Nicholas Thomas's book, "Colonialism's Culture:
Anthropology, Travel, and Government," challenges the conventional
understanding of colonialism as a straightforward political project. Instead,
Thomas posits that colonialism is best comprehended as a symbolic, often
self-contradictory, cultural enactment. He delves into the various ways in
which colonialism manifests and perpetuates itself through representational
practices, ranging from missionary biographies to health and sanitation reports
to colonial postcards. This approach prompts Thomas to critique recent
theoretical perspectives by postcolonial critics such as Edward Said, Gayatri
Chakravorty Spivak, and Homi Bhabha, who conceptualize colonial discourse as a
cohesive and unified totality.
The introductory chapter questions the utility of
contemporary totalizing theories of colonialism. While acknowledging the
critical value of overarching terms like "colonialism," Thomas
suggests that scholars may benefit more from abandoning the assumption that the
term relates to a meaningful category or totality. Instead, he advocates for an
exploration of specific colonial projects, rejecting attempts to formulate
global theories applicable universally to all colonial contexts. Drawing on
Michel Foucault, Thomas argues for a critical approach to colonialism that is
both localized and partial, yet rooted in longer historical developments and
narrative traditions.
In the second chapter, which serves as a comprehensive
introduction to recent postcolonial critique, Thomas summarizes the
contributions of Said, Spivak, and Bhabha. He contends that considering
colonial discourse as a coherent and unified field is problematic. For example,
the book challenges the dynamics of Lacanian psychoanalysis, arguing that the
prevailing emphasis on Self-Other relations empties these dynamics of their
universal validity. Thomas advocates for a nuanced and contextualized
understanding of colonialism, moving away from broad generalizations in favor
of specific, historically situated analyses.
In subsequent chapters, Thomas delves into different yet
contemporaneous colonial contexts. He examines governmental discourse generated
during the annexation of Fiji and explores the writings and practices in the
Australian Solomon Islands. Thomas meticulously examines how political
contingencies shape colonial discourse, emphasizing that distinct colonial
projects yield entirely different modes of representation. This divergence, as
Thomas argues, challenges attempts to create global descriptions of
colonialism, revealing that efforts to homogenize colonial experiences are
inherently flawed.
Readers interested in understanding how Christian beliefs
influence colonial processes and patterns will find Thomas's exploration
noteworthy. He highlights that, until quite recently, scholars have seldom
questioned the pivotal role missionaries played (and continue to play) in the
colonial process. Missionaries, in their efforts to counter local
representational practices, have been seen by postcolonial theorists as
contributing to a homogenizing force. Thomas challenges this view, suggesting
that the religious beliefs and practices of missionaries may differentiate them
in certain historical contexts from other members of the colonizing culture.
Thomas identifies a "Christian difference" among
missionaries in the Western Solomon Islands, characterized by their
"incorporative ideology" rooted in the biblical account of the unity
of humankind through God's single act of creation. Christian discourses,
particularly missionary writings, mark others as pagans rather than savages or
members of inferior races. Missionaries' narratives of conversion, crafted for
audiences back home, played a crucial role in fundraising and self-legitimation
projects. These narratives often contrast the natives' former state of savagery
with their present state of supposed high development. Notably, Thomas
distinguishes between missionary and secular concepts of "otherness,"
highlighting that the former's boundaries between pagan and Christian are
mutable, whereas the latter often relies on fixed hierarchies of stable racial
difference.
Thomas's differentiation of the representations of otherness
produced by Christian missionaries should not be misconstrued as a defense of
their work. On the contrary, he is meticulous in acknowledging how the prospect
of conversion often functioned as a potent tool for legitimating colonial
expansion. The crucial point to emphasize is not that missionary modes of
depicting otherness were somehow superior to those produced by other colonial
writers. Rather, Thomas underscores that these representations were organized
by very distinct systems of identifying and classifying differences between
colonizers and the colonized. Simple accusations of racism may oversimplify the
complex ways in which Christian missionaries conceived of and represented
themselves and the people they sought to convert.
