indiatimes%comN2011,0C,0=Ndevelopmental,issuesN2<C31.C2S1Se?treme,poverty,india,and,china, report (last accessed *0 8ctober 2011)
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modernity,as,telos of mid,20th century modernisation theory (or #convergence theory$, "hich I argued alternative modernities sets up as its stra"man opponent), and the culture,centric alternative modernities% In light of his revision, the t"o separated domains of #societal modernisation$ and #cultural modernity$ return to scrutiny% :erguson locates them, ho"ever, on t"o separate a?es- history and hierarchy% @he first is temporal and the second is a matter of status and location% 8nce modernity becomes decoupled from a linear developmental narrative (the convergence theory narrative), it reveals its spatial dimension% Fe "rites, #1odernity appears at this historical conDuncture Gde, developmentalisedHM as a global status and a political economic condition% GMH @he !ey issues here are of membership and ran!%$<C @he a?is of history (de,developmentalised time) allo"s by the operation of historicism for non,serialised, coeval cultural differences / in short alternative e?periences of modernity as sets of discursive practices% >ut unac!no"ledged by this position is the a?is of hierarchy- a ran!ed political,economic status, a #standard of living$, in "hich some are #simply, une&uivocally, e?cluded%$<= In other "ords, the discursivity of alternative modernities allo"s it to declare congruity only on the a?is of history% )uch a perception produces an historicism "ithout structure, "ithout regard for ran! and membership% It ignores the relationships produced by modernity / the connectedness of all places under the aegis of a singular and global modernity / and thus disables engagement "ith modernity as a global problematic% I propose this route of getting to modernity (as political,economic reality in a global system) against the ree! notion of #ethos$ "hich :oucault / and ultimately aon!ar / used to declare their modernity% Its premises seem, to state it charitably, misplaced in the 7frican conte?t, given that ethos "as described as #the concrete form of freedom$% Consider my remar!s on Aeyifo above about the conditions of politico,economic pressure under "hich culturalism arose% :oucault spea!s of ethos as #being and behaviour$, "riting #a man possessed of a splendid ethos GMH "as someone "ho practiced freedom in a certain "ay%$<< (thos gives the #tas!$, as aon!ar "rites, of #finding the 0eternal and immovable2 in the midst of temporal flu?%$100 @his discursive conception sees the dilemma of modernity, fundamentally, as one "hich returns to the >audelairean notion of (uropean cultural modernity in "hich
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:erguson, page 1=C% :erguson, page 1=<%

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:oucault, 1ichel% #@he (thics of the Concern for )elf as a Practice of :reedom$ in Ethics9 !u$:ectivity and Truth, Cambridge- 1I@ Press, 1<<. at page 2=6%
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aon!ar, page 12%

the proDect is centered on a care and aesthetics of the self% In the te?tual e?egeses "hich follo" in the ne?t section, this #care of the self$ "ill be demonstrated as mar!edly less important than the material pressures under "hich it is performed% 'hat aon!ar calls #cultural modernity$ slo"ly loses its &ualifier by the later sections of his essay and becomes mar!ed simply as #modernity$ 101- modernity altogether thus comes to be represented as a dematerialised discourse of #&uestioning the present$, "ith the political,economic realities, the global hierarchies, in "hich this &uestioning occurs, absented% In revising the distinction, aon!ar does simply emphasise culture at the e?pense of its global situation% 4ather, he occludes the function of this global system altogether% @he charge "hich I have aimed to demonstrate is that his modernity (the modernity of alternative modernities) becomes that of an isolated, site,specific, culture,centric conception, ans"erable every"here, theoretically valueless and effectively closing do"n discussion of global dynamics and the role of capitalism in ma!ing and shaping #the modern "orld$% aon!ar essentially mista!es "hat modernity actually% 9nless postcolonialism rethin!s modernity, its discursive abilities to understand a "orld governed by ine&uality and material conditions of oppression "ill remain incomplete and stunted%

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": #Our $orld is Opening %p& @he phrase "hich opens this literary analysis contains a crucial mar!er of modernity% I hope to e?plore this through the novel from "hich the &uotation is ta!en- )enegalese author 8usmane )embIne2s #od+s ,its o 'ood% )embIne "rites from 1<60 / the year of )enegalese independence / bac! into 1<.CN1<.=, the decisive moment of the Da!ar,Jiger rail"ay stri!e% )uch a stri!e sets the novel in the very crucible of modernity% @he industrial forces / ciphered as the #machine$ / become the target of the labourers, villages and communities "ho recognise the ine&uality, the e?traordinary polarities in the distribution of social resources, "hich governs their e?istences% @he novel is thus concerned "ith the consciousness of the modern era and the transition "hereby modern subDectivities are produced in response to it% @he symbolic potential of the rail"ay gives me a rich te?tual resource "ith "hich to argue against alternative modernities% It is there in the very imagery- the interconnectedness, the interdependency of geographically remote places, brought together by the #machine$5 #a thousand miles of steel lin!ing together a million s&uare miles of the 7frican continent%$102 @he rail"ay can be read as a net"or! / "hat I called a #net"or! of relations$ / a mar!er of continuing globalisation% @he rail"ay also has a complementary relationship "ith that opening phrase% #8ur "orld is opening up$% @he instructive value of this phrase lies in the deliberate ambiguity of the signifier #"orld$% @here are t"o "orlds being called into &uestion here% @here is the #life,"orld$, the immediate humanNcultural environment constituted by its subDects2 perception of the materiality of their surroundings, their codes, politics, spirituality- the signifying regimes by "hich their cultural practice is given meaning and coherence% @his #life,"orld$ is a!in to "hat aon!ar called the #e?perience$ of
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)embIne, 8usmane% #od+s ,its o 'ood% +ondon- Feinemann at page C3%

modernity$, or a #conte?t$ of modernity% It is the #autonomous domain of cultural practice%$ It is the given cognitive horiEon of an individual subDect, shared amongst a particular community or grouping% >ut there is a "orld outside the life,"orld and the rail"ay brings these t"o "orlds into contact, opening them both up% @he life,"orld, the autonomous domain of cultural practice, is opened up to the outside, and the outside is opened up to allo" the life,"orld inside it% @he t"o are connected by the rail"ay% @his is the moment at "hich alternative modernities fails as a thesis% It cannot give a satisfactory account of the life,"orld included "ithin the larger frame"or!- a frame"or! I have variously called a singular modernity, a global modernity and capitalist modernity% It is my intention to sho" that a reading of #od+s ,its o 'ood complicates alternative modernities% It has space to allo" alternative modernities its historicised cultural synchronicity5 in other "ords, its #cultural modernity$, its modernity conceived on the #a?is of history$% >ut the novel e?tends beyond this to consider modernity as a matter of space, relationships, ran! and membership5 it also conceives of modernity on the #a?is of hierarchy$% @he novel contains all the ingredients for a thoroughgoing conversation about modernity- ne" subDectivities, creative adaptations of modern institutions, the irruption of industrialisation into subsistence communities, the changed terms of access to culture under the aegis of modernity% >ut there are other pervasive themes "hich permeate the te?thunger, ine&uality, material constraints% It is through never failing to recognise these material constraints that the novel produces a compelling portrait of the t"o strands of modernity / societal modernisation and cultural modernity / and their inseperable complicity% #od+s ,its o 'ood allo"s us to see "hat is occluded in alternative modernities% @he first thematic mar!er I "ant to focus on is that of the #machine$% I "ant to in&uire into e?actly "hat this machine is and ho" this machine functions in the ma!ing of the modern self% In one of the most e?plicit treatments of this symbol, )embIne "rites#'hen the smo!e from the trains no longer drifted above the savanna, they realiEed an age had ended / an age their elders told them about, "hen all of 7frica "as Dust a garden for food% Jo" the machine rules over their lands, and "hen they forced every machine "ithin a thousand miles to a halt they became conscious of their strength, but also conscious of their dependence% @hey began to understand that the machine "as ma!ing of them a "hole ne" breed of men% It did not belong to them5 it "as they "ho belonged to it%$10*
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#1achine$ of course has a metonymic role to play in this passage% It is not simply trains "hich are mar!ed by this term, but rather the machinic as opposed to the manual5 the inorganic as opposed to the organic% )uch a set of oppositions brings into relief the alien nature of the machine% >efore the introduction of industrial enterprises / or the process of societal modernisation / 7frica "as #a garden for food$% >ut after the modernisation process is under"ay, an effective rupture "ith old "ays of !no"ing and being occurs% @he modern subDect cannot understand an age before the rule of the machine5 to himNher, this is located only "ithin the fable of the elderly% @he labourers become a"are of the dependency on the machine% @he machine both generates and satisfies need% In a Feideggerian moment, the labourers become a"are of "hat the machine represents only once they have relin&uished it of its essential utility% 8nly once the #smo!eM no longer drifts$ and they have forced the machines to a halt, do they recognise their o"n dependency% >ut if they have forced the literal machines to a halt, they have not yet forced the machine to a halt, in its metaphoric sense% @he machine e?tends beyond the engineered artefact into the system by "hich it is given coherence% @he machines are put to use by a logic and it is the e?ploitative nature of that logic that cause the labourers to stri!e% I propose that #machine$ be read not simply as a mar!er of industrialisation, but rather the particular frame"or! in "hich that industrial mar!er is put to use% In the novel, this is unmista!ably the frame"or! of capitalist modernity, and the earlier meetings of the stri!e feature the galvanic announcements of a proletarian consciousness coming into being% Disillusioned by poor "ages, lac! of medical care and benefits, increasing costs and ine&uality "ith "hite "or!ers, the stri!ers point out the incongruity of ran! stemming from the classic 1ar?ian binary of proletariat and bourgeoisie% In the other e?plicit treatment of the machine, )embIne continues to stress the dependency on this ne" "orld and the reactions it produces#M they "ere conscious that the machine "as the source of their common "elfare, and they sensed that the frustration they felt in these dar! days "as also common to them all GMH 0@he !ind of man "e "ere is dead, and our only hope for a ne" life lies in the machine "hich !no"s neither a language nor race%$10.

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Daly has suggested that the response to global capitalism should not be one of #retreat into the nation,state or into organicist forms of 0community2 and popular identities$%103 >y this he means to argue against the culturalism "hich mandates retreat into the life,"orld% @his retreat does nothing to reconfigure the constellation of factors by "hich the asymmetries of capitalism are !ept in place% @he stri!ers of #od+s ,its o 'ood perform precisely the opposite% >y recognising that the material conditions of suffering they e?perience are #common to all$, they engage ne" forms of solidarity / a solidarity common across Da!ar, Jiger and @hiIs, the three cities in "hich the narrative is staged / through the common resistance of the stri!e% @his notion of dependency upon the machine also signals the intrusion of the machine into the life,"orld% It is not the case that the machine / in either the industrial or systemic incarnations in "hich I situated it in / is someho" divorced from cultural practice% In fact, )embIne2s continued efforts to dra" attention to this dependency suggest the centrality of the economic system (in "hich these "or!ers find themselves) to notions of self% Fe "rites of #a ne" breed of men$ and a #ne" life$ "hich lies in the machine% @his can be understood as the changing perspectives / the transition / "hereby consciousness responds to material conditions% @hese men are ma!ing themselves modern through the development of a proletariat consciousness and subDectivities "hich respond to their circumstances% @hey are engaging in ne" forms of #&uestioning the present$% >ut at all times, the machine is there in the details, governing the particular nature of the &uestioning, and ensuring that the &uestioning occurs under duress rather than as voluntaristic% Part of this duress is captured in the novel2s emphases on the degradation of its characters under capitalist logic / this is communicated through the theme of hunger% (arly on )embIne calls @hiIs the place "here #all the rot of the city has gathered%$ Fe "rites that #bald,sided goats GMH came here to graEe / graEe on "hatB / the airB$ giving an idea of the barren,ness of the place% Fe produces images of desperation "riting that #constantly hungry, na!ed children, "ith sun!en chests and s"ollen bellies, argued "ith the vultures%$106 )uch scenes of hunger permeate the novel% @he colonialistNcapitalist faction "ho run the rail"ay company use hunger as a "eapon against the stri!ing masses% 7nd in a scene "hich captures the essence of the lac1 (of social and economic resources) under "hich most 7frican

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&uestionings of the present ta!e, )embIne "rites of #something missing$- #the 0something missing2 "as their daily bread%$10C )uch scenes and images root the struggles of the stri!ers in a particular situation- the struggle for the material e&uality by "hich they might then ma!e themselves modern% @his lac! has the po"er to corrupt the supposed autonomy of the cultural domain of practice, the life,"orld% In the immediate aftermath of the stri!e, #Ceremonies that "ent bac! to time immemorial "ere revived, and pageants that had long been forgotten GMH "omen dyed their hands and feet "ith henna enriched "ith the blac! of burnt rubber and coloured their lips "ith antinomy% @he young girls GMH abandoning themselves to the rhythms of the >ambara dances% >ut such revels could not go on indefinitely% 7n intangible sense of loss "eighed on everyone- the loss of the machine%$10= #'e have more important things to thin! of than celebrations,$ the character 1ama )ofi proclaims% #:irst "e have to manage to stay aliveP$10< @he loss of the machine and the hunger it brings has more e?plicit po"er than to simply halt the cultural revelry of the villagers% Indeed, it has the po"er to change the very nature of that revelry and practice- the po"er to reinvest obDects "ith ne" meaning, or degrade the meaning they currently possess% )embIne "rites that the "omen are eventually forced to try and sell their fetishes, some of "hich have the po"er to protect #their o"ners from the evil eye and turn a"ay the 3inn and any other form of misfortune%$ Fe "rites that #the "omen had arrived at a degree of apathy "here even such "ounds to their pride as this no longer seemed of any great importance%$110 @his is a pivotal recognition of the "ays in "hich material lac! begin to infringe upon cultural systems of cognition and in doing so change them% Ian >uchanan interprets 1ar?ist 7rchaeologist K% ordon Childe as suggesting that before a society has its #artist and shamans, it must first of all produce sufficient surplus food to support non,

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producing members%$111 @he logic of this statement is applicable in the scenario of #od+s ,its o 'ood, albeit "ith adDustment% I "ould remar! that the novel demonstrates the priority of satisfying the demands of hunger before that of culture% 7s I have demonstrated above, culture responds to the infrastructural realities presented before it% 7s (uropean cultural modernity responded to these realities of societal modernisation, so do the inhabitants of )enegal faced "ith the similar changes in the environment% 7t all times, ho"ever, the enduring observation is that the life,"orld and the "orld outside it are not separate domains, but rather continually run into one another and affect each other% @he character J2Deye has much to say about the &uestion of lac!, although she spea!s from a curious position, given that she spends her time reading #"estern$ novels and has adDusted her "orldvie" accordingly% #)he lived in a !ind of separate "orld5 the reading she did, the films she sa", made her part of a universe in "hich her o"n people had no place, and by the same to!en, she no longer had a place in theirs%$ )he fantasises about and idealises the "orld she encounters in her te?ts% )he no" recognises "hat she calls a #lac! of civilisation$ in her o"n people, and remar!s that #real life "as there Gin the te?tH, not here, in this "retched corner, "here she "as confronted "ith beggars and cripples at every turning%$112 )he is a curious character, given that she appears to understand as #real life$ and #civilised$ that "hich else"here from her o"n environment "hich is one of poverty and illness% @he characters of the novel do not function simply as private individuals% @hey have noticeably synecdochic relationships "ith their community5 relationships that could effortlessly be situated "ithin Aameson2s frame"or! for understanding "hat he termed #third,"orld te?ts$ (te?ts originating from the so,called #third,"orld$, such as 7frica)% Fe argued #7ll third,"orld te?ts are necessarily GMH allegorical, and in a very specific "ay- they are to be read as "hat I "ill call national allegories% Goriginal emphasisH11* I argue that the characters of #,4' are designed as collectives- compressed into each character are multiple tensions that e?ist at the public, national / and finally even continental / level% @he characters Jia!oro and 7d2Dibid2Di are t"o such e?amples% @a!en together, they form an oppositional complement%

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Jia!oro is the grandmother of the >a!ayo!o household5 she is described as a #leftover from a vanished time, slo"ly being forgotten%$11. )he is the source of an an?iety about a loss tradition% )he has lived through a former stri!e in "hich she lost t"o family members% @he description that )embIne uses is telling, though% )he is a leftover from an era before the rule of the machine5 the tribal "isdom "hich has is slo"ly coming to lose its po"er in the ne" "orld% @he material conditions of life have been altered% Jia!oro2s function is to demonstrate the latent, dynamic po"er of precolonial culture "hich does not simply annihilate itself and give itself over to a #modern$ culture "hich is constitutively 'estern% Instead, )embIne "rites, #old Jia!oro "as sleeping, or pretending to sleep%$113 In this coded phrase, he suggests that the !no"ledge and "isdom "hich she possesses is not something unconscious to the modern "orld but, I "ould argue, adaptive% It is certainly the case that Jia!oro has lost the sovereignty she once "ould have possessed over matters5 she is no longer consulted as the final source of !no"ledge% #In her time the young people undertoo! nothing "ithout the advice of the elders, but no", alone, they "ere deciding on a stri!e GMH "ere the "ays of the old time gone foreverB$116 I propose that the opposition bet"een Jia!oro and her granddaughter 7d2Dibid2Di 'e seen as a comment on the incomplete transition to modern (a s of thin)ing that the stri)ers are still (or)ing through* The are in a time suspended 'et(een the old (a s of )no(ing+ and material constraints have forced them to rethin) the efficac of some of their older cognitive s stems* Ad,-i'id,-i is a oung girl+ s m'olising the future* .he is a constant (itness to the stri)e proceedings+ refusing the confine herself to the domestic and culinar chores /ia)oro sees as fitting of her gender* 0nquisitivel + she has 'egun to learn #the (hite man,s language&+ causing /ia)oro to o'serve+ # ou rootless people thin) onl of learning his 1language2+ (hile our language dies3&11C @he "orld #language$ might be multivalent here and point perhaps not e?clusively to a particular method human communication% It might also point to a #language$ "ith the "orld, a reorienting language produced through a modern sensibility, or the apprehension and contemplation of a gradually spreading modernity%

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@here are t"o more elements directly concerned "ith the nature of modernity I "ish to e?plore% @he first is the idea of the #creative adaptation$% @his occurs in the novel "hen the character Diara is to be prosecuted for returning to "or! after the announcement of the stri!e% Fis #trial$ is conducted "ith an admi?ture of modern legal reprisal and precolonial communal reprisal% .em'Ine "rites that #this "as the first time anyone GMH had ta!en part in a trial%$ Commenting on the conflict the community e?perience "ith regard to "hich logic they "ill use to perform the operation, he "rites that they have the sense of #having been removed from their natural element GMH the very ne"ness of $eing orced to ma!e a decision of this !ind for themselves had sharpened their interest and curiosity% Gemphasis addedH$11= @his is another !ey section in "hich )embIne ma!es it clear that the adaptation of the modern institution (they struggle over "hether they should imprison Diara, or "hether the prison #belongs to the "hite man$) does not al"ays occur as voluntaristic% Fere he particularly uses the phrase #being forced$, to suggest the pressure of the moment in "hich this practice occurs% @he final element I "ant to e?plore is that of the production of a ne" modern subDectivity "hich is dramatised through the females of the novel% 'hile they are initially confined to the domestic site, the "omen soon come to ta!e on an integral role in the pursuit of resources "ith "hich to feed their husbands and children% @he "omen are also complicit in several violent encounters "ith the colonial administrators% 4amatoulaye is a matriarch figure "ho is involved in such incidents of violence% )he boldly confronts the colonial forces "ho accost her after she slaughters a goat "hich does not belong to her ("hich in turn, provides food for the large family clan she supervises)% )embIne as!s, #"here, then, had this violence been bornB$ Fe concludes, #@he ans"er "as as simple as the "oman herself% It had been born beside a cold fireplace in an empty !itchen%$11< @he female figures of the novel are eventually caught up "ith the male stri!ers in their opposition to the e?ploitative logic of the capitalist system "hich condemns their families to starvation% @his culminates in one of the novel2s central episodes, the four,day long staged march the "omen underta!e from @hiIs to Da!ar% )embIne "rites#(ver since they left @hiIs, the "omen had not stopped singing% 7s soon as one group allo"ed the refrain to die, another pic!ed it up, and ne" verses "ere born at the haEard of chance or inspiration, one "ord leading to another and each finding in its turn, its rhythm and place% Jo

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one "as very sure any longer "here the song began, or if it had an ending% It rolled out over its length, li!e the movement of a serpent% It "as as long as a life%$120 @he symbolic content of this &uotation appears to say much about the novel as a "hole% It has all the suggestion of the communitarian spirit and solidarity "hich guides the mobilisation of villagers% >ut the song / "ithout its beginning and "ithout its conceivable end / #as long as life$ can be read as representing the development of their consciousness itself- the adaptive &uality of #finding its turn, its rhythm, its place$ and the ne"ness of the modern subDectivity "hich forms ne" verses / ne" "ays of thin!ing / #at the haEard of chance or inspiration%$ 7s they march to"ards the offices of their antagonists, the song they sing reflects their particular #e?perience$ of modernity, the #conte?t$ in "hich they have e?perienced it, and the particular responses that have been generated in them% @hrough the assistance of the "omen assistance, the stri!ers are finally able to halt not simply the machine, but the logic of the machine, and have their capitalist antagonists agree to their demands for e&uality% :or all the above reasons, the novel intimately reveals those things that are lac!ing in alternative modernities% It disproves the idea of an #autonomous domain of cultural practice$ and suggests that material constraints are in effect in any &uestioning of the present% It demonstrates ho" lac! of social resources and e&uality have adverse effects on a practical culturalism by sho"ing ho" culture reacts to and responds to such ine&ualities% It demonstrates further that modernity cannot be rec!oned "ith solely as a matter of culture "hen the hierarchical issues of ran! and membership sho" themselves up in a system fundamentally predicated on e?clusion and disavo"al% 1ost importantly, ho"ever, it dra"s the life,"orld of culture into a vaster net"or! "hich comes to govern the conditions under "hich that life, "orld can operate% @his inclusion allo"s for the recognition of modernity as a matter of the relationship of nodal points "ithin that net"or!%

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)embIne, page C.%

4: Conclusion In this section I "ill briefly summarise the arguments and their traDectories I posited above% 1y central argument has been that the alternative modernities thesis "hich has gained ascendancy in postcolonial discourse is rooted in an older culturalist thesis and is prey to the problems of that thesis% I have argued that part of this problem is an inability to account for the structuration of the "orld, and an occlusive tendency to understand local e?periences as representing global totalities% I argued that the culturalism from "hich alternative modernities gains many of its premises, came at a moment of politico,economic disconsolation on the 7frican continent% Part of the enduring problem of this culturalism has been the tendency to conceive of global problems in civilisational or cultural terms% @his has effectively prevented it from theorising and organising itself against capitalism, allo"ing it, rather, to mobilise itself against #the 'est$% @he upshot is that #culture$ becomes seen a retaliatory "eapon against a hegemonic civilisation, "hile the socio,political constellation of factors that constitute that civilisation is left relatively une?plored% I have used an essay of Dilip aon!ar as a representative e?ample of one defence of alternative modernities, and through close te?tual analysis and e?plication, have sho"n ho" the contradictions of the alternative modernities position are borne out in his essay% Part of this contradiction has been to sho" that the t"o #modernities$ "hich aon!ar conceives of / societal modernisation and cultural modernity / are separated in his essay and the former is upheld as an #autonomous domain of cultural practice%$ Dra"ing on the "or! of Aames :erguson, I situated cultural modernity on his #a?is of history$ and demonstrated that alternative modernities is only able to declare modernity as a historicised cultural synchronicity- in other "ords, it restricts itself to an anthropological sense of modernity as a set of coeval cultural practices% In this conception of modernity, it becomes ans"erable every"here and loses all theoretical value%

I have argued that in alternative modernities2 desire to argue against a singular modernity, it has misconstrued its opposition as mid,20th century modernisationNconvergence theory- as such, it has conducted a stra"man argument% I have suggested in its place "hat I have called a singular modernitypossibilities "hich follo" from :erguson2s conception of an a?is of hierarchy% It is not possible to consider modernity as a matter of hierarchy in alternative modernities because it is focused on the detemporalisation of mid,20th century convergence theory% 1atters of societal modernisation are located on the a?is of hierarchy% @his hierarchy allo"s us to consider such elements as ran! and membership in a global system, elements "hich are not readily visible to a thesis li!e alternative modernities "hich sees the idea of hierarchy as part of a (urocentric master,narrative against "hich other modernities must be Dudged% I have argued that there is also a disablement involved in this conception, as it does not rec!on "ith the essential lac! of social resources and material "ealth "hich various places in the "orld suffer from% I particularly used e?amples from 7frica to demonstrate that to spea! of modernity in 7frica seems misplaced on the ground% @he point of this argument "as ultimately to sho" that the discursive conception of modernity "hich holds the alternative modernities thesis together / namely, the idea that modernity is best understood as a #&uestioning of the present$ / is a less capable theory of accounting for global dynamics and the organising force of capital in the "orld, than theories "hich base themselves on an understanding of a singular modernity from "hich all others ultimately derive% @he final section of my argument "as to locate some of these tensions and conflicts in "hat I consider a relevant cultural te?t- 8usmane )embIne2s #od+s ,its o 'ood% (?ploring the te?ture of the novel, I argued that it develops an intimate portrait of the "ay material constraints deeply affect material and cultural possibilities% @he conclusion of the analysis "as to suggest that the separation of societal modernisation and cultural modernity should not be upheld5 the t"o should rather be thought of as constitutively ma!ing one category called modernity% @he problem of thin!ing through modernity, and its relationship to the distribution of social resources across the planet, is given a useful analytic frame"or! through conceiving of modernity as singular% @he discursive refiguring of alternative modernities is occlusive, disabling and reveals contradictions in the arguments of its e?ponents% @he singular modernity thesis, I have argued, by recognising the global forces at "or! / by recognising the continued organising and shaping po"er of

capitalism on all cultural domains / offers a better "ay to thin! through the &uestion of "hat it means to be modern%

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