Postcolonial Theory

Colonialism and its aftermath prompt a form of cultural studies that seeks to address questions of identity politics and justice that are the ongoing legacy of empires. Postcolonial theory has its origins in resistance movements, principally at the local, and frequently at nonmetropolitan, levels. Among its early thinkers, three seem of special importance: Antonio Gramsci, Paulo Freire, and Frantz Fanon. Antonio Gram sci ( 1891- 193 7) was a founder of the Communist Party in Italy. In his Prison Notebooks (1971 ), he wrote insightfully about the proletariat, designated by him as subalterns; his thoughts regarding the responsibilities of public intellectuals inspired many, and his notion of hegemony and resistance proved influential. Paulo Freire ( 192 1- 97) was a Brazilian with a special interest in education. His Pedagogy of the Oppressed ( 1970) seeks to restore subjectivity to objectified, oppressed classes in society. Frantz Fanon ( 1925- 6 l) was a psychiatrist of Caribbean descent who participated in the Algerian independence movement. His two books, The Wretched of the Earth ( 1963) and Black Skin, White Masks ( 1967) inspired many anticolonial struggles and investigations of racism\u27s many manifestations

Future directions of postcolonial studies

A discussion of new directions in postcolonial studies mainly with reference to essays in the co-edited volume, Rerouting the Postcolonial ed. Janet Wilson, Sarah Lawson Welsh and Cristine Sandru (Routledge, 2010), which covers terror and the postcolonial (with reference to The Reluctant Fudnamentalist by Mohsin Hamid), the Arab Spring, the turn to the utopian, and global imaginaries. The talk also takes some directions from the expanded categories of the postcolonial found in the second edition of the Postcolonial Studies Reader, ed. Bill Ashcroft et al (Routledge, 2006

"Our Own Gayful Rest": A Postcolonial Archive

My subject is an archive of gay and lesbian activism that helps us understand a postcolonial counterpublic. The project I undertake is of historical recovery and theoretical elaboration of the specificities of postcolonial sexuality-based movements as necessary and long overdue supplements to global sexual activism

Settler colonialism, multiculturalism and the politics of postcolonial identity

The twentieth century saw the development of nationalism and the construction of postcolonial identities in many newly independent nations. Formerly colonised peoples have struggled to restore and adapt their customs and to construct postcolonial national identities. Settler colonial nations face a distinctive challenge in the construction of postcolonial national identities. These nations are founded on the dispossession and assimilation of indigenous peoples and the impulse to build an autonomous settler nation. They are, therefore, caught in a limbo between an ambivalent relationship to the ‘mother-country’ and an unwillingness to acknowledge brutal and colonial aspects of their nation’s foundations. The Australian situation is a powerful example of the difficulty of constructing postcolonial national identities in settler colonial nations. In Australia, multicultural discourses have sought to distance Australian identity from its settler colonial foundations. These discourses have the potential to contribute to a more postcolonial form of national identity. Many Australians, however, have seemed indifferent to multicultural descriptions of Australian identity. Multiculturalism’s failure to capture the Australian imagination can be attributed to the difficulty of overcoming settler colonial forms of identity. The settler colonial ambivalence regarding Australia’s British and colonial heritage has resulted in the adoption of liberal democratic ‘universalist’ values as a form of surrogate cultural and national identity. The culture of Australians of British heritage is normalised and these Australians frequently regard themselves to be without a true cultural heritage. This has serious implications for multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is interpreted as applicable only to Australians of ‘ethnic’ background, irrelevant to Australians with British heritage and unable to provide a sense of belonging to all Australians. Settler colonial discourses of Australian identity continue to be influential. However, multicultural discourses have broadened Australian public debate to include a search for innovative identities in a postcolonial world

Alien nation: contemporary art and black Britain

About the book: This fascinating text introduces readers to postcolonial theory using the context of British media culture in ethnic minority communities to explain key ideas and debates. Each chapter considers a specific media output and uses a wealth of examples to offer an absorbing insight into postcolonial media for all students of cultural and media studies

Meaning in the margins: postcolonial feminist methodologies in practical theology

This paper troubles research approaches in practical theology by exploring how attention to lived experiences of marginalization in postcolonial feminist theologies shapes theological methodologies. Drawing on the work of Walter Mignolo and Marcella Althaus-Reid, the margins are explored as epistemological and material sites that shape theological knowledge production. The complex intersections of experiences and identities of lives on the margins require a resistance to taxonomic or technical theological methodologies. As discussed by Mayra Rivera and Ada María Isasi-Díaz, the margins are not sites of deprivation, but of critical praxis, so theological methodology must be attentive to everyday experiences of the margins. The paper highlights where postcolonial feminist theologies add to practical theology about poetics by attending to making meaning. The paper concludes by reflecting on academic engagement with postcolonial feminist theology and the lived experiences of the margins

Amitav Ghosh and the Aesthetic Turn in Postcolonial Studies

This essay explores the aesthetic turn in postcolonial studies in light of the literary works of Indo-Burmese author Amitav Ghosh. While a renewed interest in aesthetic theories is apparent throughout the humanities in the past decade, it is particularly striking in postcolonial studies, where it holds out the possibility of blending the materialist/historicist and culturalist/textualist strands of postcolonial scholarship. Recent studies by Deepika Bahri, Nicholas Brown, Ato Quayson and others have been enormously promising; this essay argues for bringing their Frankfurt School-influenced aesthetic theories into conversation with other theories of aesthetics. Particular attention in this essay is given to the quasi-Kantian conception of beauty that emerges in Ghosh\u27s The Glass Palace (2001), which seeks to balance the desire for universal norms with the need to respect cultural differences

Beyond the Margins: Identity Fragmentation in Visual Representation in Michel Tournier’s La Goutte d’or

In Tournier’s novel, the goutte d’or also corresponds to a symbolic object: a Berber jewel. It is the jewel that Idriss brings with him, but which he also subsequently loses upon his arrival in Marseille. From the very moment that the French tourist photographs him, a marginalization of Idriss’s identity occurs. Marginality, quite literally, refers to the spatial property of a location in which something is situated. Figuratively speaking, marginality suggests something that is on the edges or at the outer limits of social acceptability. In this essay, I explore the construction of the marginalized postcolonial self (the “Other”) through an examination of the function of visual representation in the development of a postcolonial identity in La Goutte d’or. In the end, I conclude that the construction of a postcolonial identity is based upon fragmentation and marginalization, which ultimately leads its subject to create an identity based upon false constructions

Legitimizing Indigenous Knowledge in Zimbabwe: A Theoretical Analysis of Postcolonial School Knowledge and Its Colonial Legacy

This article is a theoretical discussion on the social construction of knowledge in colonial and postcolonial Zimbabwe. It examines effects of hegemonic knowledge constructions and how they may be delegitimated through incorporating indigenous knowledge in postcolonial school curricular. The article questions the importance attached to Eurocentric school knowledge and the devaluation of indigenous knowledge in postcolonial states. It further argues that indigenous knowledge as informal knowledge plays a major role in society and should be formalized in educational institutions to constitute a transformative and inclusive educational system. The article proposes hybridization of knowledge to give voice to the formerly marginalized in school curricular in Zimbabwe. It also proposes that knowledge as a historical, cultural, social, spiritual and ideological creation should be a product of collaborated efforts from all possible stakeholders to foster social development and self-confidence in individuals

Making new spaces in between: A post-reflective essay weaving postcolonial threads into North American homiletics

This post-reflective essay is intended to provide common themes/threads that repeatedly appear throughout the consultation papers. However, it should be noted that though we distill and present these threads, not only numerous voices can remain unearthed but also the threads in themselves are porous, hybrid, changing, thus resonating. The threads that we identified in the papers are as follows: Hybridity and Identity in Contemporary Homiletic, Third Space, Loss and Memory, Performative Element, Context, Postcolonial Hermeneutics/Imagination, and Self-Reflexivity. In summary, these threads can be described in the following way: First, hybrid identity is closely related with Third Space, because postcolonial preaching is to create a Third Space where hybrid identity is forged. Thus, the understanding of both concepts is crucial for postcolonial preaching. Second, the lost should be recovered since under the influence of neo/colonialism, different elements (including memory) of the past that construct identities are lost, displaced and/or removed. Third, performative element is to be considered, focusing not only how and what to preach but also where to preach. Fourth, it is important to have synchronic and diachronic views of context as well as understanding of the inherent power dynamic within contexts. Fifth, postcolonial hermeneutics/imagination is needed to revision reality in historical, dialogical, and diasporic dimension. Finally, self-reflexivity is always required in order not to reproduce colonial discourse