The Third Space ...

“The intervention of the Third Space of enunciation, which makes the structure of meaning and reference an ambivalent process, destroys this mirror of representation in which cultural knowledge is customarily revealed as an integrated, open, expanding code.” (p. 54)

“It is that Third Space, though unrepresentable in itself, which constitutes the discursive conditions of enunciation that ensure that the meaning and symbols of culture have no primordial unity or fixity; that even the same signs can be appropriated, translated, rehistoricised and read anew.” (p. 55)

“This meditation … reveals the cultural and historical dimension of that Third Space of enunciations which I have made the precondition for the articulation of cultural difference …. It is significant that the productive capacities of this Third Space have a colonial or post-colonial provenance. For a willingness to descend into that alien territory – where I have led you – may reveal that the theoretical recognition of the split-space of enunciation may open the way to conceptualizing an international culture, based not on the exoticism of multiculturalism or the diversity of cultures, but on the inscription and articulation of culture’s hybridity. To that end we should remember that it is the ‘inter’ – the cutting edge of translation and negotiation, the inbetween space – that carries the burden of the meaning of culture.” (p. 56)

“And by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves.” (p. 56).


(Homi Bhabha, “The commitment to theory.” [Questions of Third Cinema]. The Location of Culture)