Vivek Chibber: Postcolonial Theory and 'Really Existing Capitalism'

source: SkriptaTV   2015年6月10日
14th May 2015, 19h, Cinema Europa, Zagreb, Croatia
8th Subversive Film Festival "Spaces of Emancipation: Micropolitics and Rebellions"
Moderated by: Katarina Peović Vuković
"One of the striking contradictions of postcolonial theory is that, even though it presents itself as the analytical framework of capitalist domination, it rejects the idea of a universal theory. Hence, it is in the awkward position of the acknowledgment that capitalism has been globalized, but denying that we can conceive a general theory of its functioning or its properties. This is a deep and devastating contradiction at the very heart of postcolonial theory. I will examine the sources of this dilemma and argue that the best framework for understanding capitalism remains a Marxian one, which I further defend from the accusations of weakness made by postcolonial critics."
Vivek Chibber is professor of Sociology at New York University. He was born in Delhi, India and came to the U.S. at the age of 15, where he has resided since. He has a BA from Northwestern University and a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1999. He is the author of Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India (Princeton: 2003), which won several awards, including the American Sociological Association's Barrington Moore Jr. Prize and Choice Magazine's Outstanding Book Award, and Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital (Verso: 2013), which won the American Sociological Association PEWS award for best book of the year.
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