Homi Bhabha was born in 1949 in Mumbai, India. He studied at University of Mumbai and Christ Church, Oxford. He is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American literature and the Director of the Humanities Center at Harvard University. He is one of the most important figures in contemporary post- colonial studies. He has developed several new concepts such as hybridity, mimicry, difference and ambivalence. These terms describes the ways in which colonized peoples have resisted the power of the coloniser.
In 2012, he received the Padma Bhushan award in the field of literature and education from the government of India.
His major works include:
- (Ed) Nation and Narration
- The Location of culture
- In a spirit of Calm violence
- Modernity, Culture and the Jew
- On cultural Choice
- V.S. Naipaul
- Democracy De- Realised
- On Writing Rights
- Making Difference: The Legacy of the Culture Wars 10. Still Life
- Framing Fanon
Homi Bhabha was influenced by Edward Said, Michael Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, Fanon, Toni Morrison, V.S. Naipaul etc. The important ideas of Homi Bhabha are as follows:
Hybridity
One of the important ideas of Homi Bhabha is ‘hybridity’ which he borrowed from Edward Said’s work. He describes the emergence of new cultural forms from multiculturalism. He does not see colonialism as something locked in the past but he shows how its histories and cultures constantly intrude on the present. It demands that we transform our understanding of cross cultural relations. His work transformed the study of colonialism by applying post-structural methodologies to colonial texts.
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Ambivalence
The idea of ambivalence sees cultures as consisting of opposite perceptions and dimensions Bhabha claims that this ambivalence this duality presents the split in the identity of the colonized other Ambivalence thus contributes to the reason why colonial power is characterized by its belatedness. Colonial presence, thus, remains ambivalent, split between its appearance as original and authoritative and its articulation as repetition and difference.
Cultural Difference
Bhabha presents cultural difference as an alternative to cultural diversity. In cultural diversity, a culture is an object of empirical knowledge and pre-exists the knower while cultural difference sees culture as the point at which two or more cultures meet. An important aspect of colonial and post-colonial discourse is their dependence on the concept of ‘fixity’ in the construction of otherness.
Mimicry
Like Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, mimicry is a metonym of presence. Mimicry takes place when the colonial people imitate the culture of the colonizers. Lacan remarks, “The effect of mimicry is a camouflage… it is not a question of harmonizing with the background but against a mottled background.” Colonial mimicry comes from colonist’s desire for a reformed, recognizable other. It is the sign of double articulation, and the sign of the inappropriate. Bhabha sees mimicry as a double vision which in disclosing the ambivalence of colonial discourse also disrupts its authority.
Third Space
The third space is an ambiguous area that develops when two or more individuals or cultures interact. It challenges our sense of historical identity of culture as a homogenizing, unifying force authenticated by the originary past, kept alive in the national tradition of the people. As a result, the hierarchical claims to the innate originality or purity of cultures are invalid. Enunciation implies that culture has no fixity and even the same signs can be appropriated, re-historicized and read in a new manner.
Location of Culture
Location of Culture is an important work by Homi Bhabha in which he problematizes cultural identity. Bhabha had admitted in an interview that he was influenced by Edward said and in many ways, it is a continuation of Said’s Orientalism. The first wave of post-colonial criticism ushered in by Edward Said’s writing gave voice to formerly subdued nationalist traditions. Bhabha acknowledge the importance of history but argues for greater critical reflection to the structure of the narratives produced.
The Location of Culture can be said to be a post-structuralist questioning of Orientalism’s historicism. Using the ideas developedby Barthes, Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard, Bhabha challenges the cohesiveness of culture. This illusory cohesiveness is expressed through a series of fixed historical factors such as race, gender, religion and education. Colonial history can be broken down into binary oppositions like nature/ culture, western/native etc. Bhabha challenge this dialectical view of colonial history.
The questions Bhabha poses for identity cannot be addressed easily by a discourse of difference. The Location of Culture works towards a critical framework that could precede such hierarchies re-interpreting Frantz Fanon’s observation that black and white bodies are not opposed for the sake of a greater unity as the new project of post-colonial theory. The focus of Bhabha’s project is based on the concept of a boundary. Boundary is not something that stops but begins its presence. Boundary creates the space for hybridity. Bhabha strives for universalism disavowing historicism. He delocalizes his argument. He praises Fanon for his de-historicized colonial psyche. The universalism of Bhabha’s theory has its advantages as it allows us to consider Bhabha’s model in relation to other disciplines. It can offer a constructive model for considering new objects.
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