Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference - New Edition

Cultural categories are always interacting with even the most abstract operations of capital, which may be tempted to be seen as progressing outside local realms of experience and practice.

“This is demonstrated through, for instance, the fact that cultural categories (an example is given of a pianist and tastes in music as being a vital precursor for the capitalist production of pianos) are always interacting with even the most abstract operations of capital, which we may be tempted to see as progressing outside of local realms of experience and practice (ibid: 66).”

Chakrabarty distinguished two parts of history always present within any analysis: History 1, an analytical category (capital) that abstracts tending eventually to make all places exchangeable, and History 2, formed out of practices and experiences of life, which beckons to affective narratives of human belonging where life forms do not seem exchangeable.

“In order to do this, Chakrabarty distinguished two parts of history that are always present within any analysis. The first of these (which he terms History 1) is an analytical category - capital in this instance, but we could, with qualifications, expand this argument to many 'universals'. This category of history, through its nature abstracts tending eventually 'to make all places exchangeable”

To provincialize Europe in historical thought is to struggle to hold in permanent tension a dialogue between the universal narrative of capital and thought about diverse ways of being human.

“To provincialize Europe in historical thought is to struggle to hold in a state of permanent tension a dialogue between two contradictory points of view. On one side is the indispensable and universal narrative of capital . . . [providing us with] energizing glimpses of the Enlightenment promise of an abstract, universal but never-to-be-realized humanity. . . On the other side is thought about”