Syntheses

The future of Third World studies requires a strategic mastery of the language and ideologies of the ruling class to engage and upend oppression. But self-determination also demands discourses and practices not of the master’s creation. If divide and rule is a principal strategy in the exercise of power, then syntheses can mitigate that design. Third World studies can find common ground with women’s and queer studies and post-1968 ethnic studies across the contrived, imposed divides of race, gender, sexuality, class, and nation.