POST-COLONIALISM/TEMP

'Postcolonialism' is a field of studies originally developed and studied by émigré intellectuals from Third World spaces in those of the First World. It is a term used to describe the wide range of social, cultural and political consequences arising from the decline and fall of European colonialism that took place from the mid 19th century onwards, involving the decolonization of much of the world.
Postcolonialism essentially focuses on the persistence of colonial forms of power in contemporary world politics, especially how the social construction of racial, gendered and class differences uphold relations of power and subordination. For example, the level of economic and military control of Western interests in the global South is in many ways actually greater now than it was under direct control - a form of 'neo'-colonialism. [Steve Smith and Patricia Owens]
'Postcolonial theory', an open-ended set of theories in continental philosophy, literary theory and area studies, deals with many issues relevant to nations, states or societies that are, or once were, colonies or subject territories dominated - whether by rule or otherwise - by other states or nations. Beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s with the work of writers such as Frantz Fanon and Edward Said, it has since been widely developed by other critics. Postcolonial theory emphasizes the construction of certain realities by colonial powers, and the dominance of colonial discourse in contemporary politics. Many authors, such as Ann Laura Stoler in Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power, have complicated the simplistic binary of colonizer/colonized and argued instead that these pair of social categories need to be viewed as fluid and shifting. Postcolonial theory, therefore, emphasizes the need to re-analyze categories that are assumed to be natural.-- 22:53, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
As a metaphysical, ethical and political theory, it addresses issues such as identity, gender, race and ethnicity: the challenge of developing a national identity in the wake of colonial rule, the ways knowledge of colonized people has served the interests of colonizers, and how knowledge about the world is produced under specific power relations, repetitively circulated, and finally legitimated, to serve certain interests. However, postcolonial theory also encourages one to think about creative forms of resistance colonized peoples across the world have deployed, and how this has complicated and textured the colonial projects of European imperial powers. Postcolonial authors strongly object to the depiction of the colonized as hollow "mimics" of Europeans or passive recipients of power. Following from a Foucauldian argument, postcolonial scholars, such as those in the Subaltern Studies collective, argue that resistance accompanies all deployments of power.- 22:34, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

As a literary theory it deals with literature produced both by the citizens of colonizing countries and by colonized peoples responding to the colonial legacy by - in a phrase originally coined by the British-Indian writer Salman Rushdie - "writing back" , or deliberately confronting colonial cultural attitudes through literature. Thus post-colonial theory addresses both the ways in which the literature of the colonial powers has been used to justify colonialism, through the perpetuation of representations of colonized people as inferior, and the ways in which writers from colonized countries have attempted to articulate and even celebrate their cultural identities and reclaim them from colonizers.
Attempts at developing a single definition of post-colonial theory have proved difficult. Indeed, some writers have criticised the use of ‘postcolonialism’ to describe the theories at all, arguing that the term presupposes a continued sociocultural dominance by imperial powers.

Contents

Possibile Definition and Location of Postcolonial Discourse

References

Possibile Definition and Location of Postcolonial Discourse

Postcolonialism responds to the theories, literature, politics, and art of imperialism and colonialism. A succint definition is necessary before expounding upon the various branches and applications of postcolonial thought:
''The term [postcolonialism] -- according to a too rigid etymology -- is frequently misundertood as a temporal concept meaning the time after colonialism has ceased, or the time following the politically determined Independence Day on which a country breaks away from its governance by another state, Not a naive teleological sequence which supersedes colonialism, postcolonialism is, rather, 'an engagement with and contestation of colonialism's discourses, power structures, and social hierarchies'... A theory of postcolonialism must, then, respond to more than the merely chronological construction of post-independence, and to more than just the discursive experience of imperialism. , , , , Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-09023-7
Postcolonialism, then, is not merely what happens after the dominance of colonial thought, but that which responds to and resists it, through the frameworks of literature (criticism and creative writing), visual arts, performance, and politics. Postcolonialism operatives in a much broader scope than a mere theoretical discourse.

References

★ Postcolonial Studies: The Key Concepts, Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin, , , Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-24360-2

★ The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths & Helen Tiffin, , , Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-415-28020-6