WORD: "CAMOUFLAGE"

WORD: "Camouflage"

In his work, Bhabha uses the word "camouflage" not only in the main body of his text, but also in an explanation of "mimicry" by Lacan (85). Just as the OED refers to the use of camouflage in war-related instances, calling it, "the disguising of any objects used in war, such as camps, guns, ships, by means of paint, smoke-screens, shrubbery, etc., in such a way as to conceal it from the enemy," so Bhabha compares the use of the word to refer to its similar partial covering and obscuring of the original as the result of mimicry.
Bhabha speaks of the concept of colonialism in a "'not quite/not white'" fashion, mentioning the partiality of the "racist gaze" that leads to a uncomfortable, raw view of blackness as such a difference from whiteness, (but with a shade of similarity, as in 'menace'), that fear is reached (92). The use of the word camouflage reveals this idea of an obscured, almost deformed partial representation.