Rethinking the colonial encounter with Bakhtin (and contra Foucault)

The limitations of employing a Foucauldian framework for studying the colonial encounter are discussed and an alternative approach drawing on the work of the Bakhtin Circle is proposed. The origins of the Foucauldian approach in postcolonial studies is traced back to the emergence of Stalinist critiques of ‘bourgeois orientalism’ at the beginning of the Cold War, which proposed a dualistic model of closed discourses of ‘bourgeois’ and ‘Soviet’ orientalism. The Bakhtinian approach developed in opposition to Stalinist attempts to ‘monologise’ the critical approaches developed in the USSR, questioning the idea of closed discourses and stressing modes of engagement between different social groups and ideological positions. The second part of the article provides a case study of the emergence on Indo-European philology, which is often presented as a clear example of Western Orientalism. It is shown that this movement developed as a result of collaboration between European philologists and Indian high-caste pandits. It is shown that various agendas were pursued within philology, and that a number of different critical intersections emerged over time. It is suggested that a Bakhtinian approach, suitably revised and developed, provides a superior starting point for understanding these phenomena.