11/13 discussion

Laura Briggs offers us yet another example of anticolonialist feminist activism that "inadvertently recaptiulated the terms of a US colonialist narrative" (144). Briggs calls it "the problem of speaking on behalf of the subaltern" (145). It does not matter whether one argues for or against colonialism, but rather if one "claims to "know" the desires and subjectivities" of the subaltern. For, as Briggs states, "there is no such subaltern subject" (160). The mainland feminist activists who portrayed the rise in sterilization as the result of a government policy and a mechanism of social control--the "women were forced" argument--ignored the role of Puerto Rican women both in making decisions and advocating for birth control, removing the possibility of agency altogether. 

A more complex and comprehensive history is clearly called for. But I was most interested by the response of Margarita Ostolaza Bey, who argues that "the anticolonialist discourse is also hispanophilic, antifeminist, and reactionary because it is based on the idea that the past--any past--was better" (160). Is anticolonialist discourse ultimately as problematic as colonialist discourse, because it follows the dichotomy established by the latter and results in the erasure of the actions and ultimately the agency of the colonized peoples themselves? Is it possible to conceive of an anticolonialist discourse that does not fall into this trap, or do we need to look for another kind of discourse altogether?