Postcolonialism
“Postcolonialism, the historical period or state of affairs representing the aftermath of Western colonialism; the term can also be used to describe the concurrent project to reclaim and rethink the history and agency of people subordinated under various forms of imperialism. Postcolonialism signals a possible future of overcoming colonialism, yet new forms of domination or subordination can come in the wake of such changes, including new forms of global empire. Postcolonialism should not be confused with the claim that the world we live in now is actually devoid of colonialism” (Ivison, 2015, para.1).
Definition:
Postcolonialism in general is an intellectual direction which
emerged around mid 20th century as a result of colonialism. History,
power, economics, politics, religion and culture of both the colonizers and the
colonized are the major aspects of postcolonialism. Meanwhile, post colonial
theory is complex analytical strategy that foregrounds racial differences in
the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized. Post colonials
critics, while assessing literary works produced by either colonial power or
the colonized, will look at the issues of history, power, economics, politics, religion
as well as culture and study how these issues work in relation to colonial
hegemony (Brizee, Tompkins, Chernouski & Boyle, 2015)
Power,
Hegemony and Literature:
Hegemony is the political or cultural dominance, leadership,
authority or influence of one social group or state over another which often
done by legitimating norms, concepts and ideas (Rosamond, 2016). Post
colonialism questions and critics the inhumane ways of colonial empire exerting
their power over the colonized countries and “questions the role of the western literary canon and
western history as dominant forms of knowledge making” (Brizee, Tompkins, Chernouski & Boyle, 2015, para.5)
Terms and
assumptions of postcolonialism:
Post colonials critics question the usage of certain
terms created by the western world to describe the colonized countries and its
people such as:
·
Third world
·
First world
·
Exotic other
·
Primitivism
·
Demonic other
·
Indigenous culture
More examples of terms and the definition can be found on this
website https://webpages.uidaho.edu/engl210jj/postcolonial.htm
Typical questions asked in post colonialist theory:
- How does the literary text, explicitly or
allegorically, represent various aspects of colonial oppression?
- What does the text reveal about the problematic
of post-colonial identity, including the relationship between personal and
cultural identity and such issues as double consciousness and hybridity?
- What person(s) or groups does the work
identify as "other" or stranger? How are such persons/groups
described and treated?
- What does the text reveal about the
politics and/or psychology of anti-colonialist resistance?
- What does the text reveal about the
operations of cultural difference - the ways in which race, religion,
class, gender, sexual orientation, cultural beliefs, and customs combine
to form individual identity - in shaping our perceptions of ourselves,
others, and the world in which we live?
- How does the text respond to or comment
upon the characters, themes, or assumptions of a canonized (colonialist)
work?
- Are there meaningful similarities among
the literatures of different post-colonial populations?
- How does a literary text in the Western
canon reinforce or undermine colonialist ideology through its
representation of colonialization and/or its inappropriate silence about
colonized peoples?
- How
First or Western world represented the non-European native/world
- How
colonial histories, anthropology, cartography were rooted in a racial
discourse
- How
the native were feminized, dehumanised and marginalised in both,
representations and real life in the period of colonialism
- The
psychological effects of colonialism on colonizers and colonised
- The
instruments of colonial domination: English literature, art and
architecture
- The
rise of nationalistic discourse that resisted colonialism
Comments
Post a Comment