The perilous ‘Pleasures of exile’

This paper discusses the impact of migration and exile on the life, political theorization and activism of C. L. R. James, challenging the archetype of the postocolonial, diasporic intellectual as inherently informing anti-essentialist discourses. I use Jean-Paul Sartre's concept of ‘bad faith’ to counter this representation, drawing a set of textually based insights into James' personal and intellectual development, tracing some of his political work in England, America and the Caribbean. The first section outlines the prevalent discourses of bad faith both internal to James' consciousness, and external in the construction and maintenance of colonial society during his formative years in Trinidad that establishes him as ‘in exile at home’. The second section charts James' relocation to London in 1932, his introduction to Marxism and the resistance of a Eurocentric left to his discursive articulation of ‘race’, class and imperialism. I argue that this leftist resistance initiates a defensive mechanism aga...