Postcolonial/ Cultural Studies

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Postcolonial/ Cultural Studies

• Key concepts and their applications

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Post-Colonial/Postcolonial

• Hyphenated (-) Postcolonial implies the effects
  of colonialism on cultures after the end of
  colonialism, such as the legacy of Eurocentric
  modernity.
• Gandhi, Leela .1998.
  Postcolonial Theory An Introduction
• Run-on Postcolonial refers to the effects of
  colonialism on cultures from the beginning of
  colonialism to the present date.
• Ashcroft et. al (1989) Empire
  Writes Back

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Eurocentrism

• Eurocentrism refers to Europe as the center of
  the world Europes history as the only endured
  history in the world history and its colonies
  being the mere extension of Europe, without
  having a history of their own.
• Eurocentrism also refers to the constant
  analysis, judgment and comparison of the
  non-European subject (person) in relation to the
  European subject European subject as the central
  reference of analysis.
• Chakrabarty. 2000.
  Provincializing Europe

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Postcolonial Theory

• Is commonly attributed to the writings of Edward
  Said, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha
• Their work represents a critique of European
  thought and attempts to forge an understanding
  of the European reason and its ideological
  depredations the effects of colonialism,
  Eurocentrism as well as the prevailing forms of
  imperialism.
• Gilbert-Moore. 1999.
  Postcolonial Theory

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Key Figures Edward Said

• Saids Orientalism is considered as the departure
  point of postcolonial theory which exposes,
  through a reading of mostly 19th century
  literature, colonial state archives, travelogues,
  and biographies, how Orient (the East) as a
  collective spatial entity was perceived,
  produced, and consumed by the academics,
  individuals, and the institutions alike as a
  place without proper history, without a sense of
  progress, a place which is static, unchanging,
  and even despotic.
• The Orientalist ideology, in Saids argument,
  provided an apriori moral consensus to the
  generous colonialist, to go to the Orient and
  civilize it a white mans burden at its best.
  Although Saids Orientalism was restricted to the
  East, it served as a methodological diagnosis for
  the intellectual histories of all colonialisms,
  elevating Orientalisms critique to a theoretical
  status under the popular rubric of the
  postcolonial.
• Said, Edward (1979)
  Orientalism.

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Spivak

• Spivak employs Derridian deconstruction to
  critique Eurocentrism.
• Her essay Can the Subaltern Speak, argues that
  sublatern (oppressed individual, peasant,
  proletariat) cannot be represented adequately in
  the academic textual tradition this consists of
  failures of representation at two levels
• Mimic representation through which we try to
  represent the subaltern by emulating what he/she
  would say about his/her oppression
• Political representation through which we try
  to speak for the oppressed subaltern.
• Academic text fails to represent because
  subaltern speaks in a language, hidden in a
  history, in which he/she cannot be heard.

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Spivak, Guha, Subaltern Studies

• Subaltern Studies is group of scholars who
  critique colonial historiography
• Subaltern is a term used by Antonio Gramsci,
  which refers to individuals who are on the
  margins of the power structures.
• Subaltern Studies aim is to show that in the
  colonized history, subalterns were articulate and
  politically conscious subjects who resisted
  colonialism through various political means.
• Spivak and Guha. 2000. Collective
  Subaltern Studies

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Bhabha

• Bhabha's seminal contribution to postcolonial
  theory is the concept of hybridity
• The concept of hybridity refers to the
  ambivalence of the colonizer which is produced
  through the interruptions of the colonized
  natives in the actualization of colonial
  discourse. In other words, while trying to
  civilize or humanize the native subject,
  colonizer himself becomes colonized a process
  which produces supplemental political space for
  the latter to manipulate the colonial power. This
  transcultural formation is generally rendered as
  a hybrid third-space in todays diasporic
  communities.
• Bhabha. 1994. The Location of
  Culture

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Cultural Studies

• Cultural studies can be defined as a field of
  knowledge which investigates the creation of
  meaning in and as a formative part of a whole
  way of life," the whole world of sense-making
  (descriptions, explanations, interpretations,
  valuations of all kinds) in societies understood
  as historical material human organizations
  (Mulhern 1995 36). Not only do such
  descriptions, explanations, interpretations...
  become the exegesis of culture, but they refer
  to the holistic forces of material social
  organization.
• Mullhern, F. (1995). The Politics of
  Cultural Studies, Monthly Review 47 31-39.

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Cultural Studies contd..

• Cultural studies is rooted in the Marxist
  tradition of scholarship which concerns with the
  relationship between base and superstructure.
  Base, which refers to economic conditions of
  production (labour, land, and employer), is
  counterpoised in a reciprocal relationship with
  the ideological means by which a society
  establishes its governance, culture, and
  political system superstructure.
• While Cultural Studies as a domain has moved away
  from this approach, the concepts of base and
  superstructure are still relevant to the
  understanding of the economic conditions which
  reinforce colonial governance structures,
  humanistic ideals, and the economic spheres of
  ideology (development) that determine the fate
  of the postcolonial societies today.

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Cultural Studies Key Concepts

• Hegemony
• Psychoanalysis
• Poststructuralism
• Postmodernism
• Simulation/Hyperreality
• Deconstruction

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Hegemony

• Hegemony refers to conferred dominance, unlike
  pure dominance which is imposed by force,
  hegemony is a dominance which is exercised by
  eliciting a consent of the dominated.
• Guha. 1997. Dominance Without Hegemony
• Cultural Studies originated with the aim of
  understanding why people willingly elect
  dictatorial leaders (such as Margaret Teacher).
• Employing Grmscian concept of hegemony, Cultural
  Studies as a discipline attempted to articulate
  the ways in which dominant dictatorial regimes
  appealed to the masses to produce hegemonic power
  structures.
• Most of the colonial powers operated on hegemonic
  power.

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Psychoanalysis

• Is a method of exploring the human behaviour
  through unconscious mind based on the writings of
  Freud and Lacan.
• Instead of analysing human behaviour in terms of
  what is consciously expressed and felt,
  psychoanalysis maintains that the essence of
  human behaviour lies with the unconscious mind.
• In Cultural Studies, the concepts such as Self
  and the Other, Mirror Stage, Ego and Super Ego
  formation are used to understand the differences
  in cultural developments.
• Freud. 1962. Introductory Lectures on
  Psychoanalysis.

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Poststructuralism

• A movement that came after, by way of the
  rejection of, structuralism.
• Structuralism originated in the writings Fernando
  De Saussure, which was fully developed by Claude
  Levi-Strauss.
• Structuralism deals with the connection between
  langue and parole. As in language, how grammar
  (langue) serves as a structure to words (parole),
  all cultures are organized around deeper
  structures such as kinship, myth, food
  preparation, etc.
• These structural elements are organized and
  understood around the system of oppositions. For
  instance, colour red is understood only in
  opposition to black or blue, raw is understood in
  opposition the cooked, kinship is organized
  against incest.

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Poststructuralism Contd.

• Post-structuralism argues that structures
  (langue) are not self-contingent and autonomous,
  influenced by other forces unbeknown to both the
  structures and the subjects who are part of the
  structures. Some examples include discourse,
  discipline (Foucault), superstructure (Althusser).

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Postmodernism

• Postmodernism Human phenomenon cannot be
  understood by a supreme logic at the high point
  of modernism and modernity, nor can it be
  explained by grand theories (class analysis,
  structuralism, functionalism, structural
  functionalism etc.). It is inherently fragmented
  and fissured, as such, needs to be understood in
  terms of plural subjectivities. This has led to
  ideological and emancipatory politics in
  contemporary culture (such as gay rights, women
  rights, identity politics, ethnic rights).

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Deconstruction

• Deconstruction refers to a body of thought
  developed by Jacques Derrida which exposes the
  non-representativeness of the text in the Western
  philosophy and literature. Deconstruction aims
  to show, by dint of its ability to identify the
  text left out on the margins and the periphery,
  that text is ultimately non-representative of
  what it actually claims.

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Simulation/Hyperreality

• Simulation
• Refers to the real ascription of value to a false
  object. For instance, a simulated burger consists
  of vegetarian food but tastes like meat. Modern
  media, according to Jean Baudrillard, is capable
  of simulating all our experiences of reality.
• Hyperreality
• Related to simulation, is a process of hyping
  what is actually real. For instance, a video
  footage of war, through its repetition and
  multiple angles, zoom in and zoom out, produces
  more realities than the naked eye can see.
  Baurdirllad uses these terms to analyze the
  emergence of the postmodern society in the West.
• Baudrillard, Jean. 1995. The Gulf-War Did Not
  Take Place.