Kobena Mercer, "Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies" (Book Note)

 

In his collected essays, "Welcome to the Jungle," Mercer articulates the nuances of what some of the "new positions" in black cultural studies might convey. Mercer adopts an unsentimental approach to social categories such as race, class, sexuality, and gender. Rather than dismissing their importance, he seeks to move beyond the confines of identity politics. Mercer advocates for a shift towards the more ambivalent and ambiguous terrain of multiple points of identification. Drawing a crucial distinction between identity and identification, he emphasizes the latter as a means to understand how political actions and practices are not rigidly tied to specific identities. Mercer challenges the assumption that a black body is inherently the locus of anti-racist politics, or that female bodies inherently represent feminism, and similarly, the gay body queer politics. He highlights that political identifications can traverse social categories, making it impossible to predict an individual's politics based solely on their identity.

 

"Welcome to the Jungle" poses probing questions about black cultural politics, centering its primary focus on issues of hybridity and creolization. Mercer engages both within and in opposition to cultural studies, particularly in essays like "Welcome to the Jungle: Identity and Diversity in Postmodern Politics" and "'1968': Periodizing Politics and Identity." He advocates for an understanding of identity as continuously unstable, and it is within this context of identity instability that he subjects political strategies and actions to scrutiny through the lens of representational practices.

 

Representational strategies and practices play a crucial role in highlighting the political significance of identity, providing artists, writers, filmmakers, and others with avenues to foster diverse and multiple identifications, transcending the constraints of social bodies. Mercer's work robustly challenges the essentialisms inherent in identity politics while remaining mindful of the historical importance of identity-based movements like the American civil rights movement, feminism, gay and lesbian liberation, and British anti-racism. Despite recognizing the contributions of these movements, Mercer calls for a broader political vision, particularly in the contemporary postmodern moment marked by the erosion of liberatory and emancipatory narratives.

 

Within the realm of art, especially in photography, fine art, and film, Mercer makes a compelling case for delving into the politics of identity and identifications. In his essay "Black Art and the Burden of Representation," he contends that the scarcity of spaces for black artists, writers, and filmmakers to exhibit their work places an undue burden on each piece and artist to represent and speak on behalf of the Black community. Mercer challenges the notion that black artists, appearing one at a time in the public eye, should bear the responsibility of representing an entire community. Instead, he advocates for a more nuanced approach in cultural politics, rejecting the tendency to view these artists as mere representatives and emphasizing the need for a complex critique. This more intricate approach involves not condemning artists for perceived failures in representing a specific imagined community but encouraging critiques that facilitate the proliferation of various representations of diverse imagined communities.

 

Mercer acknowledges the dual nature of the issue: firstly, the conservatism of a particular artist may raise questions about the political messages conveyed by their work. However, the second criterion becomes crucial—creating a space for the proliferation of other works with different narratives, enriching the cultural landscape of representations. Mercer's insightful analysis of Isaac Julien's films underscores their disruption of heteronormative assertions of blackness, introducing diverse perspectives into cultural artifacts and practices.

 

In his essays on black masculinities, particularly those examining Robert Mapplethorpe's work, Mercer offers illuminating insights. In "Imagining the Black Man’s Sex," he critiques Mapplethorpe's photographs of black male sexuality, highlighting the objectification of various stereotypes. Mercer questions the central focus on the penis and the headless black models. However, in a bold re-reading in "Skin Head Sex Thing: Racial Difference and the Homoerotic Imaginary," Mercer reconsiders his earlier analysis, exploring his own homoerotic response to the photographs. Through a complex and shifting analysis, he establishes an ambivalent relationship with the images, suggesting that seeing the black male nudes as the beginning of a subversive deconstruction opens up new possibilities. Mercer's ability to recognize the polyvocal quality of Mapplethorpe's work allows him to revise his position, accounting for biographical and autobiographical dimensions without resorting to a simplistic experiential mode.

 

Mercer challenges simplistic politics of experience and commonality in his essays, emphasizing the urgency of constituting a politics of liberation and emancipation amidst the collapse of such narratives. He avoids easy universalist statements about transnational blackness, arguing for dialogism that acknowledges the plural and heterogeneous nature of black identities. Mercer contends that critical dialogism questions the monologic exclusivity underlying dominant versions of national identity, emphasizing the potential for diasporic black peoples to make identifications across borders while remaining mindful of the ways in which the local organizes experience.