Bhabha

Abstract

One of the loose ends left trailing by Said in Orientalism was the resistance of the colonised to Western domination. This is a little strange, since Foucault particularly stresses that power is always exerted over a subject, and so always provokes resistance. Said helps to put Orientalism in this position by not formally opening up the question of the subject. A number of commentators have mentioned the absence of resistance, but by far the most decisive and complete intervention to make good this deficit was Homi Bhabha’s.