Biography
Kuan-Hsing
Chen grew up in Taiwan and completed his college education there before
he went to the U.S. for graduate study. Chen received his Ph.D. from
University of Iowa in 1988. He then moved back to Taiwan and joined the
faculty of the Foreign Language and Literature Department at National Tsinghua
University in Hsinchu. He is currently Professor of Cultural Studies and
the Coordinator of the Center for Asia-Pacific/Cultural Studies at Tsinghua.
Chen writes in Chinese for his readers in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and China, and in English for an even broader international audience. His bilingual cultural background and his training in the field of English/American cultural studies allow him, in his research focusing on the contemporary developments of decolonization, to particularly emphasize the balance between looking into a given locale's geo-historical specificity and situating such locale into a wider horizon of Marxist internationalism.
Many works in the field of post-colonial cultural studies, including those of Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Stuart Hall, have intensively criticized the Euro/American imperialism. In contrast, throughout his scholarship developed in the 1990s, Chen has constantly reactivated Frantz Fanon's theses and paid more attention to articulate, explain, and criticize the on-going psychological complexes and cultural imaginations of the ex-colonized. These are the two major spheres in which the ideology of colonialism remains functioning actively, and of which decolonization is the challenging, unfinished business for the critics working in the field of cultural studies.
Major Concepts
Duplication of the Imperialist Eye
After those immediate anti-Colonialist and Independence Movements which
took place in many Third-World countries in the post-Second-World-War period,
the colonized's deep desire to displace and replace the colonizer has been
manifested, in many contexts, into either internal colonialism or regional
imperialism. The way in which Taiwan has been becoming one of the regional
imperialist entities is carefully scrutinized by Chen in his article "The
Imperialist Eye: The Cultural Imaginary of a Sub-Empire and a Nation-State".
As the former colony of Japan (1895-1945), the nation-state Taiwan opened itself to the capitalist investment which has poured into the island country from post-War Japan and America since the 1950s, and thus rapidly created the so-called economic miracle of its own. By the 1980s, the Taiwanese capital had reached its limits in the domestic market. Re-investment overseas in the regions which were poorer and less developed than Taiwan itself first became the outlet popularized among Taiwanese businessmen; such an exporting of the surplus capital was later endorsed by the nation-state’s governmental policy. In Chen's observation, while Taiwan has heavily depended on the neo-imperialism of Japan and America to stabilize its own political, economic, and even cultural structures, its aggressive approach of taking advantage of the cheaper labor, the lower standards of environmental regulation etc. in Southeast Asian and other Third-World countries is in itself a manifestation of the ideology of "sub-empire". That is to say, the ex-colonized now, in terms of both the psychology and the practice, becomes talented in cooperating with the ones stronger and more dominant than itself in the game of global capitalism. In the meantime, it learns to exploit those who are weaker and more vulnerable than itself in the same game.
Taiwanese sub-imperialism is not only a matter of economic exploitation, but also a cultural discourse woven by various professionals working in the terrain of representation. To be specific, Chen examines the mentality and emotion represented in the "marching southward" special series which was published in China Time in 1994. While supporting the updated "marching southward" policy of the government, the authors of the special series activated the genres of natural history, historical narrative, memoir, and travelogue to redraw the regional map on which Taiwan is assumed to be the center reaching out towards its Southeast Asian neighbors. The cultural discourse of "marching southward" becomes the frame through which the sub-imperialist Taiwan sees itself and the rest of the world according to its own will. To activate such a will and the self-centrism evoked by it, as Chen highlights it, is to see the world through the eyes of the aged Imperialism. What really goes on is exactly the duplication of "the Imperialist Eye". Colonialist ethos does not vanish from the nation-state which presumably reached its post-colonial status decades ago.
Civilizationalism
Chen identifies three trends of decolonization which have taken
place in the Third-World areas. They are, roughly according to the order
of their coming into the scene, "nationalism", "nativism", and "civilizationalism".
In his criticism, all of these trends carry their own problematics and
cannot thoroughly demolish the negative effect of colonialism. Nationalism
directly came out of the Independence Movements after the Second World
War. It has been used by its agents as an ideological weapon to expel the
colonizer. However, in many newly independent countries, nationalism soon
became subjected to the practice and rhetoric of internal colonialism.
Nativism mainly derived from the "self-rediscovery movement" during and
right after the Independence Movements in the 1950s. Nevertheless, by denying
anything associated with the ex-colonizer, the nativists and their effort
of decolonization remain defined by the former.1 Along
with nationalism and nativism, civilizationalism is considered by Chen
as the latest trend of decolonization motivated by the ex-colonized, to
which he gives more attention in his recent works (1996b, 1998b, forthcoming).
Ashis Nandy’s thesis on the assimilation of Indian Civilization without (or prior to) the intervention of nation-state and its ideological agency of nationalism is that which Chen identifies as civilizationalism.2 As suggested by Chen, such a civilizationalism is frequently associated with "Chinese", "Indian", "Near East", "Oriental", and "Islamic" in the contemporary contexts. The discourses of these large non-Western civilizations do not necessarily have any concrete substance; they are the "emotional signifier" which reacts to the now post-colonial world. On the other hand, Chen points out the real danger of civilizationalism is that these civilizations "might fall into the logic of colonial competition and in a struggle over representing the Other of the West, to occupy the space of the non-West" (1998b, 18). Civilizationalism has begun to manifest its potential of growing into the reproduction of ethnocentrism and the practice of exclusion.
Little Subjectivity Complex
Different from the mentality and practice of civilizationalism,
many smaller political entities such as Sri Lanka, Taiwan, or Korea share
the attitude which Chen refers to as the "little subjectivity complex".
The little subjectivity takes place when these smaller nation-states feel
uneasy about the civilizational hegemony claimed by their big neighbors
of India, China, or Japan. They set their eyes on the West and consider
themselves to be more successful in the progress of Westernization, or
(in the preferable neutral term) modernization, than their neighbors. The
little subjectivity complex reveals its agents’ fear of and resistance
to the potential of being recolonized by those big civilizations. Nevertheless,
the way in which these little subjects feel the need to choose the right
side to which to attach themselves remains a form of discrimination subjected
to the single object of superiority. As long as the West is still the only
standard coming into their horizon, the little subjects look down on the
others whom they judge as less valuable than themselves. The door of possible
interactions among multiple others who come into the picture of globalization
through different trajectories thus remains closed.
Endnote
1. Chen reutilizes the "rather neglected" theses of
Fanon's contemporary, Albert Memmi, to articulate the feature and limitation
of the nativist trend of decolonization (Chen 1998b). Memmi's work which
is referred to by Chen is The Colonizer and the Colonized (1957).
2. Chen's interpretation of the civilizationalist
strategy of decolonization is drawn from Nandy’s search for the virtue
of Indianness in Gandhi’s philosophy and that of Tagore. Two of Nandy's
works referred to by Chen are The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery
of Self under Colonialism (1983) and The Illegitimacy of Nationalism:
Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of Self (1994).
Selected Bibliography
1986/1998
MTV: The (Dis)Appearance of Postmodern Semiosis, or the Cultural Politics
of Resistance. Journal of Communication Inquiry 10(1): 66-69; also in The
Postmodern Presence: Readings on Postmodernism in American Culture and
Society (Arthur Berger ed.): 175-179. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira.
1987a.
Changes in Coverage of American News in Two Chinese Newspaper: A Comparison.
In Political Communication Research: Approaches, Studies, Assessments (David
Paletz ed.) 129-147. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex.
1987b.
Mass-Media and Postmodernity: The Cultural Politics of Silencing in
Jean Baudrillard. Communication Yearbook 10: 666-683.
1987c.
The Masses and the Media: Baudrillard's Implosive Postmodernism. Theory,
Culture and Society 4(1): 71-88.
1987d.
Beyond Truth and Method: On Misreading Gadamar’s Praxical Hermeneutics.
The Quarterly Journal of Speech 73:183-199.
1988.
History, Theory and Cultural Politics: A Minor Discourse of Mass-Media
and Postmodernity. Unpublished dissertation. University of Iowa.
1989.
Deterritorializing "Critical" Studies in "Mass" Communication. Journal
of Communication Inquiry 13(2):43-61.
1990.
Deterritorializing "Critical" Studies in "Mass" Communication: Toward
a Theory of "Minor" Discourse. Journal of Communication Inquiry 13(2):
43-61.
1991/1996d.
Post-Marxism: Between/Beyond Critical Postmodernism and Cultural Studies.
Media, Culture, and Society 13(1):35-51; also in Stuart Hall: Critical
Dialogues in Cultural Studies 309-325.
1992a.
Voices from the Outsides: Towards a New International Localism. Cultural
Studies 6(3): 476-484.
1992b.
The Debate on Cultural Power: Critical Postmodernism and Cultural Studies.
In Culture and Power: A Media, Culture, and Society Reader (Paddy Scannell
ed.) 73-90. London: Sage.
1994a.
The Positioning Positions: A New Internationalist Localism of Cultural
Studies. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 2(3): 680-710.
1994b/2000.
The Imperialist Eye: The Cultural Imaginary of a Sub-Empire
and a Nation-State. Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies
17:149-222 (in Chinese with English abstract); English translation in Positions:
East Asia Cultural Critiques 8(1): 9-76.
1995.
Ethnicities on Trial? University of Technology Sydney Review: Cultural
Studies and New Writings 1(1): 158-162.
1996a.
Cultural Studies and the Politics of Internationalization: A Interview
with Stuart Hall, in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies
392-407.
1996b.
Decolonization and Cultural Study. Taiwan: A Radical
Quarterly in Social Studies 21:73-139 (in Chinese with English abstract);
a substantial portion of this essay was rewritten into "Introduction: The
Decolonization Question" for Trajectories: Inner Asia Cultural Studies
1-53.
1996c.
Not Yet the Post-colonial Era: The (Super) Nation-State and Transnationalism
and Cultural Studies. Cultural Studies 10(1):37-70.
and Morley, David ed. 1996d.
Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London and New
York: Routledge.
1996e.
The Formation of a Diasporic Intellectual: An Interview with Stuart
Hall, in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies 484-501.
1997a.
The Cultural Imaginary of Civilizationalism: Huntington and Nandy.
Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies 27: 173-197 (in Chinese with
English abstract).
1997b.
Multiculturalism or Neo-Colonial Racism? Ritsumeikan Studies in Language
and Culture 8(5): 347-376.
1997c.
The Decolonization Effect. Journal of Communication Inquiry 2(2):79-97.
1997d.
Critical Effects of Decolonization--Nationalism and Otherwise. Newsletter
of the People's Plan Institute 2: 4-5.
1997e
All Wired up for Whom: The Booming of Satellite TV and the Possibilities
for Popular Cultural Democracy. In Programming for People: From Cultural
Rights to Cultural Responsibilities (Kevin Robin ed.) 156-163. United Nations
World Television Forum.
ed and intro. 1998.
Trajectories: Inner Asia Cultural Studies. London and New York: Routledge.
with Chua Beng Huat, 2000a.
Introduction: Problematising "Asia". Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 1(1):
9-12.
2000b.
The Formation and Consumption of KTV. In Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles
and Identities (Chua Beng Huat ed.) 159-182. New York: Routledge.
&
Morley, David ed. 1996e.
Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. London
and New York: Routledge.
1996f.
"The Formation of a Diasporic Intellectual: An Interview with Stuart
Hall," in Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies 484-501.
1997a.
"Multiculturalism or Neo-Colonial Racism?" Ritsumeikan Studies in
Language and Culture 8(5): 347-376.
1997b.
"The Decolonization Effect." Journal of Communication Inquiry
2(2):79-97.
1998a.
"Taiwanese New Cinema." In The Oxford Guide to Film Studies
edited by John Hill and Pamela church Gibson 557-561. Oxford and New York:
Oxford University Press.
ed
and intro. 1998b.
Trajectories: Inner Asia Cultural Studies. London and New York:
Routledge.
(forthcoming)
Watch out for "The Civilizationalist Interpellation: Huntington and
Nandy." Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Studies.
Book Reviews
Chong. Derrick. 1998.
A Review of Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Asian Pacific
Business Review 5(1):108-109.
Holden, Philip. 1999.
A Review of Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. European
Journal of Cultural Studies 2(3):409-411.
Rigg, J. 1999.
A Review of Trajectories: Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. Political
Geography 18(8):1028-1030.
Smith, Anne Marie. 1998.
A Review of Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies. Ethnic
and Radical Studies 22(1):206-207.
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Author: Susan Chen, Spring 2000
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