ABSTRACT
The academic and intellectual fields in typical countries of the Western core and, in particular, in the United States enjoy a considerable autonomy, but their position in the wider field of power, is relatively subordinate. The distance from the core of the fields of power, in which the intellectual sub-fields are located, may be smaller in countries like France, but even there the academic field is relatively autonomous. The most intellectual character of post-colonial theory and its acceptance in Western universities, allowed its spectacular development, fuelled by the material and symbolic resources of Western academia, and also by the experimental laboratory-like setting, which prevented ideas, developed by critical intellectuals, from being tested by real political life. The structure of political scenes of Western countries also seems relevant in this context. Colonial oppression is in a way de-teritorialized, or seen as a coalition between forces of center and those of distant periphery, in which the semi-periphery appears as a main victim.
