Page 217 - Cultural Theory

Edwards-3516-Ch-10.qxd 5/9/2007 5:56 PM Page 206

••• Ann Brooks •••

(1997: 207). She also notes that: ‘In the postcolonial context of a constant flux of
peoples, affiliation with the nation state becomes highly partial and contingent’
(ibid.: 195). Transculturalism and transnationalism require a reconceptualization of
representation, subjectivity and identity which diasporic feminist film-makers have
gone some way to addressing in their reframing of cultural and filmic discourses. This
chapter has attempted to explore how discourses on transnationalism and transcul-
turalism have shown both ‘place-bound’ and ‘disciplinary-bound’ concepts of sub-
jectivity, representation and identity to be an inadequate way of representing new
cultural and ethnic identities on the global stage. The interdisciplinary matrix of cul-
tural studies including feminism, postcolonialism, postmodernism, critical ethnog-
raphy, film, literature and cultural politics have been shown to produce a dynamic
interplay of epistemological and representational discourses more reflective of the
transnationalization of genders, classes, ethnicities, and publics which frame the
contemporary social world.

Notes

1 I am grateful to McKenzie Wark for this concept. See Wark (1992).
2 See Graeme Turner (1992b).

References

Ahmed, L. (1992) Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin, H. (eds) (1995) The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. London:
Routledge .
Bhabha, H. (1984) ‘Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse’, October 28:
125–33.
Bhabha, H. (1985) ‘Signs taken for wonders: questions of ambivalence and authority under a
tree outside Delhi, May 1817’, Critical Inquiry, 12(1): 144-65.
Bhabha, H. (1991) ‘The postcolonial critic - Homi Bhabha interviewed by David Bennett and
Terry Collits’, Arena, 96: 47–63.
Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Brooks, A. (1997a) Postfeminism: Feminism, Cultural Theory and Cultural Forms. London:
Routledge.
Brooks, A. (1997b) ‘The politics of postmodernism and popular culture. Angela McRobbie: post-
modernism and popular culture’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 18(1):
171–80.
Brooks, A. (2006) Gendered Work in Asian Cities: the New Economy and Changing Labour Markets.
Aldarshot: Ashgate.
Bulbeck, C. (1998) Re-Orienting Western Feminisms: Women’s Diversity in a Postcolonial World.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Chow, R. (1993) Writing Diaspora. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Clifford, J. (1992) ‘Travelling cultures’, in L. Grossberg, C. Nelson and P.Treichler (eds) Cultural
Studies. London: Routledge.
Curti, L. (1996) ‘Between two shores’, in I. Chambers and L. Curti (eds) The Post-colonial
Question. London: Routledge.
• 206 •