A Metamodern Analysis of the Postcolonial and Marxist Theory Debate

Summarizing key texts within the Marxist and postcolonial theory debate, this article will elucidate two problematics underpinning previous and continuing hostilities and dismissals among Marxist and postcolonial theorists: accusations of postcolonialism’s ‘textualism’ and its inability to theorize resistance after deconstructing the referent of revolutionary political subjectivity. It will intervene in these problematics using metamodernist theory to forward a new account of meaning and political subjectivity, respectively. This framework will acknowledge postmodern and postcolonial theory’s deconstructive and textualistic critique of modernist and Marxist analyses of oppression and resistance, while retaining sight of the politically expedient task of theorizing oppression and resistance as part of the social totality. It will argue for further integrative and reparative theorizing in the debate, grounded in the embodied, political, and normative qualities emphasised by metamodernism. This discussion will build on existing movements and theory from within postcolonial, Marxist, and feminist social reproduction theory thought traditions seeking to expand and enrich their analyses of resistance, political subjectivity, and oppression. This work is of pertinence to those interested in Marxist and postcolonial theory, as well as those interested in original applications of metamodernist theory to key epistemological and methodological debates within critical theory across the disjunctures of identity and difference.