Unit 3: Theoretical Approaches - Postcolonialism

Theoretical Approaches

Critical Social Theory (Marxism, neo-Marxism, Hegemony Theory)
Feminism
Postmodernism.

Postcolonialism
Texts to use as examples

Poststructuralism
Queer Theory.

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Post-colonialism deals with the effects of colonisation on cultures and societies. Many European cultures, including Britain, once had empires which involved sending settlers to areas of Africa and the East and colonising those areas – taking them over and imposing their culture on the culture already there. For example, the French and Dutch both had colonies in Africa, perhaps most famously, the Dutch Boer people who settled in South Africa, leading ultimately to the apartheid regime which has just been overthrown. Britain had colonies in India and many South Pacific islands. The British finally withdrew from India in the early 1940s causing the partition of India into India and Pakistan. The language of law and official business in India is still English in fact.

Post-colonialism is the study of the power relationships between previously colonised cultures and people and the way they are represented by us, the colonisers. Do we represent them as ‘third world’ countries, struggling, backward people? Certainly, we tend to do this with India which ironically, has a very ancient and sophisticated culture, much older than ours and much more civilised!

But what is “the colonial experience”?

Colonialism is a product of imperialism.

Most European countries, including Britain, have a history of military imperialism. They attempted to build their empires by the conquest of less developed countries across the globe and imposed their rule their rule upon them, usually to ensure a supply of cheap raw materials to help support the development of European economies.

THE SLAVE TRADE

A most notorious aspect of imperialism was the slave trade. Africans were forcibly shipped to the Americas to be sold to plantation owners; a practice which was not abolished until the early part of the nineteenth century. The wealth of many British cities, including London, Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow was built on the ‘triangular trade’ in which slaves were bartered for sugar, tobacco and cotton.

About four million African were shipped to the New World in British slave ships like this one. A third of them died en route.

The downfall of the Atlantic slave trade did not, of course, signal the end of imperialism. In fact, the major conquests of European imperialism only began as the slave trade came to an end. Britain’s empire reached its peak, in terms of territory, in 1924 when it amounted to nearly a third of the world’s territory. This was the empire on which ‘the sun never set’, including India, Jamaica, South Africa, Egypt, Ireland and Australia.

The ‘Idea of Empire’ held a powerful grip on the British national consciousness, particularly the upper classes, who convinced themselves that the interests of Britain, the Empire and God amounted to more or less the same thing.

"We don't want to fight but by Jingo if we do, We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too "(1878 Music Hall song)

The empire began to fall apart in the period after world war two as most of the colonies successfully fought for independence, kicked out the British rulers and set up their own governments.

The influence of the former colonial powers, including Britain, still lingers on in the cultures of the former colonies. A most obvious example is the English language, but there are many other legacies of imperialism in politics, migration, sport, architecture, music and other forms of entertainment.

One definition of postcolonialism could be ‘the period that came after colonialism’ but this doesn’t really help because of:

• The continuation of ‘economic imperialism’
• The cultural legacy of colonialism
• The continuing significance of colonialism for the former colonised and the former colonisers

The empire wasn’t just a collection of countries ruled by Britain, it was a complex set of ideas; a way of imagining the world including many assumptions about right and wrong including, it must be said, many implicitly racist attitudes.

Postcolonialism seeks to analyse and explain this ‘set of ideas’ whilst also giving expression to those many ideas, opinions and voices that were suppressed by the colonial experience.

As the empire faded away, the Commonwealth (formerly British Commonwealth of Nations) was formed to perpetuate the idea of a ‘family of nations’.

Britain, of course, was the head of the family, or ‘mother country’. The queen is still the nominal head of state in many former colonies.

The family metaphor was a powerful part of the colonial experience, particularly the idea of parents and children.
For the rest of this resource, courtesy of Jerry Slater, Colchester, see the powerpoints below.

Resources on Postcolonialism

Postcolonialism 1

Postcolonialism 2

Worksheet (Helen Jones)

Eurozine magazine

Eygpt - dress and postcolonialism

For texts to use as examples in spaces and places, objects of desire etc click here