Postcolonial Theory in the 21st Century
Into the twenty-first century: By the end of the 1990s, what had come to be known as ‘postcolonial theory’ had been established, existing almost as a discipline in its own right. A number of critical works subsequently appeared, attempting to guide readers through the fast-developing, and often abstruse, concepts and new vocabularies of postcolonialism. These were very much influenced by the terminologies used by Said, Bhabha, and Spivak. One particularly important development in the field in recent years is the consolidation of a distinct strand of postcolonialism’s shortcomings, especially regarding the ways it engages with the material realities of the colonized and once-colonized world. The most significant publication is Young’s Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Young foregrounds the growth of colonized resistance movements that took their inspiration from the thought of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, and considers the various freedom struggles which were waged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries across what is termed the ‘tricontinent’: the lands of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Such struggles, he argues, were part of a wider, international contestation of capitalism that incorporated the socialist and communist revolutions in Russia and China, and contributed to militant thinking across the world. Young attempts to retrieve this forgotten history of postcolonial resistance and challenge the view that postcolonialism is primarily a matter of high-powered critical theory.
Postcolonialism: Definitions and Dangers
Life after independence in many ways is characterized by the persistence of many of the effects of colonization. Postcolonialism in part involves the challenge to colonial ways of knowing, ‘writing back’ in opposition to such views. But colonial ways of knowing still circulate and have agency in the present; unfortunately, they have not magically disappeared as the Empire has declined. Internal colonialism persists in many once-colonized countries. The term ‘postcolonialism’ is not the same as ‘after colonialism’, as if colonial values are no longer to be reckoned with. It does not define a radically new historical era. Nor does it herald a brave new world where all the ills of the colonial past have been cured. Rather, ‘postcolonialism’ recognizes both historical continuity and change. On the one hand, it acknowledges that the material realities and discursive modes of representation established through colonialism are still very much with us today, even if the political map of the world has altered through decolonization. But on the other hand, it prizes the promise, the possibility, and the continuing necessity of change, while recognizing that important challenges and changes have already been achieved.
Postcolonialism involves one or more of the following:
- Reading the cultural endeavors produced by people from countries with a history of colonialism, primarily those concerned with the workings and legacy of colonialism, and resistance to it, in either the past or the present.
- Reading cultural texts produced by those that have migrated from countries with a history of colonialism, or those descended from migrant families, which deal in the main with diaspora experience and its many consequences.
- In the light of theories of colonial discourses, re-reading texts produced during the colonial period, often by members of the colonizing nations; both those that directly address the experiences of Empire, and those that seem not to.