Transcript Introduction to the Term Postcolonialism

Introduction to the Term
Postcolonialism
Chapter One
What’s the Connection Between
Colonialism and Capitalism?
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Colonialism was first and foremost a
commercial venture of Western nations.
The seizing of foreign lands for government
and settlement was in part motivated by the
desire to create and control markets for
Western goods, as well as to secure the
natural resources and labor power of
different lands and people at the lowest
possible cost.
How is Imperialism related to
Colonialism?
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Imperialism is an ideological concept which upholds
the legitimacy of the economic and military control
of one nation by another
Colonialism is one form of imperialism – specifically,
colonialism concerns the settlement of one group of
people in a new location.
While colonialism is virtually over today, imperialism
continues apace as Western Nations, and in
particular the U.S., still engage in imperial acts,
securing wealth and power through the exploitation
of other nations.
Definition of Colonialism
The settlement of territory, the exploitation or
development of resources, and the attempt
to govern the indigenous inhabitants of
occupied lands.
 A – emphasis on settlement of the land
 B – economic relationship is the heart of
colonialism
 C – unequal relations of power are
constructed by colonialism
What are the Three Periods of
Decolonization?
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1. Loss of the American colonies (late 18th century)
2. Dominions, or settler nations (Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, South Africa), formed through large
movement of Europeans to colonized country,
displacing and destroying native populations, begin
to gain freedom. (late 19th early 20th Century)
3. Colonized South Asia, Africa and Carribbean,
not settled by large numbers of Europeans, but
instead by small numbers of British Colonial Elites,
fight for independence. (Post WW II)
Reasons for Decolonization
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1. Nationalism
2. Europe’s declining power in the
world
3. Rise of the U.S. and the Soviet
Union as major powers
4. Expense of maintaining Empire.
Commonwealth Literature
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Definition: Literature in English emerging
from colonized countries – excepting the
U.S. and Ireland
Shift from imperial or colonial to
commonwealth as nations developed their
independence.
However, one of the primary assumptions of
scholars of commonwealth literature was
that the writers brought new insights to
Western readers. The focus is on the West,
on English speakers.
Issues in Commonwealth
Literature
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1. Nationalism or the creation of a nation
2. Connections between commonwealth
nations – similarities of their experiences
3. Cultural differences between
commonwealth nations, and between those
nations and the West
Relationship to English Literature/Classics
Universal condition of Human kind
Historical, cultural, geographical sense of
time/place
Ngugi wa Thiong’o
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Colonizing the Mind – justifying to those in the
colonizing nation that it is right and proper for them
to be ruled over by other people
Getting the colonized people to accept their lower
ranking in the colonial order of things.
Encouraging people to internalize the logic and
speak the language of colonial dominance.
Traumatizes the colonized, who are taught to look
negatively on themselves, their people and their
culture.
Frantz Fanon
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Psychologist, writing about the effects of colonialism
by the French on Algerians.
Born in French Antilles in 1925. Educated in
Martinique and France.
Colonized encouraged to see themselves as
objects, rather than as subjects, as at the mercy of
the colonizer, as inferior, not fully human. Their
identity is created by the other, not by themselves.
To decolonize, means not just to get rid of colonial
rule, but to destroy this internalized version of the
self.
Edward Said
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Palestinian, author of Orientalism, the
seminal or originating text for postcolonial
theory.
The theory posits that the Occidental (West)
creates the Oriental (other) as a place of
exoticism, moral laxity, sexual degeneracy,
etc., then presents this creation as scientific
truth. This truth is then used to oppress the
indigenous peoples of colonized lands
Overturning Empire
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Is about more than giving people back their land.
It’s about overturning the Western ways of seeing
the world which have been inculcated into
indigenous people by the colonizers.
Those seeking “freedom” must decolonize their
minds.
They and the West, must seek other truths,
discover an alternate order of things, work to alter
the dominate patterns of thought that colonization
sewed into the fabric of culture, history and
language.
Theory
Re-reading canonical English literature –
looking for ways in which it
perpetuated or questioned the
assumptions of colonial discourses.
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Heart of Darkness, for example.
Mansfield Park, for example.
Jane Eyre, for example.
Theory cont.
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How are colonized subjects represented in
texts?
Where and how does the colonized subject
resist this representation in texts?
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Bhabha – and mimicry
Spivak – and the subaltern
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Can the subaltern speak?
Can the subaltern be read as disruptive and
subversive?
The Empire Writes Back
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Literature that writes back to the center – questions,
challenges colonial discourse
Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin
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New englishes, such as creoles, untranslatable words,
unusual syntax. These new englishes expressed new
values and identities and rejected old colonial values.
But, they neglected gender, class and national differences
in their definitions.
And, they assumed that all writing from the ex-colonies
was concerned with postcolonial issues, colonial history,
colonial discourses, decolonizing the mind. Sometimes,
claim critics, postcolonial writers don’t have empire on
their minds.
Postcolonialism at the
Millennium
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Readers have found Spivak, Said and Bhabha
difficult to read. In response, a wealth of criticism
interpreting and responding to this “Holy Trinity” has
been published.
Most recent theory focuses not on homogenizing
postcolonial literature, but on looking at its particular
cultural and historical situation.
Comparative criticism has also found a place -what brings works from such disparate cultural and
historical sites together in terms of ideas, plots,
style? How do differences in particular settings and
histories create differences in texts?
Postcolonialism: Definitions
and Dangers
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Colonialism doesn’t stop with political
independence. So, how can we even think
about the concept of “post” in terms of
colonialism? (Native Americans, African
Americans, South Africans, Palestinians,
Aboriginal Australians)
Internal Colonialism still exists after
colonialists take off.
Post doesn’t necessarily mean “after.”
So here’s what we imply about
postcolonial texts:
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1. They are produced by writers from countries with
a history of colonialism, about that colonialism, or
about the struggle to escape it.
2. They are produced by writers who have migrated
from countries with a history of colonialism or those
descended from migrant families and they deal with
the diaspora experience and its consequences.
3. We may reread colonial texts looking for ways
that they address the idea of empire and the
consequences of colonization on the colonized and
the colonizer.