KTV的政经殖民地理学.pdf

KTV的政经殖民地理学 Center for Asia-Pacific/Cultural Studies National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan 台湾清华大学亚太／文化研究室 Introduction How would a cultural studies look like, coming after the epistemological break forged by the postcolonial interventions? Would such a paradigmatic shift demand cultural studies self- consciously re-articulate a more viable methodology, historically geographically and epistemologically grounded, to move beyond the limits of historical materialism? These are the guiding problematics of the current project. These questions, however, have to be foregrounded with political, not just theoretical, concerns. And, hence, divergent from the concerns within the imperial centers, I would argue that the issues confronting (ex-)colonized spaces in the post world war II era could be summed up and framed in a shorthand term, decolonization. Re-centering the question of decolonization on the terrain of postcolonial studies is the strategic direction that I wish to push, so that political edge can be gained and the neglected real issues can be confronted. In an earlier essay, “Decolonization and Cultural Studies” (Chen 1996), I have begun to theoretically formulate a “geo-colonial historical materialism” as a historically and epistemologically grounded methodology for a cultural studies, that is relevant at least to my own context. Some of the key structural forces and forms of expression, such as nationalism, nativism and civilizationalism, as well as the possible strategies to move beyond, were pinpointed in another essay, “The Decolonization Question” (Chen, 1998). The present research project once again furthers the on-going unfinished attempt. This time, rather than staying on the level of pure theoretical abstraction, the project will move through the concrete to manifest itself: KTV as a historically specific cultural form and institution will be the site