POSTCOLONIALISM

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POSTCOLONIALISM
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• Definition
• Context
• Themes
• Literature
• Representants
• Text
• Today

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• Post-colonialism is an umbrella term

POST -
- ISM
- COLONIAL -
It is a Latinate prefix referring to something
coming after something and, therefore,
Post-colonialism is a movement referring to
something previous.
Post The second part of the term refers to
Colonialism. Since Post-colonialism comes after
Colonialism.
The suffix ism generally brings with it a
critical attitude. As a matter of fact, when a
new movement rises, since it sounds rather
strange and it is not immediately well accepted.

• Postcolonialism, like other post-isms, does not
  signal a closing off of that which it contains
  (colonialism), or even a rejection, but rather an
  opening of a field of inquiry and understanding
  following a period of relative closure.

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Postcolonialism and Postcolonial Literature

• a period of time after colonialism
• postcolonial literature characterized by its
  opposition to the colonial.
• It deals with literature produced in countries
  that once were colonies of other countries,
  ?bEuropean colonial powers (Britain, France, and
  Spain)
• in some contexts, it includes countries still in
  colonial arrangements.
• it also deals with literature written in
  colonial countries
• It is about their citizens colonized people as
  subject matter.

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Further definition

• the social, political, economic, and cultural
  practices which arise in response and resistance
  to colonialism
• ? an always present tendency in any literature of
  subjugation marked by a systematic process of
  cultural domination through the imposition of
  imperial structures of power.

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• European colonialism began in the 15th century,
  with Portugal's conquest of Ceuta, Portuguese and
  Spanish exploration of the Americas, and the
  coasts of Africa, the Middle East, India, and
  East Asia.
• The latter half of the sixteenth century
  witnessed the expansion of the English state
  throughout Ireland
• the 17th century France and the Netherlands
  successfully established their own overseas
  empires
• The end of the 18th and early 19th century saw
  the first era of decolonization
• Britain, France and the Netherlands turned their
  attention to the Old World
• The industrialization of the 19th century led to
  what has been termed the era of New Imperialism.

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• Postcolonialism includes a vast array of writers
  and subjects. It mainly focuses on
• the need in nations or groups which have been
  colonized to achieve an uncontaminated identity
• the relations and the effects of racism
• racism or history of genocide, including
  slavery, apartheid and mass extinction
• the relationship between postcolonialism and
  feminism
• how a colonized people's knowledge served the
  colonizers interests, and how the subordinate
  people's knowledge is generated and used
• the ways in which the colonist's literature
  justified colonialism via images of the colonized
  as a perpetually inferior person, society, and
  culture

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Summarizing

• the need, in nations, or groups which have been
  victims of imperialism
• to achieve an identity uncontaminated
• by universalist or Eurocentric concepts or
  images.

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• Postcolonial texts
• will incorporate culturally specific details,
  often not offering translations or explanations
  of non-European practices, de-centering the
  European-based reading.
• In addition, the texts very often decenter the
  white characters, who become faceless, nameless
  representatives of a dominating power, shifting
  the power relationships within the text.
• Finally, it is most important to stress the ever
  changing nature of postcolonialism as a defining
  term, as it responds to the material conditions
  under which people live in colonial and
  neo-colonial situations.

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• J.M. Coetzee
• Daniel Defoe

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• Foe (J.M. Coetzee)
• Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe)

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• Colonization as a modern phenomenon
• modern colonialism was not a discrete occurrence
• an examination of pre-modern colonial activities
  will allow for more complex understanding of
  modern structures of power and domination,
• they may illuminate the operation of older
  histories in the context of both modern
  colonialism and contemporary race and global
  political relations.