The object of ethical action is not an object of benevolence, for here responses flow from both sides. Through deconstruction she turns hegemonic narratives inside out, and as a third world woman in a position of privilege in the American academy, she brings the outside in. These contradictory positions have led her to develop the notion that the center is also a margin, more like the center line on a road than the center of town. I n the Boundary 2 interview, Spivak wistfully pronounces that, of the two things she is best known for, both are often misunderstood. The goal of essentialist critique is not the exposure of error, but the interrogation of the essentialist terms.
Uncritical deployment is dangerous.
Critique is simply reading the instructions for use. This is also the way Spivak uses deconstruction, for example, without fully subscribing to it as a viable philosophic system or practice, much less a political program. It is constantly and persistently looking into how truths are produced. As to what is meant by strategy , no-one wondered about that. In it, she describes the circumstances surrounding the suicide of a young Bengali woman that indicates a failed attempt at self-representation.