ABSTRACT
Anyone who has closely read Homi K. Bhabha’s works will know that there is no single, precise defi nition of the term third space to be found there. Maybe it is exactly this vagueness, which explains the term’s attractiveness. It enables Bhabha, as well as his readers, to read almost anything into it and apply it in their own ways for their very own purposes. However big the heuristic gain might be in all this, such a proceeding is rather detrimental to scientifi c analysis. The following essay aims to prepare the ground to change this. Setting out to contribute to the clarifi cation of the term, it fi rst takes a closer look at the two connotations Bhabha associates with the term as such and then proceeds by connecting them systematically with each other. What is at stake here is the problem of the thirdness of third space on the one hand and the issue of postcolonial subjectivity on the other hand. The two issues are related insofar as the emerging of the third space as a space of enunciation comes along with a new-namely postcolonialpositioning of the speaking subject. That’s why the problem of newness in terms of a third is the focal point of Bhabha’s theory as well.
