ABSTRACT
The ‘third space’ of the third man of postcolonial theory is not a space as such. Not a space at all in fact, if by space we mean architectural space, or physical space, or even those of the sort of twilight zones that Harry Lime or Ramon Miguel Vargas moved around in. It’s not just another, off-Broadway kind of alternative space either. You will never fi nd yourself walking by mistake into the third space, even though you may at times fi nd that you are already there, stumbling and stuttering right in the thick of it without knowing it. And though Bhabha developed his concept of ‘third space’ as a counterspace of modernity most fully in response to Jameson’s theory of postmodern space, nor can it be simply constituted in that historical sequence where it corresponds to the third stage of capitalism.1 By the same token, the third space is not a third space in the sense that the third world is a different territorial domain from the fi rst or the second worlds, nor is it even an alternative space for minorities within a dominant culture, in the sense of being a place of their own, a place to congregate, worship or perform. Bhabha’s third space begins to seem something of a tease. It winks at us and draws us in; but as soon as we try to grasp it or to map it, like the real itself, it begins to elude us. Though among the most infl uential and widely invoked of his concepts, it is, perhaps for this reason, rarely analyzed, discussed or defi ned in theoretical terms. In his section on Bhabha’s ‘third space’ in his Thirdspace, a discussion that could hardly be avoided, Edward Soja is reduced to quoting large passages of Bhabha’s prose, from which he moves on virtually without comment, speechless.2 David Huddart, in his recent book on Bhabha, mentions the concept only once.3 What, where then is the third space? Is it invisible? Or is its visibility so obvious that it goes without saying? Why is it the concept that is most invoked but at the same time the one that cannot be found, located, or spoken?
