Postcolonial Theory PDF

Postcolonial Theory Colonialism and the Study of English Literature Postcolonialism and Edward Said’s Orientalism And The Empire Writes Back  Colonialism Colonialism is a process of settlement by Europeans in Asian, African, South American, Canadian and Australian spaces. Col...

Postcolonial Theory Colonialism and the Study of English Literature Postcolonialism and Edward Said’s Orientalism And The Empire Writes Back  Colonialism Colonialism is a process of settlement by Europeans in Asian, African, South American, Canadian and Australian spaces. Colonization was the violent appropriation and sustained exploitation of the native races and space by European cultures.  By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Britain had colonized many countries. British colonial rule depended on seeing the native population of these colonised countries as inferior and needing the “advanced civilisation” offered by Western culture. Map of the British Empire  The Reason for British Colonialism One of the many reasons for colonisation was the spread of capitalism and the industrial revolution : Colonies offered sources of raw materials, cheap labour and a market for finished goods.  But colonialism could not be confined to the economic realm. In order to maintain colonialism, the British needed to show the native population their power and superiority over them.  How do they do this? It also exported its own legal and religious (Christianity) institutions, military, political, aesthetic ideas along with its economic regime.  In places, like Africa, India and Malaysia, British colonial rule meant teaching the native population the superiority of the Western practices: British law, Christianity, British history and English Language and education at missionary schools. E.g. Convents  The British exported their “culture ” to colonized countries in the form of music and art so that regardless of the cultures of the Arabs, the Chinese and the Malays, Chaucer, Shakespeare and Milton became the greatest authors who had ever lived. So who is more well-known?  This is what an English Department was originally designed to do – to study and assert the mastery of English literature as the most important literature of the most important advanced civilization ever known to mankind.  English Departments also served as a mechanism for teaching and upholding the correct form of English by making sure that all people wrote in the same grammatically acceptable form.  Postcolonialism in general Is a set of critical approaches, ideas, and critical methodologies that enable us to “read” colonial and colonizing practices. It invokes ideas of social justice, emancipation and democracy in the face of oppressive structures of racism, discrimination and exploitation. The prefix “post” in postcolonialism, hence, does not mean that it happens after all forms of colonialism have ended but only means after the political form of colonialism has ended. For most British colonies, postcoloniality, (the time period associated with postcolonialism) begins in the mid-to-late 20th century, when most of the British colonies, such as India, fought for and won their independence from the British Empire.  Postcolonial Theory Is a complex analytical strategy that foregrounds racial differences in the relationship– political, social, economic and cultural – between First or western and Third or eastern worlds. It is a reading practice that is political when it examines:  1) How First or Western world represented the non- European native/world 2) How colonial histories, anthropology, cartography were rooted in a racial discourse 3) How the native were feminized, dehumanised and marginalised in both representations and real life in the period of colonialism 4) The psychological effects of colonialism on colonizers and colonised 5) The instruments of colonial domination: English literature, art and architecture 6) The rise of nationalistic discourse that resisted colonialism  Postcolonial Theory in Literature Postcolonial theory questions the politics behind the study of English literature and culture from those who were colonized by it all. Postcolonial theory asks if is it necessary that English Department reinforce the superiority and power of Western cultural practices which have subordinated the Third World.  Postcolonial theory is concerned with examining the ways through which the colonising powers persuaded the colonized people to accept Western cultures as better than the cultures of the colonized people. One of the most important ways is through the concept of race and the racial binary opposition of white and “other” (white/ other).  White/Others? In white/other binaries, the other – be it “black”, “yellow”, “brown”, “red” or whatever skin colour, become the signifier of the otherness of the colonized people. Postcolonial theorists are interested to study how binary oppositions based on race, such as white/others are made and enforced by society.  When you think about how you know what race someone belongs to, usually you would think about the biological traits that supposedly marks race: such as hair colour, eye colour, skin colour. These biological traits are then attached to certain ideological signifieds (ideas or concepts that we have in our minds and certain things). Examples of ideas that we may have of people  Race as a Signifying System As any signifying systems, the connections between the signifier and signified is arbitrary. The connections between both signifier and signified cannot be justified scientifically.  Written by an African child and nominated by The United Nations as the Best Poem of 2006 And you calling me colored?? When I born, I black. When I grow up, I black. When I go in sun, I black. When I scared, I black. When I sick, I black. And when I die, I still black. And you white people. When you born, you pink. When you grow up, you white. When you go in sun, you red. When you cold, you blue. When you scared, you yellow. When you sick, you green And when you die, you grey… And you calling me colored?? Edward Said’s Orientalism and the Theory of Race as Signifiers  Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) started the field of postcolonial studies as a discipline and postcolonial theory as a critical method. The book offers a fundamental study on how signifiers get connected to signifieds through discursive means (through speech and writing) to create the signifying system we call race.  Said argues that discourse (speech and writing on certain topic) works to create “knowledge about a supposed racial group.” The best example is anthropology: a discipline to create knowledge through discourse (spoken and written language about a topic) from the perspective of the dominant (usually Western) culture, about the surbordinated or colonised culture.  This knowledge produces power because the superior (Western) culture could define and describe the subordinated, colonised culture as being inferior to their own.  Said uses the word “ Orientalism” to refer to the set of discourse (written and spoken) that western Anglo-European cultures used to produce (and, hence, control) a region of the Globe known as “the Orient”. The Orient covers the Arab world, Asia, China and Japan. European Painting of an Oriental House  This “otherness” exists in relation to the familiarity of the Western Anglo-European world. The basis of Orientalism, like racism, is the idea that “we” are “selves” who are civilized, and that “others” are uncivilized or savage..  Said’s work outlines how the cultural knowledge about, and representations of “the Orientals ” and the “ Orient” as a place of “otherness”.  For example, we might hear Oriental and think “opium-smoking”, heathen , mysterious, exotic” – all things which are negative when compared to their binary opposites: rational, civilized, scientific, common.  Said argues that the Western construction of the Orient projects all the things that the West considers inferior, all the things on the right-hand side of the slash binary opposition, on the Orient.  So the Orient becomes a place where body (as opposed to mind), evil (as opposed to good) and feminine (as opposed to the masculine reside. By placing all these forms of “Otherness” on the Orient, Said says, the Occident can construct itself as positive.  Another example of how the Occident or Westerners project themselves as important to Orientals is through cartography or mapping.  Cartography and Orientalism It is the product of how Anglo-European explorers drew the map of the world from the 17th century onwards. Said points out the maps are not just representations of a “real world” that is out there, a way to locate rivers and mountains. Rather maps are texts which carry with them a cultural perspective. The Unconventional Map  In this example, England is the centre of the world, the map where space begins, the starting point for all other mappings of the world. This is because English people drew the maps and also because England was a major colonial power.  Said also argues that the creation of discourse (speech and writings) about colonised culture, and about “the other”, works also to silence that colonised culture, which cannot talk back to write about itself simply because they do not write or speak in English.  The end. References: Guerin, Wilfred and et al. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. 5th edition. Oxford: Oxford U.P. , 2005.