Page:Relocating Bakhtin.pdf/21

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READING BAKHTIN
17

possibilities of the other, but as his revolt against the Soviet socialist formations.

Having exclusive support of the hegemonic scholarship and subservient media, the misrepresentation of Bakhtin led to fortification of the capitalism-friendly tutored image of the great thinker. As it has been indicated already, such misappropriations are to be scrutinised thoroughly and alternative appropriation of his thought process should be attempted from our non-western perspective. The task is not easy because we have to encounter a whole array of well-publicized literature of cleverly manipulated counterdiscourses. Yet we propose to adhere to the basic dialogics of the texts of the Bakhtin cycle and would not enter into the debate regarding authorship of the texts. If we carefully follow the genuine manifestations of dialogue in his life and works, we would be able to comprehend as to how creative insight is integrally connected with chronotopic consciousness and why the participant observers can always have the scope of nourishing openendedness in existence, creativity and reception of the contextualized time and space. Over and above, the omnipresent dialogue is never finalisable. Therefore, the very process resists hegemony and its guiles everywhere. Such understanding of Bakhtin secures our present and future as well.

Of late there has been considerable reexamination of his thought process emphasizing on the special nuances of his early and late works. Likewise, Bakhtin's so-called middle period works have been subjected to close scrutiny. Though it is impossible to consign him to a single territory of understanding, various theoretical schools have nevertheless tried to interpret his projects in their own idiosyncratic ways. But we would prefer to look at him from a non-reductionist position, emphasizing on his syncretism and open-ended dialogism. Our situatedness prompts us to develop the central notion of addressivity not only as aesthetic and cultural paradigm, but as the key concept for