The Third World Literature category emerged from postwar metropolitan migration, not from textual accumulation

Evidence

No archive, however vast, gathers new significance and force by itself. After all, the machinery of accumulation, translation and gloss for texts from Asia and Africa has been cranked up in the metropolitan countries for rwo hundred years or so; it did give rise to what Edward Said calls ‘Orienralism’, bur not to the category of’Third World Literature’, which is brand new and indicates a sea-change in the social situation now prevailing in those same countries. For rhis is rhe first rime large ethnic communities from various ex-colonial countries have gathered in the metropolises in such a way rhar considerable segments are making historically new kinds of demand for inclusion in the salaried, professional middle class and irs patterns of education, employment, consumption, social valuation and career advancement. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 320

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Ahmad’s broader materialist critique of how categories like Third World Literature and postcolonial theory obscure class structures — the demand for professional-middle-class inclusion is the class formation underlying the discursive turn. — connects to: Claims that homogenize ‘Third World Literature’ obscure the imperialist-determined fortunes of its producing bourgeoisie — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 86; Third World Literature is a metropolitan fabrication, not a pre-existing category — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 192; The category ‘Third World Literature’ emerged only when ex-colonial migrants demanded metropolitan middle-class inclusion (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Third World Literature is a metropolitan fabrication, not a pre-existing category #corroborates (0.88) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 192
• Third World Literature emerged only through the mediating archive of Western languages #corroborates (0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 126
• The category ‘Third World Literature’ emerged only when ex-colonial migrants demanded metropolitan middle-class inclusion #corroborates (0.82)
• Third World Literature as a category is built on Western language archives #corroborates (0.80)
• World literature is a material category of metropolitan accumulation, not a universal condition #expands (0.80) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 78
• Third World Literature as a field was professionalized by metropolitan universities #expands (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 185
• Structural linguistic asymmetry makes the third-world text unknowable to metropolitan theorists #expands (0.72) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 376
• World literature trades unequally between a dominant center and periphery #expands (0.72)
• Elite immigrant critics displaced the original national Third World canon #expands (0.72) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 142