ABSTRACT

Benita Parry's critique of the post-structuralist turn of postcolonial studies can be considered historically vindicated by the uprisings of the Arab Spring. In her defence of Marxist cultural analysis in her introduction to Postcolonial Studies: A Materialist Critique, Benita Parry takes objection to the post-Marxist left's claiming of a theoretical superiority through the assumption that the traditional left seeks, in the words of Judith Butler as quoted by Parry, "to separate Marxism from the study of culture". Jacques Derrida disseminates Austin's concept of the performative very widely, notably in his critique of Marx in Specters of Marx, where he argues against Marxist materialism and the affirmation of reality in favour of the spectrality of the supposedly self-realising theatre of commodity production: capitalism as performativity. In contradistinction to Specters of Marx, Naomi Klein's work is at pains throughout to trace a vast network of named activists and activist groups.