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Assignment  of  Post colonialism and  Cultural  Studies


Name : Makwana  Daksha  D.
Course : MA
Semester : 2
Roll no :  4
Batch  :  2017 – 2019
Enrollment no :  2069108420180034
Paper no :  8 – Cultural  Studies
Topic :  Postcolonialism and cultural studies
Email Id : makwanadaksha9@gmail.com
Submitted to : Smt. S.B. Gardi Dept. of  English MKBU

Introduction :

Postcolonialism  and  Postcolonial  studies is the studies of the cultural  legacy of colonialism and imperialism , focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. Post – colonialism interprets colonialism   contained  in modernity , deconstructs orientalism and cultural hegemonism , and turns western reflection of modernity into an inquiry about the global relationship between the east and the west .
Postcolonialism  brings  forward a new theoretical domain, that is , the colonizational  relationship between the east and the west in the process of modernization .
Basic  concepts :
 The field of post colonialism addresses the politics of knowledge – the matters that constitute the  Postcolonial  identity of a decolonized people , the field of  Postcolonialism  addresses the politics of knowledge—the matters that constitute the postcolonial identity of a decolonized people, which derives from:
(i) the colonizer's generation of cultural knowledge about the colonized people; and (ii) 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'.

Purpose :
Postcolonialism is aimed at destabilizing these theories  by means of which colonialists "perceive", "understand", and "know" the world. Postcolonial theory thus establishes intellectual spaces for subaltern people  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.

It also aimed to find and re –establish their lost national identity , history and literature and to define the author’s relationship with the land language of their former masters.

Post colonial  Literature :
Postcolonial literature is the lliterature of countries that were  colonized , mainly by European countries. It exists on all  continents , except  Antarctica   .  Postcolonial  literature often addresses the problems and consequences of the decolonization of a country, especially questions relating to the political and cultural independence of formerly subjugated people, and themes such as r racialism  and colonialism.[1] A range of literary theory has evolved around the subject.
Migrant  Literature  and postcolonial literature show some considerable overlap. However, not all migration takes place in a colonial setting, and not all postcolonial literature deals with migration. A question of current debate is the extent to which   also speaks to migration literature in non-colonial settings

The major theoretical works :
The wretched of the earth – 1961 ( Franz Fanon )
Orientalism – 1978 ( Edward  Said )
The Empire Writes Back  - 1989  ( Bill  Ashcroft )
Nation and  Narration – 1990 (  Homi  K  Bhabha )
Culture  and  Imperialism -1993 ( Edward  Said )

In literature , indigenous  people from previously  colonized and marginalized  countries have increasingly found their voices , attempting to assert their own voices , attempting to assert their own visions , tell their own stories and reclaim their experiences and histories .


Postcolonial identity

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 , the anti-conquest narrative analyzes the  identity politics  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 .
The neocolonial discourse of geopolitical homogeneity relegating the decolonized peoples, their cultures, and their countries, to an imaginary place, such as "the Third  World ", an over-inclusive term that usually comprises continents and seas,  Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Oceania.

Postcolonialism refers to historical phase undergone by Third World countries after the decline of  colonialism . many Third world writers focus on both colonialism and the changes created in a postcolonial culture . Among the many challenges  facing  postcolonial writers are the attempts both to resurrect their culture and to combat the pre –conceptions about their culture.

Post colonial studies :
Edward  Said :  Said ‘s concept of ‘  Orientalism was an important touchstone to postcolonial  studies , as he described the stereotypical discourse about the  East as constructed by the West . This  Discourse rather  than realistically  portraying Eastern “ others “ constructs them based upon western anxieties and pre occupatinos .
Notably, "the West" created the cultural concept of "the East", which according to Saïd allowed the Europeans to suppress the peoples of the Middle East, of the Indian Subcontinent, and of Asia, 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".

Frantz  Fanon :
 a French Caribbean Marxist , was also a member of the Algerian  National Liberation  Front , and his writings have inspired numerous people across  the globe in struggles  for freedom from oppression  and  racially motivated violence . His book “ The Wretched of the Earth “ arising out of the Algerian struggle for independence from France , the text examined possibilities for Anti- colonial violence in the region and elsewhere. It is an important inspiration for post colonial cultural critics and literary critics who wants to understands the decolonized  project of Third World writers.

Homi K. Bhabha

He is one of the most important figures in contemporary postcolonial studies  and has developed a number of the field's neologisms and key concepts, such as hybridity , mimicry, difference, and ambivalence.[2] Such terms describe ways in which colonised people have resisted the power of the colonizer
Homi  K. Bhabha ‘s  post colonial  theory involves analysis of  nationality , ethnicity and politics with poststructuralist ideas of identity and indeterminacy , defining postcolonial  identities as shifting , hybrid constructions . His most important contribution has been to stress that colonialism is not a one –way street , that because it involves an interaction between colonizer and  colonized , the colonizer is as much  affected by its system as the colonized.

Gayatri  Chakravorty  Spivak :

Gayatri  Spivak considered one of the most influential  post –colonial intelletuals, Spivak is best known for her essay , “ Can the  Subaltern Speak ?  challenges the idea of colonial ‘ subject ‘ and offers an example of the boundaries of the capability of western discourse , this essay is marked a paradigm shift in postcolonial  studies. “ Gayatri  is the most important figures in postcolonial feminism . In critical theory and post colonialism , the term subaltern designates the populations which are socially , politically and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland.

Postcolonial literatures from emerging nations  by such writers as
Chinua  Achebe  - “ Things fall apart “
Salman  Rushdie  - “ Midnight’s  Children “            
Gabriel  Marquez  -“  One  Hundred years of  Solitude “

Culture :
Postcolonialism  also deals with conflicts of identity and cultural belonging . Colonial power came to foreign states and destroyed main parts of native tradition and culture . Furthermore , they continuously replaced them with their own ones . This often lead to conflicts when countries became independent and suddenly faced the challenge of  developing  a new nationwide identity and  selfconfidence.

Culture is increasingly mediated by economic factors . Global economic and media flows determine what aspects of culture are adopted or abandoned . Cultures and traditions are therefore modified not with the local culture in mind but with global  patterns . Their choices are determined by the global economy.

Colonialism is a kind of globalization where the European settler imposes his cultural modes on the colony, even ad he adapts and appropriates local cultures. The relationship between local culture and the first world market remains , mostly , a colonial one , where the local culture is exploited or exociticized by the first world.

Globlization :

 Globalization has a sustained engagement with and influence on local cultures. Contemporary  globalization  is also a mode of cultural exchange , appropriation and marketing . Contemporary cultural studies  therefore examines the role of globalizing finances and markets in the formation of cultures. Local cultural artifacts  are  now produced keeping a global market in mind.
Globalizing  Culture  means that McDonald’s appropriates  native spaces and cultural systems in order to sell it products . This works because the products  utilize  a representational technique where the consumption of that product is projected as a status symbol for the individual or class. 

Globalization  and its dissolution of the nation –stage damage the chances of the deprived in Asian and African nations because internal economic policies for the emancipations of these classes are regulated by global., transitional  bodies.

Postcolonial  critics are thus very interested in literary and cultural representations of the non –white races by European because they argue such representations are extremely  powerful.
Contemporary  postcolonial  studies looks at the ways in which globalization works on the same principles of earlier colonialism.

Conclusion :

Postcolonial theory looks at the ways in which the non- white races have been subject to oppression and exploitation during colonial rule. It also looks at how the present  age  of  globalization  brings back memories of colonialism , in a new form and with never  rhetoric and modes of exploitation.
Postcolonial  theory  looks at issue of power , economics , politics  ,religion and culture , how these elements work in relation to colonial hegemony.