Decolonizing Public Space: A Challenge of Bonhoeffer's and Spivak's Concepts of Resistance, 'Religion' and 'Gender'. (September 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Auga, Ulrike
• Is Part Of: Feminist theology. Volume 24:Number 1(2015:Sep.)
• Page Start: 49
• Page End: 68
• Publication Date: 2015-09
• Subjects: Bonhoeffer -- Spivak -- Post-secular Critique -- Post-colonial Theology -- Queer Theology -- Representation -- Gender -- Religion -- Intersectionality; 230.08205
• DOI: 10.1177/0966735015593859
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0966-7350

Abstract

This paper underlines the surprising ways in which subject formation, agency and human flourishing emerge in counter discourses. As examples I offer a post-colonial critique of Rosa Parks in the USA and Fayza in the film Cairo 678. Economic and epistemic violence of neo-liberalism, neo-colonialism, racism, fundamentalism, nationalism, classism, sexism, homophobia, speciesism, etc. call for a critique of religion with corresponding answers. For such a project, the analysis brings together the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the post-colonial scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and questions their notions of religion and gender as well as resistance and representation. Spivak's critique of capitalism, the post-colonial condition and epistemic violence in terms of gender constructions is seminal. However, her understanding of 'religion' remains ambivalent, yet influences post-colonial theologies tremendously. Bonhoeffer is interesting for a de-essentialized understanding of religion in the post-secular context, because he keeps the tension between a secularized world, engagement with the world and the appreciation of religious knowledge. His final perspective on gender and representation might be more advanced than expected.