Post-Colonial Theory
Post-colonial Theory
What it is:
• the study of interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized; • an examination of the impact of the European conquest, colonisation and domination of non-European lands, peoples, and cultures; • an analysis of the inherent ideas of European superiority over non-European peoples and cultures; • an analysis of the role of representation in installing and perpetuating such notions.
From the point of view of colonised peoples, Western traditions of thought and literature have dominated world culture, marginalising or even excluding non-Western traditions and forms of cultural life and expression.
Key concepts in post-colonial theory therefore include:
Representation
Identity
History
Who are the key players?
Edward Said (1935-2003)
A Palestinian literary critic best known for his work Orientalism pub. 1978. Said use the term Orient to refer to North African Arab and Middle Eastern peoples and cultures who are represented as the binary opposite of Western or occidental cultures.
For Said representations of the orient serve to reimpose colonial domination by suggesting that oriental culture is inferior/negative in relation to Western culture. This can be summarised as follows:
|Western culture |Oriental culture |
|Has its own history |Has history imposed on it |
|Rational, normal |Strange, bizarre, irrational |
|Masculine features of activity and domination |Feminine features of possessiveness and submission |
|Morally superior, virtuous |Degenerate, lazy, weak, immoral |
Franz Fanon (1925-61)
What it is:
• the study of interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized; • an examination of the impact of the European conquest, colonisation and domination of non-European lands, peoples, and cultures; • an analysis of the inherent ideas of European superiority over non-European peoples and cultures; • an analysis of the role of representation in installing and perpetuating such notions.
From the point of view of colonised peoples, Western traditions of thought and literature have dominated world culture, marginalising or even excluding non-Western traditions and forms of cultural life and expression.
Key concepts in post-colonial theory therefore include:
Representation
Identity
History
Who are the key players?
Edward Said (1935-2003)
A Palestinian literary critic best known for his work Orientalism pub. 1978. Said use the term Orient to refer to North African Arab and Middle Eastern peoples and cultures who are represented as the binary opposite of Western or occidental cultures.
For Said representations of the orient serve to reimpose colonial domination by suggesting that oriental culture is inferior/negative in relation to Western culture. This can be summarised as follows:
|Western culture |Oriental culture |
|Has its own history |Has history imposed on it |
|Rational, normal |Strange, bizarre, irrational |
|Masculine features of activity and domination |Feminine features of possessiveness and submission |
|Morally superior, virtuous |Degenerate, lazy, weak, immoral |
Franz Fanon (1925-61)