Postcolonialism
Postcolonial Theory is concerned with literature produced by colonial powers and works with people who were colonized. It examines issues of power, economics, politics, religion, and culture and how these elements work in relation to colonial hegemony. Postcolonial Theory is pervasive, in some capacity, in pretty much all of post-secondary academia. Some of the concepts are totally accessible, others are so convoluted, they remain really difficult. It's all about resisting the powers that be - the dominating countries and their art, literature, films, etc - everything that goes along with their imperialist ideologies. It's a theory by and for racial minorities to use against their foreign white oppressors; while some aren't super stoked about it, this has sort of expanded to include anyone (like Ireland) who can claim a postcolonial label - though, begrudgingly this has occurred and isn't always recognized.
Postcolonial Theory ties together other theories like psychoanalysis, new historicism, and deconstruction into one area of focus to look at relationships built on social and political urgency. Postcolonialism is one of the theories that relates and applies to various ongoing global struggles.
WHAT IS POST-COLONIALISM?
Post-Colonialism is the study of one group gaining control over another and the effects it has on both. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Britain and other European powers held colonial empires in Africa, Asia, and South America.
ROOTS
DIASPORA
Diaspora Identity is the result of forced or voluntary migration
KEY TERMS AND IDEAS
Postcolonial Theory ties together other theories like psychoanalysis, new historicism, and deconstruction into one area of focus to look at relationships built on social and political urgency. Postcolonialism is one of the theories that relates and applies to various ongoing global struggles.
WHAT IS POST-COLONIALISM?
Post-Colonialism is the study of one group gaining control over another and the effects it has on both. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Britain and other European powers held colonial empires in Africa, Asia, and South America.
- Often built on the profits of slavery and the exploitation of natural resources.
- They presented themselves as a good force.
ROOTS
- 1978 text --> "Orientalism" by Edward Said
- Orientalism is a perspective that suggest the East and the Orient are representations of both fear and fascination.
- The West patronizing representation of the Middle East
- Psychological effects
- Inferiority enforced through various regime aspects
- Examine the cultural struggle as it's manifested in works of literature, the media, and in personal experience
DIASPORA
Diaspora Identity is the result of forced or voluntary migration
- People experience a sense of belonging to a culture which is 'other' to the dominant culture of the country of residence.
KEY TERMS AND IDEAS
- Hybridity - when the colonized (or post-colonized) takes on some of the colonizer's manners, habits, etc.
- Cultural Hybridity - clashing cultures forces natives to live in two seperate cultures at the same time, often producing a new culture altogether.
- Ambivalence - mixed feelings towards a certain situation/group.
- Ex. Colonized both envy the colonizers and find them immoral simultaneously
- Dyaspira - community of people who live outside their shared country of origin but maintain active connections with it.
- Alterity - the state of being othered or different; otherness, in particular the other of 2, the one without power.
- Subaltern - economically oppressed; the racial other in the colonized nation.
- Strategic Essentialism - refers to a political tactic that minority groups, nationalities, and ethnic groups employ on the basis of shared identity to represent themselves.