Homi K. Bhabha Analysis

1579 Words7 Pages

Homi K. Bhabha
Homi K.Bhabha was born in 1949 in Mumbai, India. He is one of the most important figures in contemporary post-colonial studies, and has developed a number of the field 's neologisms and key concepts, such as hybridity, mimicry, difference, and ambivalence. Such terms describe ways in which colonized peoples have resisted the power of the colonizer, “a power that in never as secure as it seems to be.”(Huddart 1) Bhabha’s works shows that “The authority of dominant nations and ideas is never as complete as it seems, because it is always marked by anxiety, something that enables the dominated to fight back.”(ibid 1) He believes that colonization is no longer a domination of the colonizer over the colonized, but the cultural interaction between the two mentioned sides. “When colonizer and the colonized come together there is an element of negotiation of cultural meaning.” (2) According to David Huddart “Bhabha’s work explores how language transforms the way identities are structured when colonizer and colonized interact, finding that colonialism is marked by a complex economy of identity in which colonized and colonizer depend on each other.”(2) His work by applying psychological approach to colonial power, shows that “colonial discourse only seems to be successful in its domination of the colonized. Underneath its apparent success, this discourse is secretly marked by radical anxiety about its aims, its claims, and its achievements.” (3) In

Open Document