The Location of Culture

Bhabha explores mimicry as a tool of colonialism. Mimicry can be a form of resistance by enabling subversion of the colonizer’s authority, but it also reinforces colonial power structures. He discusses the “mimicry” of a colonized person who emulates the habits, knowledge, and speech of the colonizer; although the colonized under English imperial power can, for example, be “Anglicized,’ they can never be truly “English.” Mimicry thus fractures identity and exposes the ambivalence of colonial discourse.

Bhabha focuses on the concept of “civility” as a means of exerting control, arguing that colonial power operates both through overt force and a façade of civility. Colonizers use this façade of civility to placate their post-Enlightenment sense of “rightness” while maintaining their power and control over colonized peoples, allowing them to continue their reliance on ambivalent discourse. Colonial discourse uses civility to create a sense of superiority while maintaining an oppressive relationship with the colonized: The colonizers become the benevolent paternal figure, “civilizing” a colonized people, while also enforcing cultural dominance.