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Postcolonialism is the
critical Critical or Critically may refer to: *Critical, or critical but stable, medical states **Critical, or intensive care medicine * Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences. *Critical Software, a company specializing ...
academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of
colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their reli ...
and
imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic powe ...
, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a
critical theory A critical theory is any approach to social philosophy that focuses on society and culture to reveal, critique and challenge power structures. With roots in sociology and literary criticism, it argues that social problems stem more from s ...
analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of (usually European) imperial power. Postcolonialism encompasses a wide variety of approaches, and theoreticians may not always agree on a common set of definitions. On a simple level, through
anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...
study, it may seek to build a better understanding of colonial life—based on the assumption that the colonial rulers are
unreliable narrator An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unr ...
s—from the point of view of the colonized people. On a deeper level, postcolonialism examines the social and political power relationships that sustain colonialism and
neocolonialism Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony). Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, ...
, including the social, political and cultural
narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional ( memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional ( fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc ...
s surrounding the colonizer and the colonized. This approach may overlap with studies of
contemporary history Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is ...
, and may also draw examples from anthropology,
historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians h ...
,
political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and ...
,
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. ...
,
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
, and
human geography Human geography or anthropogeography is the branch of geography that studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social ...
. Sub-disciplines of postcolonial studies examine the effects of colonial rule on the practice of
feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...
,
anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
,
literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
, and
Christian thought Christian theology is the theology of Christian belief and practice. Such study concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradition. Christian theologians use biblical exeg ...
. At times, the term ''postcolonial studies'' may be preferred to ''postcolonialism'', as the ambiguous term ''colonialism'' could refer either to a system of government, or to an
ideology An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
or
world view A worldview or world-view or ''Weltanschauung'' is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge, culture, and point of view. A worldview can include natural ...
underlying that system. However, ''postcolonialism'' (i.e., postcolonial studies) generally represents an ideological response to colonialist thought, rather than simply describing a system that comes after colonialism, as the prefix ''post-'' may suggest. As such, postcolonialism may be thought of as a reaction to or departure from colonialism in the same way
postmodernism Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of modern ...
is a reaction to
modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
; the term ''postcolonialism'' itself is modeled on postmodernism, with which it shares certain concepts and methods.


Purpose and basic concepts

As an
epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...
(i.e., a study of
knowledge Knowledge can be defined as awareness of facts or as practical skills, and may also refer to familiarity with objects or situations. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is often defined as true belief that is distin ...
, its nature, and verifiability), ethics (
moral philosophy Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ...
), and as a political science (i.e., in its concern with affairs of the citizenry), the field of postcolonialism addresses the matters that constitute the postcolonial identity of a
decolonized Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence ...
people, which derives from: # the colonizer's generation of
cultural knowledge Cultural heritage is the heritage of tangible and intangible heritage assets of a group or society that is inherited from past generations. Not all heritages of past generations are "heritage"; rather, heritage is a product of selection by soci ...
about the colonized people; and # how that Western cultural knowledge was applied to subjugate a non-European people into a colony of the European mother country, which, after initial invasion, was effected by means of the cultural identities of 'colonizer' and 'colonized'. Postcolonialism is aimed at disempowering such theories (intellectual and linguistic, social and economic) by means of which colonialists "perceive," "understand," and "know" the world. Postcolonial theory thus establishes intellectual spaces for subaltern peoples to speak for themselves, in their own voices, and thus produce cultural discourses of philosophy, language, society, and economy, balancing the imbalanced us-and-them binary power-relationship between the colonist and the colonial subjects.


Colonialist discourse

Colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their reli ...
was presented as "the extension of civilization," which ideologically justified the self-ascribed racial and cultural superiority of the Western world over the non-Western world. This concept was espoused by
Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote in ...
in ''La Réforme intellectuelle et morale'' (1871), whereby imperial
stewardship Stewardship is an ethical value that embodies the responsible planning and management of resources. The concepts of stewardship can be applied to the environment and nature, economics, health, property, information, theology, cultural resources e ...
was thought to affect the intellectual and moral reformation of the coloured peoples of the lesser cultures of the world. That such a divinely established, natural harmony among the human races of the world would be possible, because everyone has an assigned
cultural identity Cultural identity is a part of a person's identity, or their self-conception and self-perception, and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct cultu ...
, a social place, and an economic role within an imperial colony. Thus: Saïd, Edward. 2000. "Nationalism, Human Rights, and Interpretation." ''Reflections on Exile, and Other Essays''. pp. 418–19. From the mid- to the late-nineteenth century, such
racialist Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies can be more ex ...
group-identity language was the cultural common-currency justifying geopolitical competition amongst the European and American empires and meant to protect their over-extended economies. Especially in the colonization of the Far East and in the late-nineteenth century
Scramble for Africa The Scramble for Africa, also called the Partition of Africa, or Conquest of Africa, was the invasion, annexation, division, and colonization of most of Africa by seven Western European powers during a short period known as New Imperialism ...
, the representation of a homogeneous European identity justified colonization. Hence, Belgium and Britain, and France and Germany proffered theories of national superiority that justified colonialism as delivering the light of civilization to unenlightened peoples. Notably, '' la mission civilisatrice'', the self-ascribed 'civilizing mission' of the French Empire, proposed that some races and cultures have a higher purpose in life, whereby the more powerful, more developed, and more civilized races have the right to colonize other peoples, in service to the noble idea of "civilization" and its economic benefits.


Postcolonial identity

Postcolonial theory holds that decolonized people develop a postcolonial identity that is based on cultural interactions between different identities (cultural, national, and ethnic as well as gender and class based) which are assigned varying degrees of social power by the colonial society. In
postcolonial literature Postcolonial literature is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries. It exists on all continents except Antarctica. Postcolonial literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonization of a country, espe ...
, the anti-conquest narrative analyzes the
identity politics Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
that are the social and cultural perspectives of the subaltern colonial subjects—their creative resistance to the culture of the colonizer; how such cultural resistance complicated the establishment of a colonial society; how the colonizers developed their postcolonial identity; and how
neocolonialism Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony). Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, ...
actively employs the 'us-and-them' binary social relation to view the non-Western world as inhabited by '
the other In Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the other human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknow ...
'. As an example, consider how
neocolonial Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony). Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, g ...
discourse of geopolitical
homogeneity Homogeneity and heterogeneity are concepts often used in the sciences and statistics relating to the uniformity of a substance or organism. A material or image that is homogeneous is uniform in composition or character (i.e. color, shape, size, ...
often includes the relegating of decolonized peoples, their cultures, and their countries, to an imaginary place, such as "the
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
." Oftentimes the term "the third World" is over-inclusive: it refers vaguely to large geographic areas comprising several continents and seas, i.e. Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania. Rather than providing a clear or complete description of the area it supposedly refers to, it instead erases distinctions and identities of the groups it claims to represent. A postcolonial critique of this term would analyze the self-justifying usage of such a term, the discourse it occurs within, as well as the philosophical and political functions the language may have. Postcolonial critiques of homogeneous concepts such as the "
Arabs The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...
," the "
First World The concept of First World originated during the Cold War and comprised countries that were under the influence of the United States and the rest of NATO and opposed the Soviet Union and/or communism during the Cold War. Since the collapse of ...
," "
Christendom Christendom historically refers to the Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, prevails,SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom"/ref> or is culturally or historically intertwin ...
," and the "
Ummah ' (; ar, أمة ) is an Arabic word meaning "community". It is distinguished from ' ( ), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra-national community with a common history. It is a synonym for ' ...
", often aim to show how such language actually does not represent the groups supposedly identified. Such terminology often fails to adequately describe the heterogeneous peoples, cultures, and geography that make them up. Accurate descriptions of the world's peoples, places, and things require nuanced and accurate terms. By including everyone under the
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
concept, it ignores the why those regions or countries are considered Third World and who is responsible.


Difficulty of definition

As a term in
contemporary history Contemporary history, in English-language historiography, is a subset of modern history that describes the historical period from approximately 1945 to the present. Contemporary history is either a subset of the late modern period, or it is ...
, ''postcolonialism'' occasionally is applied, temporally, to denote the immediate time after the period during which imperial powers retreated from their colonial territories. Such is believed to be a problematic application of the term, as the immediate, historical, political time is not included in the categories of
critical Critical or Critically may refer to: *Critical, or critical but stable, medical states **Critical, or intensive care medicine * Critical juncture, a discontinuous change studied in the social sciences. *Critical Software, a company specializing ...
identity-discourse, which deals with over-inclusive terms of cultural representation, which are abrogated and replaced by postcolonial criticism. As such, the terms ''postcolonial'' and ''postcolonialism'' denote aspects of the subject matter that indicate that the
decolonized Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on independence ...
world is an intellectual space "of contradictions, of half-finished processes, of confusions, of
hybridity Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Young, Robert. ''Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and R ...
, and of liminalities." As in most critical theory-based research, the lack of clarity in the definition of the subject matter coupled with an open claim to normativity makes criticism of postcolonial discourse problematic, reasserting its dogmatic or ideological status. In ''Post-Colonial Drama: Theory, Practice, Politics'' (1996), Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins clarify the denotational functions, among which: The term ''post-colonialism'' is also applied to denote the
Mother Country A homeland is a place where a cultural, national, or racial identity has formed. The definition can also mean simply one's country of birth. When used as a proper noun, the Homeland, as well as its equivalents in other languages, often has ethn ...
's
neocolonial Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony). Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, g ...
control of the decolonized country, affected by the legalistic continuation of the economic, cultural, and linguistic power relationships that controlled the colonial politics of knowledge (i.e., the generation, production, and distribution of knowledge) about the colonized peoples of the non-Western world. The cultural and religious assumptions of colonialist logic remain active practices in contemporary society and are the basis of the Mother Country's neocolonial attitude towards her former colonial subjects—an economical source of labour and raw materials. It acts as a non interchangeable term that links the independent country to its colonizer, depriving countries of their
Independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the stat ...
, decades after building their own identities.


Notable theoreticians and theories


Frantz Fanon and subjugation

In ''
The Wretched of the Earth ''The Wretched of the Earth'' (french: Les Damnés de la Terre) is a 1961 book by the philosopher Frantz Fanon, in which the author provides a psychoanalysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individual and the nation, and di ...
'' (1961),
psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
and
philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have b ...
analyzes and medically describes the nature of
colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their reli ...
as essentially destructive. Its societal effects—the imposition of a subjugating colonial identity—is harmful to the mental health of the native peoples who were subjugated into colonies. Fanon writes that the ideological essence of colonialism is the systematic denial of "all attributes of humanity" of the colonized people. Such
dehumanization Dehumanization is the denial of full humanness in others and the cruelty and suffering that accompanies it. A practical definition refers to it as the viewing and treatment of other persons as though they lack the mental capacities that are c ...
is achieved with physical and mental violence, by which the colonist means to inculcate a servile mentality upon the natives. For Fanon, the natives must violently resist colonial subjugation. Hence, Fanon describes violent resistance to colonialism as a mentally cathartic practise, which purges colonial servility from the native
psyche Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" (ψυχή). Psyche may also refer to: Psychology * Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious * ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unconscious by Car ...
, and restores self-respect to the subjugated. Thus, Fanon actively supported and participated in the
Algerian Revolution The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
(1954–62) for independence from France as a member and representative of the '' Front de Libération Nationale''. As postcolonial
praxis Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised * Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...
, Fanon's mental-health analyses of colonialism and imperialism, and the supporting economic theories, were partly derived from the essay "
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism ''Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism'' (russian: Империализм как высшая стадия капитализма, Imperializm kak vysshaja stadija kapitalizma, link=no), originally published as ''Imperialism, the Newest S ...
" (1916), wherein
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
described colonial imperialism as an advanced form of
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
, desperate for growth at all costs, and so requires more and more human exploitation to ensure continually consistent profit-for-investment. Another key book that predates postcolonial theories is Fanon's '' Black Skins, White Masks''. In this book, Fanon discusses the logic of colonial rule from the perspective of the existential experience of racialized subjectivity. Fanon treats colonialism as a ''total project'' which rules every aspect of colonized peoples and their reality. Fanon reflects on colonialism, language, and racism and asserts that to speak a language is to adopt a civilization and to participate in the world of that language. His ideas show the influence of French and German philosophy, since existentialism, phenomenology, and hermeneutics claim that language, subjectivity, and reality are interrelated. However, the colonial situation presents a paradox: when colonial beings are forced to adopt and speak an imposed language which is not their own, they adopt and participate in the world and civilization of the colonized. This language results from centuries of colonial domination which is aimed at eliminating other expressive forms in order to reflect the world of the colonizer. As a consequence, when colonial beings speak as the colonized, they participate in their own oppression and the very structures of alienation are reflected in all aspects of their adopted language.


Edward Said and orientalism

Cultural critic A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole. Cultural criticism has significant overlap with social and cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness of the culture, the social positions of ...
Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...
is considered by E. San Juan, Jr. as "the originator and inspiring patron-saint of postcolonial theory and discourse" due to his interpretation of the theory of
orientalism In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
explained in his 1978 book, '' Orientalism''. To describe the us-and-them "binary social relation" with which Western Europe intellectually divided the world—into the "
Occident The Occident is a term for the West, traditionally comprising anything that belongs to the Western world. It is the antonym of ''Orient'', the Eastern world. In English, it has largely fallen into disuse. The term ''occidental'' is often used to ...
" and the "
Orient The Orient is a term for the East in relation to Europe, traditionally comprising anything belonging to the Eastern world. It is the antonym of '' Occident'', the Western World. In English, it is largely a metonym for, and coterminous with, the ...
"—Said developed the denotations and connotations of the term ''orientalism'' (an art-history term for Western depictions and the study of the Orient). Said's concept (which he also termed "orientalism") is that the cultural representations generated with the us-and-them binary relation are
social construct Social constructionism is a theory in sociology, social ontology, and communication theory which proposes that certain ideas about physical reality arise from collaborative consensus, instead of pure observation of said reality. The theory ...
s, which are mutually constitutive and cannot exist independent of each other, because each exists on account of and for the other. Notably, "the West" created the cultural concept of "the East," which according to Said allowed the Europeans to suppress the peoples of the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent, and of Asia in general, from expressing and representing themselves as discrete peoples and cultures. Orientalism thus conflated and reduced the non-Western world into the homogeneous cultural entity known as "the East." Therefore, in service to the colonial type of imperialism, the us-and-them orientalist paradigm allowed European scholars to represent the Oriental World as inferior and backward, irrational and wild, as opposed to a Western Europe that was superior and progressive, rational and civil—the opposite of the Oriental Other. Reviewing Said's ''Orientalism'' (1978), A. Madhavan (1993) says that "Said's passionate thesis in that book, now an 'almost canonical study', represented Orientalism as a 'style of thought' based on the antinomy of East and West in their world-views, and also as a 'corporate institution' for dealing with the Orient." In concordance with philosopher
Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...
, Said established that power and knowledge are the inseparable components of the intellectual binary relationship with which Occidentals claim "knowledge of the Orient." That the applied power of such cultural knowledge allowed Europeans to rename, re-define, and thereby control Oriental peoples, places, and things, into imperial colonies. The power-knowledge binary relation is conceptually essential to identify and understand colonialism in general, and
European colonialism The historical phenomenon of colonization is one that stretches around the globe and across time. Ancient and medieval colonialism was practiced by the Phoenicians, the Greeks, the Turks, and the Arabs. Colonialism in the modern sense began ...
in particular. Hence, Nonetheless, critics of the homogeneous "Occident–Orient" binary social relation, say that Orientalism is of limited descriptive capability and practical application, and propose instead that there are variants of Orientalism that apply to Africa and to Latin America. Said response was that the European West applied Orientalism as a ''homogeneous'' form of
The Other In Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the other human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknow ...
, in order to facilitate the formation of the cohesive, collective European cultural identity denoted by the term "The West." With this described binary logic, the West generally constructs the Orient subconsciously as its alter ego. Therefore, descriptions of the Orient by the Occident lack material attributes, grounded within the land. This inventive or imaginative interpretation subscribes female characteristics to the Orient and plays into fantasies that are inherent within the West's alter ego. It should be understood that this process draws creativity, amounting an entire domain and discourse. In ''Orientalism'' (p. 6), Said mentions the production of "philology
he study of the history of languages He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
lexicography ictionary making history, biology, political and economic theory, novel-writing and lyric poetry." Therefore, there is an entire industry that exploits the Orient for its own subjective purposes that lack a native and intimate understanding. Such industries become institutionalized and eventually become a resource for manifest Orientalism or a compilation of misinformation about the Orient. These subjective fields of academia now synthesize the political resources and think-tanks that are so common in the West today. Orientalism is self-perpetuating to the extent that it becomes normalized within common discourse, making people say things that are latent, impulsive, or not fully conscious of its own self.


Gayatri Spivak and the subaltern

In establishing the Postcolonial definition of the term '' subaltern'', the philosopher and theoretician
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born 24 February 1942) is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative Lit ...
cautioned against assigning an over-broad connotation. She argues: Spivak also introduced the terms ''
essentialism Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle sim ...
'' and '' strategic essentialism'' to describe the social functions of postcolonialism. ''Essentialism'' denotes the perceptual dangers inherent to reviving subaltern voices in ways that might (over) simplify the cultural identity of heterogeneous social groups and, thereby, create stereotyped representations of the different identities of the people who compose a given social group. ''Strategic essentialism'', on the other hand, denotes a temporary, essential group-identity used in the praxis of discourse among peoples. Furthermore, essentialism can occasionally be applied—by the so-described people—to facilitate the subaltern's communication in being heeded, heard, and understood, because strategic essentialism (a fixed and established subaltern identity) is more readily grasped, and accepted, by the popular majority, in the course of inter-group discourse. The important distinction, between the terms, is that strategic essentialism does not ignore the diversity of identities (cultural and ethnic) in a social group, but that, in its practical function, strategic essentialism temporarily minimizes inter-group diversity to pragmatically support the essential group-identity. Spivak developed and applied Foucault's term ''epistemic violence'' to describe the destruction of non-Western ways of perceiving the world and the resultant dominance of the Western ways of perceiving the world. Conceptually, epistemic violence specifically relates to women, whereby the "Subaltern
oman Oman ( ; ar, عُمَان ' ), officially the Sultanate of Oman ( ar, سلْطنةُ عُمان ), is an Arabian country located in southwestern Asia. It is situated on the southeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, and spans the mouth of ...
must always be caught in translation, never llowed to betruly expressing herself," because the colonial power's destruction of her culture pushed to the social margins her non–Western ways of perceiving, understanding, and knowing the world. In June of the year 1600, the Afro–Iberian woman Francisca de Figueroa requested from the
King of Spain , coatofarms = File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Spanish_Monarch.svg , coatofarms_article = Coat of arms of the King of Spain , image = Felipe_VI_in_2020_(cropped).jpg , incumbent = Felipe VI , incumbentsince = 19 Ju ...
his permission for her to emigrate from Europe to New Granada, and reunite with her daughter, Juana de Figueroa. As a subaltern woman, Francisca repressed her native African language, and spoke her request in Peninsular Spanish, the official language of Colonial Latin America. As a subaltern woman, she applied to her voice the Spanish cultural filters of
sexism Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on one's sex or gender. Sexism can affect anyone, but it primarily affects women and girls.There is a clear and broad consensus among academic scholars in multiple fields that sexism refers pri ...
, Christian monotheism, and servile language, in addressing her colonial master: Moreover, Spivak further cautioned against ignoring subaltern peoples as "cultural Others", and said that the West could progress—beyond the colonial perspective—by means of introspective
self-criticism Self-criticism involves how an individual evaluates oneself. Self-criticism in psychology is typically studied and discussed as a negative personality trait in which a person has a disrupted self-identity. The opposite of self-criticism would be ...
of the basic ideas and investigative methods that establish a culturally superior West studying the culturally inferior non–Western peoples. Hence, the integration of the subaltern voice to the intellectual spaces of social studies is problematic, because of the unrealistic opposition to the idea of studying "Others"; Spivak rejected such an anti-intellectual stance by social scientists, and about them said that "to refuse to represent a cultural Other is salving your conscience…allowing you not to do any homework." Moreover, postcolonial studies also reject the colonial cultural depiction of subaltern peoples as hollow
mimics Materialise Mimics is an image processing software for 3D design and modeling, developed by Materialise NV, a Belgian company specialized in additive manufacturing software and technology for medical, dental and additive manufacturing industries ...
of the European colonists and their Western ways; and rejects the depiction of subaltern peoples as the passive recipient-vessels of the imperial and colonial power of the Mother Country. Consequent to Foucault's philosophic model of the binary relationship of power and knowledge, scholars from the
Subaltern Studies Collective The Subaltern Studies Group (SSG) or Subaltern Studies Collective is a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies. The term ''Subaltern Studies'' is sometimes also applied more broadly to others who sha ...
, proposed that anti-colonial resistance always counters every exercise of colonial power.


Homi K. Bhabha and hybridity

In ''The Location of Culture'' (1994), theoretician Homi K. Bhabha argues that viewing the human world as composed of separate and unequal cultures, rather than as an
integral In mathematics, an integral assigns numbers to functions in a way that describes displacement, area, volume, and other concepts that arise by combining infinitesimal data. The process of finding integrals is called integration. Along with ...
human world, perpetuates the belief in the existence of imaginary peoples and places—"
Christendom Christendom historically refers to the Christian states, Christian-majority countries and the countries in which Christianity dominates, prevails,SeMerriam-Webster.com : dictionary, "Christendom"/ref> or is culturally or historically intertwin ...
" and the "
Islamic World The terms Muslim world and Islamic world commonly refer to the Islamic community, which is also known as the Ummah. This consists of all those who adhere to the religious beliefs and laws of Islam or to societies in which Islam is practiced. I ...
", "
First World The concept of First World originated during the Cold War and comprised countries that were under the influence of the United States and the rest of NATO and opposed the Soviet Union and/or communism during the Cold War. Since the collapse of ...
," "
Second World The Second World is a term originating during the Cold War for the industrial socialist states that were under the influence of the Soviet Union. In the first two decades following World War II, 19 communist states emerged; all of these were at ...
," and the "
Third World The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
." To counter such linguistic and sociological
reductionism Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical po ...
, postcolonial
praxis Praxis may refer to: Philosophy and religion * Praxis (process), the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practised, embodied, or realised * Praxis model, a way of doing theology * Praxis (Byzantine Rite), the practice of fai ...
establishes the philosophic value of hybrid intellectual spaces, wherein ambiguity abrogates truth and authenticity; thereby, ''
hybridity Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Young, Robert. ''Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and R ...
'' is the philosophic condition that most substantively challenges the ideological validity of colonialism.


R. Siva Kumar and alternative modernity

In 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India's Independence, " Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism" was an important exhibition curated by R. Siva Kumar at the
National Gallery of Modern Art National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...
. In his catalogue essay, Kumar introduced the term Contextual Modernism, which later emerged as a postcolonial critical tool in the understanding of
Indian art Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, including Indian painting, painting, sculpture in the Indian subcontinent, sculpture, Indian pottery, pottery, and textile arts such as Silk in the Indian subcontinent#Origin, woven silk. Geographica ...
, specifically the works of
Nandalal Bose Nandalal Bose (3 December 1882 – 16 April 1966) was one of the pioneers of modern Indian art and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. A pupil of Abanindranath Tagore, Bose was known for his "Indian style" of painting. He became the principa ...
,
Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...
,
Ramkinkar Baij Ramkinkar Baij ( bn, রামকিঙ্কর বেইজ) (25 May 1906 – 2 August 1980) was an Indian sculptor and painter, one of the pioneers of modern Indian sculpture and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. Early life and ...
, and
Benode Behari Mukherjee Benode Behari Mukherjee (7 February 1904 – 11 November 1980) was an Indian artist from West Bengal state. Mukherjee was one of the pioneers of Indian modern art and a key figure of Contextual Modernism. He was one of the earliest artists in mo ...
. In the post-colonial history of art, this marked the departure from Eurocentric unilateral idea of
modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...
to alternative context sensitive ''modernisms''. Several terms including
Paul Gilroy Paul Gilroy (born 16 February 1956) is an English sociologist and cultural studies scholar who is the founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at University College, London (UCL). Gilroy is the 2019 ...
's ''counterculture of modernity'' and
Tani E. Barlow Tani Barlow is a scholar of feminism, postcoloniality, and history in Asia and most specifically in China. She is the George and Nancy Rupp Professor of Humanities at Rice University. Formerly, Barlow was a professor of history and women studie ...
's ''Colonial modernity'' have been used to describe the kind of alternative modernity that emerged in non-European contexts. Professor Gall argues that 'Contextual Modernism' is a more suited term because "the colonial in ''colonial modernity'' does not accommodate the refusal of many in colonized situations to internalize inferiority. Santiniketan's artist teachers' refusal of subordination incorporated a counter vision of modernity, which sought to correct the racial and cultural essentialism that drove and characterized imperial Western modernity and modernism. Those European modernities, projected through a triumphant British colonial power, provoked nationalist responses, equally problematic when they incorporated similar essentialisms."


Dipesh Chakrabarty

In ''Provincializing Europe'' (2000), Dipesh Chakrabarty charts the subaltern history of the Indian struggle for independence, and counters
Eurocentric Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western worl ...
, Western scholarship about non-Western peoples and cultures, by proposing that Western Europe simply be considered as culturally equal to the other cultures of the world; that is, as "one region among many" in human geography.


Derek Gregory and the colonial present

Derek Gregory Derek Gregory Ph.D. (Cantab) FBA, FRSC (born 1 March 1951) is a British academic and world-renowned geographer who is currently Peter Wall Distinguished Professor and Professor of Geography at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. H ...
argues the long trajectory through history of British and American colonization is an ongoing process still happening today. In ''The Colonial Present'', Gregory traces connections between the
geopolitics Geopolitics (from Greek γῆ ''gê'' "earth, land" and πολιτική ''politikḗ'' "politics") is the study of the effects of Earth's geography (human and physical) on politics and international relations. While geopolitics usually refers to ...
of events happening in modern-day Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq and links it back to the us-and-them binary relation between the Western and Eastern world. Building upon the ideas of the other and Said's work on orientalism, Gregory critiques the economic policy, military apparatus, and transnational corporations as vehicles driving present-day colonialism. Emphasizing ideas of discussing ideas around colonialism in the present tense, Gregory utilizes modern events such as the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
to tell spatial stories around the colonial behavior happening due to the War on Terror.


Amar Acheraiou and Classical influences

Acheraiou argues that colonialism was a
capitalist Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
venture moved by appropriation and plundering of foreign lands and was supported by military force and a discourse that legitimized violence in the name of progress and a universal civilizing mission. This discourse is complex and multi-faceted. It was elaborated in the 19th century by colonial ideologues such as
Ernest Renan Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote in ...
and
Arthur de Gobineau Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping to legitimise racism by the use of scientific racist theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Aryan ...
, but its roots reach far back in history. In ''Rethinking Postcolonialism: Colonialist Discourse in Modern Literature and the Legacy of Classical Writers,'' Acheraiou discusses the history of colonialist discourse and traces its spirit to ancient Greece, including Europe's claim to racial supremacy and right to rule over non-Europeans harboured by Renan and other 19th-century colonial ideologues. He argues that modern colonial representations of the colonized as "inferior," "stagnant," and "degenerate" were borrowed from Greek and Latin authors like
Lysias Lysias (; el, Λυσίας; c. 445 – c. 380 BC) was a logographer (speech writer) in Ancient Greece. He was one of the ten Attic orators included in the "Alexandrian Canon" compiled by Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus of Samothrace i ...
(440–380 BC),
Isocrates Isocrates (; grc, Ἰσοκράτης ; 436–338 BC) was an ancient Greek rhetorician, one of the ten Attic orators. Among the most influential Greek rhetoricians of his time, Isocrates made many contributions to rhetoric and education throu ...
(436–338 BC),
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
(427–327 BC),
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
(384–322 BC),
Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...
(106–43 BC), and
Sallust Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust (; 86 – ), was a Roman historian and politician from an Italian plebeian family. Probably born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines, Sallust became during the 50s BC a partisa ...
(86–34 BC), who all considered their racial others—the Persians, Scythians, Egyptians as "backward," "inferior," and "effeminate." Among these ancient writers
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...
is the one who articulated more thoroughly these ancient racial assumptions, which served as a source of inspiration for modern colonists. In '' The Politics,'' he established a racial classification and ranked the Greeks superior to the rest. He considered them as an ideal race to rule over Asian and other 'barbarian' peoples, for they knew how to blend the spirit of the European "war-like races" with Asiatic "intelligence" and "competence." Ancient Rome was a source of admiration in Europe since the enlightenment. In France,
Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his '' nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—e ...
(1694-1778) was one of the most fervent admirers of Rome. He regarded highly the Roman republican values of rationality, democracy, order and justice. In early-18th century Britain, it was poets and politicians like
Joseph Addison Joseph Addison (1 May 1672 – 17 June 1719) was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician. He was the eldest son of The Reverend Lancelot Addison. His name is usually remembered alongside that of his long-standing friend Richar ...
(1672–1719) and Richard Glover (1712 –1785) who were vocal advocates of these ancient republican values. It was in the mid-18th century that ancient Greece became a source of admiration among the French and British. This enthusiasm gained prominence in the late-eighteenth century. It was spurred by German Hellenist scholars and English romantic poets, who regarded ancient Greece as the matrix of Western civilization and a model of beauty and democracy. These included:
Johann Joachim Winckelmann Johann Joachim Winckelmann (; ; 9 December 17178 June 1768) was a German art historian and archaeologist. He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the differences between Greek, Greco-Roman and Roman art. "The prophet and foundin ...
(1717–1768),
Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (, also , ; ; 22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a Prussian philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin, which was named afte ...
(1767–1835), and
Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as tr ...
(1749–1832),
Lord Byron George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
(1788–1824),
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge (; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lak ...
(1772–1834),
Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 17928 July 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame during his lifetime, but recognition of his achi ...
(1792–1822), and
John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...
(1795–1821). In the 19th century, when Europe began to expand across the globe and establish colonies, ancient Greece and Rome were used as a source of empowerment and justification to Western civilizing mission. At this period, many French and British imperial ideologues identified strongly with the ancient empires and invoked ancient Greece and Rome to justify the colonial civilizing project. They urged European colonizers to emulate these "ideal" classical conquerors, whom they regarded as "universal instructors." For
Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (; 29 July 180516 April 1859), colloquially known as Tocqueville (), was a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist, political philosopher and historian. He is best known for his wo ...
(1805–1859), an ardent and influential advocate of la "Grande France," the classical empires were model conquerors to imitate. He advised the French colonists in
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
to follow the ancient imperial example. In 1841, he stated:
at matters most when we want to set up and develop a colony is to make sure that those who arrive in it are as less estranged as possible, that these newcomers meet a perfect image of their homeland....the thousand colonies that the Greeks founded on the Mediterranean coasts were all exact copies of the Greek cities on which they had been modelled. The Romans established in almost all parts of the globe known to them municipalities which were no more than miniature Romes. Among modern colonizers, the English did the same. Who can prevent us from emulating these European peoples?.
The Greeks and Romans were deemed exemplary conquerors and "
heuristic A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate ...
teachers," whose lessons were invaluable for modern colonists ideologues. John-Robert Seeley (1834-1895), a history professor at Cambridge and proponent of imperialism stated in a rhetoric which echoed that of Renan that the role of the British Empire was 'similar to that of Rome, in which we hold the position of not merely of ruling but of an educating and civilizing race." The incorporation of ancient concepts and racial and cultural assumptions into modern imperial ideology bolstered colonial claims to supremacy and right to colonize non-Europeans. Because of these numerous ramifications between ancient representations and modern colonial rhetoric, 19th century's colonialist discourse acquires a "multi-layered" or "
palimpsest In textual studies, a palimpsest () is a manuscript page, either from a scroll or a book, from which the text has been scraped or washed off so that the page can be reused for another document. Parchment was made of lamb, calf, or kid skin an ...
ic" structure. It forms a "historical, ideological and narcissistic continuum," in which modern theories of domination feed upon and blend with "ancient myths of supremacy and grandeur."


Postcolonial literary study

As a
literary theory Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, mor ...
, postcolonialism deals with the literatures produced by the peoples who once were colonized by the European imperial powers (e.g. Britain, France, and Spain) and the literatures of the decolonized countries engaged in contemporary, postcolonial arrangements (e.g.
Organisation internationale de la Francophonie The (OIF; sometimes shortened to the Francophonie, french: La Francophonie , but also called International Organisation of in English-language context) is an international organization representing countries and regions where French is a ...
and the
Commonwealth of Nations The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the C ...
) with their former mother countries. Postcolonial literary criticism comprehends the literatures written by the colonizer and the colonized, wherein the subject matter includes portraits of the colonized peoples and their lives as imperial subjects. In Dutch literature, the Indies Literature includes the colonial and postcolonial genres, which examine and analyze the formation of a postcolonial identity, and the postcolonial culture produced by the diaspora of the
Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
peoples, the Eurasian folk who originated from Indonesia; the peoples who were the colony of the
Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies ( nl, Nederlands(ch)-Indië; ), was a Dutch colony consisting of what is now Indonesia. It was formed from the nationalised trading posts of the Dutch East India Company, whic ...
; in the literature, the notable author is
Tjalie Robinson Tjalie Robinson is the main alias of the Indo (Eurasian) intellectual and writer Jan Boon (born Nijmegen, 10 January 1911; died The Hague, 22 April 1974) also known as Vincent Mahieu. His father Cornelis Boon, a Royal Netherlands East Indies Arm ...
. '' Waiting for the Barbarians'' (1980) by J. M. Coetzee depicts the unfair and inhuman situation of people dominated by settlers. To perpetuate and facilitate control of the colonial enterprise, some colonized people, especially from among the subaltern peoples of the British Empire, were sent to attend university in the Imperial Motherland; they were to become the native-born, but Europeanised, ruling class of colonial satraps. Yet, after decolonization, their bicultural educations originated postcolonial criticism of empire and colonialism, and of the representations of the colonist and the colonized. In the late 20th century, after the
dissolution of the USSR The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...
in 1991, the constituent
Soviet Socialist Republics The Republics of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the Union Republics ( rus, Сою́зные Респу́блики, r=Soyúznye Respúbliki) were national-based administrative units of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( ...
became the literary subjects of postcolonial criticism, wherein the writers dealt with the legacies (cultural, social, economic) of the
Russification Russification (russian: русификация, rusifikatsiya), or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian cult ...
of their peoples, countries, and cultures in service to Greater Russia. Postcolonial literary study is in two categories: # the study of postcolonial nations; and # the study of the nations who continue forging a postcolonial national identity. The first category of literature presents and analyzes the internal challenges inherent to determining an ethnic identity in a decolonized nation. The second category of literature presents and analyzes the degeneration of civic and nationalist unities consequent to ethnic
parochialism Parochialism is the state of mind, whereby one focuses on small sections of an issue rather than considering its wider context. More generally, it consists of being narrow in scope. In that respect, it is a synonym of "provincialism". It may, pa ...
, usually manifested as the
demagogue A demagogue (from Greek , a popular leader, a leader of a mob, from , people, populace, the commons + leading, leader) or rabble-rouser is a political leader in a democracy who gains popularity by arousing the common people against elites, ...
ry of "protecting the nation," a variant of the us-and-them binary social relation. Civic and national unity degenerate when a
patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of dominance and privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical anthropological term for families or clans controlled by the father or eldest male or group of males ...
régime unilaterally defines what is and what is not "the national culture" of the decolonized country: the
nation-state A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may in ...
collapses, either into communal movements, espousing grand political goals for the postcolonial nation; or into ethnically mixed communal movements, espousing political separatism, as occurred in decolonized Rwanda, the Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; thus the postcolonial extremes against which
Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have b ...
warned in 1961.


Application


Middle East

In the essays "Overstating the Arab State" (2001) by Nazih Ayubi, and "Is Jordan Palestine?" (2003) by Raphael Israeli, the authors deal with the psychologically-fragmented postcolonial identity, as determined by the effects (political and social, cultural and economic) of Western colonialism in the Middle East. As such, the fragmented national identity remains a characteristic of such societies, consequence of the imperially convenient, but arbitrary, colonial boundaries (geographic and cultural) demarcated by the Europeans, with which they ignored the tribal and clan relations that determined the geographic borders of the Middle East countries, before the arrival of European imperialists. Hence, the postcolonial literature about the Middle East examines and analyzes the Western discourses about
identity formation Identity formation, also called identity development or identity construction, is a complex process in which humans develop a clear and unique view of themselves and of their identity. Self-concept, personality development, and values are all clo ...
, the existence and inconsistent nature of a postcolonial national-identity among the peoples of the contemporary Middle East. In his essay "Who Am I?: The Identity Crisis in the Middle East" (2006), P.R. Kumaraswamy says: Independence and the end of colonialism did not end social fragmentation and war (civil and international) in the Middle East. In ''The Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses'' (2004),
Larbi Sadiki Larbi Sadiki is a Tunisian writer, political scientist and professor of political science and democratization at the College of Arts and Sciences oQatar University He was formerly a scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center and lecturer at Univers ...
says that the problems of national identity in the Middle East are a consequence of the orientalist indifference of the European empires when they demarcated the political borders of their colonies, which ignored the local history and the geographic and tribal boundaries observed by the natives, in the course of establishing the Western version of the Middle East. In the event:
places like Iraq and Jordan, leaders of the new sovereign states were brought in from the outside, ndtailored to suit colonial interests and commitments. Likewise, most states in the Persian Gulf were handed over to those uropeanised colonial subjectswho could protect and safeguard imperial interests in the post-withdrawal phase.
Moreover, "with notable exceptions like Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, most ountries..
ave ''Alta Velocidad Española'' (''AVE'') is a service of high-speed rail in Spain operated by Renfe, the Spanish national railway company, at speeds of up to . As of December 2021, the Spanish high-speed rail network, on part of which the AVE s ...
had to envent, their historical roots" after decolonization, and, "like its colonial predecessor, postcolonial identity owes its existence to force."


Africa

In the late 19th century, the
Scramble for Africa The Scramble for Africa, also called the Partition of Africa, or Conquest of Africa, was the invasion, annexation, division, and colonization of most of Africa by seven Western European powers during a short period known as New Imperialism ...
(1874–1914) proved to be the tail end of
mercantilist Mercantilism is an economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal. The policy aims to reduc ...
colonialism of the European imperial powers, yet, for the Africans, the consequences were greater than elsewhere in the colonized non–Western world. To facilitate the colonization the European empires laid railroads where the rivers and the land proved impassable. The Imperial British railroad effort proved overambitious in the effort of traversing continental Africa, yet succeeded only in connecting colonial North Africa (Cairo) with the colonial south of Africa (Cape Town). Upon arriving to Africa, Europeans encountered various African civilizations namely the
Ashanti Empire The Asante Empire (Asante Twi: ), today commonly called the Ashanti Empire, was an Akan state that lasted between 1701 to 1901, in what is now modern-day Ghana. It expanded from the Ashanti Region to include most of Ghana as well as parts of Iv ...
, the
Benin Empire The Kingdom of Benin, also known as the Edo Kingdom, or the Benin Empire ( Bini: ') was a kingdom within what is now southern Nigeria. It has no historical relation to the modern republic of Benin, which was known as Dahomey from the 17th c ...
, the Kingdom of
Dahomey The Kingdom of Dahomey () was a West African kingdom located within present-day Benin that existed from approximately 1600 until 1904. Dahomey developed on the Abomey Plateau amongst the Fon people in the early 17th century and became a region ...
, the
Buganda Buganda is a Bantu kingdom within Uganda. The kingdom of the Baganda people, Buganda is the largest of the traditional kingdoms in present-day East Africa, consisting of Buganda's Central Region, including the Ugandan capital Kampala. The 14 mi ...
Kingdom (Uganda), and the
Kingdom of Kongo The Kingdom of Kongo ( kg, Kongo dya Ntotila or ''Wene wa Kongo;'' pt, Reino do Congo) was a kingdom located in central Africa in present-day northern Angola, the western portion of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Republic of the ...
, all of which were annexed by imperial powers under the belief that they required European stewardship, as proposed and justified in the essay "The African Character" (1830), by
G. W. F. Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends a ...
, in keeping with his philosophic opinion that cultures were stages in the course of the historical unfolding of The Absolute. Nigeria was the homeland of the
Hausa people The Hausa (Endonym, autonyms for singular: Bahaushe (male, m), Bahaushiya (female, f); plural: Hausawa and general: Hausa; exonyms: Ausa; Ajami script, Ajami: ) are the largest native ethnic group in Africa. They speak the Hausa language, which ...
, the
Yoruba people The Yoruba people (, , ) are a West African ethnic group that mainly inhabit parts of Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. The areas of these countries primarily inhabited by Yoruba are often collectively referred to as Yorubaland. The Yoruba constitut ...
and the
Igbo people The Igbo people ( , ; also spelled Ibo" and formerly also ''Iboe'', ''Ebo'', ''Eboe'', * * * ''Eboans'', ''Heebo''; natively ) are an ethnic group in Nigeria. They are primarily found in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States. A s ...
; which last were among the first people to develop their history in constructing a postcolonial identity. (See: ''
Things Fall Apart ''Things Fall Apart'' is the debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, first published in 1958. It depicts pre-colonial life in the southeastern part of Nigeria and the invasion by Europeans during the late 19th century. It is seen as the ...
'', 1958). About East Africa, Kenyan writer
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (; born James Ngugi; 5 January 1938) is a Kenyan author and academic who writes primarily in Gikuyu and who formerly wrote in English. He has been described as having been "considered East Africa’s leading novelist". His wo ...
wrote ''
Weep Not, Child ''Weep Not, Child'' is a 1964 novel by Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. It was his first novel, published in 1964 under the name James Ngugi. It was among the African Writers Series. It was the first English language, English novel to be publi ...
'' (1964), the first postcolonial novel about the
East Africa East Africa, Eastern Africa, or East of Africa, is the eastern subregion of the African continent. In the United Nations Statistics Division scheme of geographic regions, 10-11-(16*) territories make up Eastern Africa: Due to the historica ...
n experience of colonial imperialism; as well as '' Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature'' (1986). In ''
The River Between ''The River Between'' is a 1965 novel by prolific Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o that was published as part of the influential African Writers Series. It tells the story of the separation of two neighbouring villages of Kenya caused by differen ...
'' (1965), with the
Mau Mau Uprising The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the ''Mau Mau'', an ...
(1952–60) as political background, he addresses the postcolonial matters of African religious cultures, and the consequences of the imposition of Christianity, a religion culturally foreign to Kenya and to most of Africa. In postcolonial countries of Africa, Africans and non–Africans live in a world of genders, ethnicities, classes and languages, of ages, families, professions, religions and nations. There is a suggestion that
individualism Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...
and postcolonialism are essentially discontinuous and divergent cultural phenomena.


Asia

French Indochina French Indochina (previously spelled as French Indo-China),; vi, Đông Dương thuộc Pháp, , lit. 'East Ocean under French Control; km, ឥណ្ឌូចិនបារាំង, ; th, อินโดจีนฝรั่งเศส, ...
was divided into five subdivisions:
Tonkin Tonkin, also spelled ''Tongkin'', ''Tonquin'' or ''Tongking'', is an exonym referring to the northern region of Vietnam. During the 17th and 18th centuries, this term referred to the domain '' Đàng Ngoài'' under Trịnh lords' control, includ ...
, Annam,
Cochinchina Cochinchina or Cochin-China (, ; vi, Đàng Trong (17th century - 18th century, Việt Nam (1802-1831), Đại Nam (1831-1862), Nam Kỳ (1862-1945); km, កូសាំងស៊ីន, Kosăngsin; french: Cochinchine; ) is a historical exon ...
,
Cambodia Cambodia (; also Kampuchea ; km, កម្ពុជា, UNGEGN: ), officially the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochinese Peninsula in Southeast Asia, spanning an area of , bordered by Thailand ...
, and
Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist s ...
. Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) was the first territory under French control;
Saigon , population_density_km2 = 4,292 , population_density_metro_km2 = 697.2 , population_demonym = Saigonese , blank_name = GRP (Nominal) , blank_info = 2019 , blank1_name = – Total , blank1_ ...
was conquered in 1859; and in 1887, the Indochinese Union (Union indochinoise) was established. In 1924, Nguyen Ai Quoc (aka
Ho Chi Minh (: ; born ; 19 May 1890 – 2 September 1969), commonly known as (' Uncle Hồ'), also known as ('President Hồ'), (' Old father of the people') and by other aliases, was a Vietnamese revolutionary and statesman. He served as P ...
) wrote the first critical text against the French colonization: ''Le Procès de la Colonisation française'' ('French Colonization on Trial')
Trinh T. Minh-ha Trinh T. Minh-ha (born 1952 in Hanoi; Vietnamese: Trịnh Thị Minh Hà) is a Vietnamese filmmaker, writer, literary theorist, composer, and professor. She has been making films for over thirty years and may be best known for her films ''Reass ...
has been developing her innovative theories about postcolonialism in various means of expression, literature, films, and teaching. She is best known for her documentary film '' Reassemblage'' (1982), in which she attempts to deconstruct anthropology as a "western
male Male (symbol: ♂) is the sex of an organism that produces the gamete (sex cell) known as sperm, which fuses with the larger female gamete, or ovum, in the process of fertilization. A male organism cannot reproduce sexually without access to ...
hegemonic Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over other city-states. ...
ideology." In 1989, she wrote '' Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism'', in which she focuses on the acknowledgement of oral tradition.


Eastern Europe

The
partitions of Poland The Partitions of Poland were three partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that took place toward the end of the 18th century and ended the existence of the state, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland and Lithuania for 12 ...
(1772–1918) and occupation of Eastern European countries by the Soviet Union after the Second World War were forms of "white" colonialism, for long overlooked by postcolonial theorists. The domination of European empires (
Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an e ...
n,
Austrian Austrian may refer to: * Austrians, someone from Austria or of Austrian descent ** Someone who is considered an Austrian citizen, see Austrian nationality law * Austrian German dialect * Something associated with the country Austria, for example: ...
, Russian, and later
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
) over neighboring territories (Belarus, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine), consisting in military invasion, exploitation of human and natural resources, devastation of culture, and efforts to re-educate local people in the empires' language, in many ways resembled the violent conquest of overseas territories by Western European powers, despite such factors as geographical proximity and the missing racial difference. Postcolonial studies in East-Central and Eastern Europe were inaugurated by Ewa M. Thompson's seminal book ''Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism'' (2000), followed by works of Aleksander Fiut, Hanna Gosk, Violeta Kelertas, Dorota Kołodziejczyk, Janusz Korek, Dariusz Skórczewski, Bogdan Ştefănescu, and Tomasz Zarycki.


Ireland

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and St George's Channel. Ireland is the s ...
experienced centuries of English/British colonialism between the 12th and 18th centuries - notably the Statute of Drogheda, 1494, which subordinated the Irish Parliament to the English (later, British) government - before the
Kingdom of Ireland The Kingdom of Ireland ( ga, label=Classical Irish, an Ríoghacht Éireann; ga, label= Modern Irish, an Ríocht Éireann, ) was a monarchy on the island of Ireland that was a client state of England and then of Great Britain. It existed from ...
merged with the
Kingdom of Great Britain The Kingdom of Great Britain (officially Great Britain) was a sovereign country in Western Europe from 1 May 1707 to the end of 31 December 1800. The state was created by the 1706 Treaty of Union and ratified by the Acts of Union 1707, wh ...
on 1 January 1801 as the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...
. Most of Ireland became independent of the U.K. in 1922 as the
Irish Free State The Irish Free State ( ga, Saorstát Éireann, , ; 6 December 192229 December 1937) was a state established in December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty of December 1921. The treaty ended the three-year Irish War of Independence between ...
, a self-governing dominion of the British Empire. Pursuant to the
Statute of Westminster, 1931 The Statute of Westminster 1931 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that sets the basis for the relationship between the Commonwealth realms and the Crown. Passed on 11 December 1931, the statute increased the sovereignty of the ...
and enactment of a new
Irish Constitution The Constitution of Ireland ( ga, Bunreacht na hÉireann, ) is the fundamental law of Ireland. It asserts the national sovereignty of the Irish people. The constitution, based on a system of representative democracy, is broadly within the traditio ...
, Éire became fully independent of the United Kingdom in 1937; and then became a republic in 1949.
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...
, in northeastern Ireland (''northwestern'' Ireland is part of the Republic of Ireland), remains a province of the United Kingdom. Many scholars have drawn parallels between: *the economic, cultural and social subjugation of Ireland, and the experiences of the colonized regions of the world *the depiction of the native
Gaelic Irish The Gaels ( ; ga, Na Gaeil ; gd, Na Gàidheil ; gv, Ny Gaeil ) are an ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man in the British Isles. They are associated with the Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic languag ...
as wild, tribal savages and the depiction of other
indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
as primitive and violent *the
partition of Ireland The partition of Ireland ( ga, críochdheighilt na hÉireann) was the process by which the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland divided Ireland into two self-governing polities: Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. ...
by the U.K. government, analogous to the partitioning and boundary-drawing of the other future nation states by colonial powers *the post-independence struggle of the Irish Free State (which became the
Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern side of the island. ...
in 1949) to establish economic independence and its own identity in the world, and the similar struggles of other post-colonial nations; though, uniquely, Ireland had been independent, then become part of the U.K., then mostly independent again Ireland's membership of and support for the
European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...
has often been framed as an attempt to break away from the United Kingdom's economic orbit. In 2003, Clare Carroll wrote in ''Ireland and Postcolonial Theory'' that "the "colonizing activities" of
Raleigh Raleigh (; ) is the capital city of the state of North Carolina and the seat of Wake County in the United States. It is the second-most populous city in North Carolina, after Charlotte. Raleigh is the tenth-most populous city in the Southeas ...
,
Gilbert Gilbert may refer to: People and fictional characters *Gilbert (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters *Gilbert (surname), including a list of people Places Australia * Gilbert River (Queensland) * Gilbert River (South A ...
, and
Drake Drake may refer to: Animals * A male duck People and fictional characters * Drake (surname), a list of people and fictional characters with the family name * Drake (given name), a list of people and fictional characters with the given name ...
in Ireland can be read as a "rehearsal" for their later exploits in the Americas, and argues that the English Elizabethans represent the Irish as being more alien than the contemporary European representations of Native Americans." Rachel Seoighe wrote in 2017, "Ashis Nandy describes how colonisation impacts on the native’s interior life: the meaning of the
Irish language Irish (Standard Irish: ), also known as Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Insular Celtic branch of the Celtic language family, which is a part of the Indo-European language family. Irish is indigenous to the island of Ireland and was ...
was bound up with loss of self in socio-cultural and political life. The purportedly wild and uncivilised Irish language itself was held responsible for the ‘backwardness’ of the people. Holding tight to your own language was thought to bring death, exile and poverty. These ideas and sentiments are recognised by
Seamus Deane Seamus Francis Deane (9 February 194012 May 2021) was an Irish poet, novelist, critic, and intellectual historian. He was noted for his debut novel, ''Reading in the Dark'', which won several literary awards and was nominated for the Booker Pri ...
in his analysis of recorded memories and testimony of the Great Famine in the 1840s. The recorded narratives of people who starved, emigrated and died during this period reflect an understanding of the Irish language as complicit in the devastation of the economy and society. It was perceived as a weakness of a people expelled from
modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the "Age of Reas ...
: their native language prevented them from casting off ‘tradition’ and ‘backwardness’ and entering the ‘civilised’ world, where English was the language of modernity,
progress Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension w ...
and survival."
The Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
(1969–1998), a period of conflict in
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...
between mostly Cathlolic and Gaelic Irish nationalists (who wish to join the Irish Republic) and mostly Protestant Scots-Irish and Anglo-Irish unionists (who are a majority of the population and wish to remain part of the United Kingdom) has been described as a post-colonial conflict. In ''
Jacobin , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = P ...
'', Daniel Finn criticised journalism which portrayed the conflict as one of "ancient hatred", ignoring the imperial context.


Structural adjustment programmes (SAPs)

Structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) implemented by the
World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
and
IMF The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glob ...
are viewed by some postcolonialists as the modern procedure of colonization. Structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) calls for trade liberalization, privatization of banks, health care, and educational institutions. These implementations minimized government's role, paved pathways for companies to enter Africa for its resources. Limited to production and exportation of cash crops, many African nations acquired more debt, and were left stranded in a position where acquiring more loan and continuing to pay high interest became an endless cycle. ''The Dictionary of Human Geography'' uses the definition of colonialism as "enduring relationship of domination and mode of dispossession, usually (or at least initially) between an indigenous (or enslaved) majority and a minority of interlopers (colonizers), who are convinced of their own superiority, pursue their own interests, and exercise power through a mixture of coercion, persuasion, conflict and collaboration." This definition suggests that the SAPs implemented by the
Washington Consensus The Washington Consensus is a set of ten economic policy prescriptions considered to constitute the "standard" reform package promoted for crisis-wracked developing countries by Washington, D.C.-based institutions such as the International Mone ...
is indeed an act of colonization.


Criticism


Undermining of universal values

Indian-American Marxist scholar
Vivek Chibber Vivek Aslam Chibber (born 1965) is an American academic, social theorist, editor, and professor of sociology at New York University, who has published widely on development, social theory, and politics. Chibber is the author of three books, ''Th ...
has critiqued some foundational logics of postcolonial theory in his book ''
Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital ''Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital'' is a 2013 book by the Indian sociologist and New York University professor Vivek Chibber. Coming from the radical Enlightenment tradition, this book is a critique of Postcolonial Theory. C ...
''. Drawing on
Aijaz Ahmad Aijaz Ahmad ( hi, ऐजाज़ अहमद, ur, اعجاز احمد; 1941 – 9 March 2022) was an Indian-born American Marxist philosopher, literary theorist, and political commentator. He was the Chancellor's Professor at the University ...
's earlier critique of Said's ''
Orientalism In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
'' and Sumit Sarkar's critique of the
Subaltern Studies The Subaltern Studies Group (SSG) or Subaltern Studies Collective is a group of South Asian scholars interested in the postcolonial and post-imperial societies. The term ''Subaltern Studies'' is sometimes also applied more broadly to others who sh ...
scholars, Chibber focuses on and refutes the principal historical claims made by the Subaltern Studies scholars; claims that are representative of the whole of postcolonial theory. Postcolonial theory, he argues, essentializes cultures, painting them as fixed and static categories. Moreover, it presents the difference between
East East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
and
West West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
as unbridgeable, hence denying people's "universal aspirations" and "universal interests." He also criticized the postcolonial tendency to characterize all of Enlightenment values as
Eurocentric Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western worl ...
. According to him, the theory will be remembered "for its revival of cultural
essentialism Essentialism is the view that objects have a set of attributes that are necessary to their identity. In early Western thought, Plato's idealism held that all things have such an "essence"—an "idea" or "form". In ''Categories'', Aristotle sim ...
and its acting as an endorsement of
orientalism In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
, rather than being an antidote to it."


Fixation on national identity

The concentration of postcolonial studies upon the subject of ''
national identity National identity is a person's identity or sense of belonging to one or more states or to one or more nations. It is the sense of "a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, and language". National identity ...
'' has determined it is essential to the creation and establishment of a stable nation and country in the aftermath of decolonization; yet indicates that either an indeterminate or an ambiguous national identity has tended to limit the social, cultural, and economic progress of a decolonized people. In ''Overstating the Arab State'' (2001) by Nazih Ayubi, Moroccan scholar Bin 'Abd al-'Ali proposed that the existence of "a pathological obsession with...identity" is a cultural theme common to the contemporary academic field Middle Eastern Studies.Ayubi, Nazih. 2001. ''Overstating the Arab State''. Bodmin: I.B. Tauris. Nevertheless, Kumaraswamy and Sadiki say that such a common sociological problem—that of an indeterminate national identity—among the countries of the Middle East is an important aspect that must be accounted in order to have an understanding of the politics of the contemporary Middle East. In the event, Ayubi asks if what 'Bin Abd al–'Ali sociologically described as an obsession with national identity might be explained by "the absence of a championing social class?" In his essay ''The Death of Postcolonialism: The Founder's Foreword'', Mohamed Salah Eddine Madiou argues that postcolonialism as an
academic study Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completio ...
and critique of
colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their reli ...
is a "dismal failure." While explaining that
Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...
never affiliated himself with the postcolonial discipline and is, therefore, not "the father" of it as most would have us believe, Madiou, borrowing from
Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular ...
' and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Spivak's death-titles (''The Death of the Author'' and ''Death of a Discipline'', respectively), argues that postcolonialism is today not fit to study colonialism and is, therefore, dead "but continue[s] to be used which is ''the'' problem." Madiou gives one clear reason for considering postcolonialism a dead discipline: the avoidance of serious colonial cases, such as Palestine.


Postcolonial literature


Foundation works

Some works written prior to the formal establishment of postcolonial studies as a discipline have been considered retroactively as works of postcolonialist theory. * 1924. ''Le Procès de la Colonisation française'' ('French Colonization on Trial'), by Nguyen Ai Quoc (aka Ho Chi Minh) * 1950. ''Discourse on Colonialism'', by Aimé Césaire * 1952. ''Black Skin, White Masks'', by
Frantz Fanon Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961), also known as Ibrahim Frantz Fanon, was a French West Indian psychiatrist, and political philosopher from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have b ...
* 1961. ''
The Wretched of the Earth ''The Wretched of the Earth'' (french: Les Damnés de la Terre) is a 1961 book by the philosopher Frantz Fanon, in which the author provides a psychoanalysis of the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon the individual and the nation, and di ...
'', by Frantz Fanon * 1965. ''The Colonizer and the Colonized'', by Albert Memmi * 1970. ''Consciencism'', by Kwame Nkrumah * 1978. ''
Orientalism In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
'', by
Edward Said Edward Wadie Said (; , ; 1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...
* 1988. ''Can the Subaltern Speak?'', by
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (born 24 February 1942) is an Indian scholar, literary theorist, and feminist critic. She is a University Professor at Columbia University and a founding member of the establishment's Institute for Comparative Lit ...


Contemporary authors of postcolonial fiction

* John Nkemngong Nkengasong (1959–) * Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) * Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (1977–) * Ama Ata Aidoo (1942–) * Mariama Ba (1929–1981) * Giannina Braschi(1953–) * Edwidge Danticat(1969–) * Buchi Emecheta (1944–2018) * Amitav Ghosh (1956–) * Abdulrazak Gurnah (1948–) * Mohsin Hamid (1971–) * Jamaica Kincaid (1949–) * Jhumpa Lahiri (1967–) * Ben Okri (1959–) * Michael Ondaatje (1943–) * Arundhati Roy (1961–) * Jean Rhys (1890–1979) * Salman Rushdie (1947–) * Sam Selvon (1923–1994) * Ousmane Sembene (1923–2007) * Bapsi Sidhwa (1938–) * Zadie Smith (1975–) * Wole Soyinka (1934–) * Ngugi wa Thiong'o (1938–) * Derek Walcott (1930–2017)


Postcolonial non-fiction


Pre-2000

*Syed Hussein Alatas, Alatas, Syed Hussein. 1977. ''The Myth of the Lazy Native''. *Benedict Anderson, Anderson, Benedict. [1983] 1991. ''Imagined Communities, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism''. London: Verso. . *Ashcroft, B., G. Griffiths, and H. Tiffin. 1990. ''The Empire Writes Back, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature''. *——, eds. 1995. ''The Post-Colonial Studies Reader''. London: Routledge. . *——, eds. 1998. ''Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies''. London: Routledge. *Samir Amin, Amin, Samir. 1988. ''L'eurocentrisme'' ('Eurocentrism'). *S. N. Balagangadhara, Balagangadhara, S. N. [1994] 2005. ''The Heathen in His Blindness..., "The Heathen in his Blindness..." Asia, the West, and the Dynamic of Religion''. Manohar books. . *Homi K. Bhabha, Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. ''The Location of Culture''. *Chambers, I., and L. Curti, eds. 1996. ''The Post-Colonial Question''. Routledge. *Chatterjee, P. ''Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories''. Princeton University Press. *Leela Gandhi, Gandhi, Leela. 1998. ''Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction''. Columbia University Press: . *Che Guevara, Guevara, Che. 11 December 1964. "Colonialism is Doomed" (speech). ''19th United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations''. Havana. *Trinh T. Minh-ha, Minh-ha, Trinh T. 1989. ''Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism''. Indiana University Press. **German edition: trans. Kathrina Menke. Vienna & Berlin: Verlag Turia & Kant. 2010. **Japanese edition: trans. Kazuko Takemura. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. 1995. *—— 1989. ''Infinite Layers/Third World?'' *Alamgir Hashmi, Hashmi, Alamgir. 1998. ''The Commonwealth, Comparative Literature and the World: Two Lectures''. Islamabad: Gulmohar. *Paulin J. Hountondji, Hountondji, Paulin J. 1983. ''African Philosophy: Myth & Reality''. *Kumari Jayawardena, Jayawardena, Kumari. 1986. ''Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World''. * JanMohamed, A. 1988. ''Manichean Aesthetics: The Politics of Literature in Colonial Africa''. *Declan Kiberd, Kiberd, Declan. 1995. ''Inventing Ireland''. * Vladimir Lenin, Lenin, Vladimir. 1916. ''
Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism ''Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism'' (russian: Империализм как высшая стадия капитализма, Imperializm kak vysshaja stadija kapitalizma, link=no), originally published as ''Imperialism, the Newest S ...
''. *Octave Mannoni, Mannoni, Octave, and P. Powesland. ''Prospero and Caliban, the Psychology of Colonization''. *Ashis Nandy, Nandy, Ashis. 1983. ''The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism''. * —— 1987. ''Traditions, Tyranny, and Utopias: Essays in the Politics of Awareness''. *Anne McClintock, McClintock, Anne. 1994. "The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term 'Postcolonialism'." In ''Colonial Discourse/Postcolonial Theory'', edited by M. Baker, P. Hulme, and M. Iverson. * Walter Mignolo, Mignolo, Walter. 1999. ''Local Histories/Global designs: Coloniality''. *Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 1986. ''Under Western Eyes''. *V. Y. Mudimbe, Mudimbe, V. Y. 1988. ''The Invention of Africa''. *Uma Narayan, Narayan, Uma. 1997. ''Dislocating Cultures''. * —— 1997. ''Contesting Cultures''. * Parry, B. 1983. ''Delusions and Discoveries''. *Masood Ashraf Raja, Raja, Masood Ashraf.
Postcolonial Student: Learning the Ethics of Global Solidarity in an English Classroom
" *Anibal Quijano, Quijano, Aníbal. [1991] 1999. "Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality." In ''Globalizations and Modernities''. *Roberto Fernández Retamar, Retamar, Roberto Fernández. [1971] 1989 . "Calibán: Apuntes sobre la cultura de Nuestra América" ['Caliban: Notes About the Culture of Our America']. In ''Calibán and Other Essays''. *Edward Said, Said, Edward. 1993. ''Culture and Imperialism''. *Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. ''Can the Subaltern Speak?'' * —— 1988. ''Selected Subaltern Studies''. * —— 1990. ''The Postcolonial Critic''. * —— 1999. ''A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Towards a History of the Vanishing Present''. *Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, wa Thiong'o, Ngũgĩ. 1986. '' Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature''. * Robert J. C. Young, Young, Robert J. C. 1990. ''White Mythologies: Writing History and the West''. * —— 1995. ''Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race''.


After 2000

* Ankerl, G. 2000. ''Coexisting Contemporary Civilizations''. Geneva: Indiana University Press. . * Bachetta, Paola. 2012. ''Cahiers du CEDREF'' on ''Decolonial Feminist and Queer Theories''. *Hamid Dabashi, Dabashi, Hamid. 2007. ''Iran: A People Interrupted''. * Dean, B., and J. Levi, eds. 2003. ''At the Risk of Being Heard: Indigenous Rights, Identity, and Postcolonial States''. University of Michigan Press. . * Dhawan, N. 2005. "Postkolonial Theorie. Eine kritische Einführung" ['Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Enquiry']. * Achille Mbembe, Mbembe, Achille. 2000. ''On the Postcolony''. Regents of the University of California. * McLeod, John. 2000. ''Beginning Postcolonialism''. ** 2010. ''Beginning Postcolonialism'' (2nd ed.). Manchester University Press. *Walter Mignolo, Mignolo, Walter. 2005. ''The Idea of Latin América''. * Paperson, L. 2005. "The Postcolonial Ghetto." . * Poddar, Prem, and David Johnson, ed. 2008.
A Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures in English
'. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. . Retrieved 2016-02-23. *Richard Pine, Prine, Richard. 2014. ''The Disappointed Bridge: Ireland and the Post-Colonial World''. * Roopika Risam, Risam, Roopika. 2018. ''New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy''. * Philip Carl Salzman, Salzman, Philip C., and D. Robinson Divine, eds. 2008. ''Postcolonial Theory and the Arab–Israeli Conflict''. Routledge. * Robert J. C. Young, Young, Robert J. C. 2001. ''Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction''.


Scholarly projects

In an effort to understand postcolonialism through scholarship and technology, in addition to important literature, many stakeholders have published projects about the subject. Here is an incomplete list of projects.
The Institute of Postcolonial Studies
based in Naarm/Melbourne, is an independent public education project dedicated to research and addressing contemporary matters informed by postcolonial and critical inquiry. IPCS edits the well-known journal ''Postcolonial Studies'' (published with Taylor and Francis).
Bodies and Structure
(2019), on the spatial history of Japan and its empire
Chicana Diasporic
(2018), a research hub that highlights the Chicana feminism, Chicana Caucus of the National Women's Political Caucus, National Women's Caucus from 1973 to 1979
Harlem Shadows
(2018), an open source collection of Claude McKay's 1922 collection of poems
Passamaquoddy People: At Home on the Oceans and Lakes
(2014), a digital archive of photos and recordings of the Passamaquoddy people
Postcolonial Writers Make Worlds
(2017), critical reading of Black British, Black and British Asian, Asian British literature
Torn Apart/Separados
(2018), visualizations and scholarly journal tracking global crisis situations * W.E.B. Du Bois's Data Portraits: Visualizing Black America (2019), charts from W. E. B. Du Bois, W.E.B. Du Bois in color about the lives of African Americans, Black Americans


See also

* Ali Shariati * Amina Wadud * Anticolonialism * Audre Lorde * ''Burn!'' (1969), directed by Gillo Pontecorvo * Cultural cringe * Cross-culturalism * Decolonization * ''The Dogs of War (film), The Dogs of War'' (1980), directed by John Irvin * Ethnology * Fatima Mernissi * ''An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's "Heart of Darkness"'' (1975), by Chinua Achebe * Inversion in postcolonial theory * Leila Ahmed * Linguistic imperialism * Lila Abu-Lughod * Kimberlé Crenshaw * Kecia Ali * Nation-building * Paulo Freire * Postcolonial anarchism * Postcolonial feminism * Postcolonial theology * Post-communism * Ranajit Guha * Ranjit Hoskote * Robert J.C. Young * Saba Mahmood * Street name controversy * Talal Asad * Teju Cole, "The White-Savior Industrial Complex," ''The Atlantic''


References


Further reading

* * * * * * * * *


External links


The Institute of Postcolonial StudiesPostcolonial StudiesContemporary Postcolonial and Postimperial LiteraturePostcolonial SpacePostcolonial Interventions
{{Authority control Postcolonialism, Critical theory Neocolonialism Africana philosophy Postmodern theory Post-structuralism