Deconstruction and the Postcolonial: At the Limits of Theory (review)

In this engaging and theoretically sophisticated book, Michael Syrotinski proposes a practice of ‘deconstructive postcolonialism’ that seeks to offset both deconstruction’s perceived lack of political efficacy and the way much postcolonial thinking perpetuates the deterministic binary oppositions of the colonial system. Specifically, Syrotinski argues that ‘deconstruction as a highly vigilant reading practice can inform our critical understanding of specific postcolonial contexts’ (p. 59). From the book’s enactments of this reading practice, it emerges as a rereading/ rewriting that always doubles up on itself, yet through its very ambivalence can produce a glimmer of hope in the ‘starless night’ of the African postcolony (p. 117). Syrotinski begins by rereading Robert Young’s genealogical narrative of deconstruction’s postcolonial roots and Gayatri Spivak’s hostile assessment of Spectres de Marx as disregarding the complexity of the double inscription central to Jacques Derrida’s work. He also revisits the concepts of hybridity and fetishism, mobilizing, among others, Homi Bhabha’s ‘savage hybridity’ and the films of Ousmane Sembene to establish deconstructive versions characterized by an irreducible ambivalence. The last chapters of the book are the most inventive, since they deal with lesser known theorists and move from rereading theory and concepts to using rereading and rewriting as concepts in the specific context of Francophone Africa. First, there is V.Y. Mudimbe’s notion of reprendre. Against the view that Mudimbe is too dependent on Western frameworks, Syrotinski forcefully argues that reprendre does not constitute a repetition without difference but a reinvention that opens the way to an African subjectivity beyond identity politics and a form of representation that challenges the requirement of representational adequacy. Achille Mbembe’s approach of ‘writing Africa’ is seen to produce similarly positive outcomes. After analysing two misreadings of Mbembe (with the assessment of Judith Butler’s reading as determinist being not entirely persuasive), Syrotinski outlines how ‘writing Africa’ according to the redoubled responsibility performed by Mbembe creates not the pessimistic vision with which the latter is often associated but ‘a strong, positive and materially grounded vision of a future for Africa’ (p. 104). In his conclusion, Syrotinski tentatively links the previously explored practices of rereading/rewriting to Maurice Blanchot’s ‘writing of the disaster’. Here, the book redoubles itself by moving from tracing the benefits of a turn to deconstruction by postcolonialism to investigating the potential of a post-colonial Blanchot, not in order to add another forefather to postcolonialism’s genealogy, but to underline how deconstruction is far from a-political and rewriting the postcolony far from straightforward. What remains rather vague, however, is how exactly deconstructive postcolonialism translates into concrete political action. Readings of actual socio-political situations would have been helpful, as would more elaborate analyses of the novels and films Syrotinski touches upon. His exploration of the writings of Sony Labou Tansi, in particular, is tantalizingly brief. Nevertheless, Syrotinski’s erudite theoretical explorations make this book essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of two major approaches to the contemporary world.