Homi Bhabha is a most important voice inpostcolonial studies and a philosopher for the 21st century.
The book named The NortonAnthology of Theory and Criticism begins with a comment that homi bhabha isa prominent figure in postcolonial studies. His work is complex and beautifully written, focusing onfirst world-third world relations. “Homi K.
Bhabha has infused opinions aboutnationality, ethnicity, and politics with poststructuralist theories ofidentity and indeterminacy” (Leitch, Vincent, 2001, p. 2377). Hisstudy of oppressions, traumatic colonial feelings, and impact of other powerfulfactors which produce another cultures, creeds, habits and civilizations aredeeply influenced by Western poststructuralists, theorists, notably Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan and;and the works of Michael Foucault. In addition to these, he also stated in hisinterview with W. J. T.
Mitchell (in 1995) that Edward Said is the writer whohas most influenced histhought. His Works consist of: 1. Nation and Narration (ed) 2. TheLocation of Culture 3. Cosmopolitanisms in Public Culture. (ed) 4.
Edward Said:Continuing the Conversation (ed) In Nation andNarration he argues against the tendency to essentialize the Third WorldCountries into a homogenous identity. Instead he claims that all sense ofnationhood is narrativized. He also has made a major contribution topostcolonial studies by pointing out how there is always ambivalence at thesite of colonial dominance. (Bhabha, Homi K, 1990, p.64) Homi K Bhabha’s critical approach appearingmostly through “the Location of Culture” (1994), a set of twelve essayswhich includes most of his older and famous writings on the construction ofanti-colonial subjectivity.
His work has begun to discover the complexities ofa world by colonial and neo-colonial wars, counter globalization movements andwidespread cultural confrontation. In The Location of Culture, Bhabhauses concepts such as Hybridity, liminality, Mimicry, Ambivalence, theStereotypes, the Uncanny, the Nation, Otherness, etc. All these conceptsreflect the colonized people’s manner to resist the unsecured power of the colonizer.Bhabha succeeds in presenting colonialism’s histories and cultures that intrudeon the present demanding to transform our understandings of cross-culturalrelations. Bhabha states that we should perceive colonialism not only asstraightforward oppression, domination, violence but also as a period ofcomplex and varied cultural contact and interaction. His writings bringresources from literary and cultural theory to the study of colonial archives.
) Bhabha, 1994, p.46 .(