Postcolonial Theory Terms Flashcards
Negritude
Coined by Aimé Césaire.
For Senghor, negritude is the African way of ‘being’ as opposed to the Western one. Also he calls it “the sum of the cultural values of the black world.”
Senghor’s African ontology is more rooted in the idea of harmonious being with all the other existences of the universe.
The African way of thinking or being is free from binarism such as between form and matter, and body and soul: all the things can be translated into the single reality: being, spirit, and life force. The universe is a network of life force and each force is complementary to each other so everything is indispensable. All the art forms of Africa aim to represent this negritude, the harmonious network of life forces so as to recreate the universe. (Senghor)
Nation
For Fanon, nation is both a condition and a necessity for culture. In other words, it is nation that brings together the essential elements and resources for the creation of culture. Fanon writes his works around the time when many former colonies achieved independence and struggled to re/create their own nations and their national consciousness. His main argument is in accordance with this historical movement in that he stresses on the necessity of the fight for national existence upon which (national) culture can thrive and deepen itself. (Fanon)
Otherness (Bhabha)
Bhabha sees the world as both homely and unhomely and unhomeliness is related to the existence of other(ness). And he discusses the possibility of ‘world literautre’ as a place where people can experience and learn foreign ideas and ways and otherness can be negotiated. To better understand ‘otherness’, he suggests the terrain of world literature should be more focused on borders and migrants than the universality of fixed national cultures. (Bhabha)
Colonialism
According to Senghor, colonialism is the division and domination of the planet by the powerful European nations such as British Empire and France as well as the U.S. The global scale of colonialism is enabled by the material strength and science. And most importantly, what sustains the ideology of colonialism is racism. Believed in the racial supremacy of the white , they see the colonization as the duty of the civilized to enlighten the uncivilized and see this process as the destiny of the world. This faith begins to be undermined in 1889 because of the social and intellectual changes such as the publication of Bergson’s Time and Free Will, which dismantles the power of science. (Senghor)
Basic Definition of Orientalism
In Said, there is no authentic Orient since the Orient is an European invention. So the Orient is an European representation of the Orient. To borrow Foucault’s word, Orientalism is a discourse and the systematic discipline that enables Europe to produce the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period. In effect, because of Orientalism the Orient is not a free subject of thought or action but there is always the whole network of interests behind it. Also because of Orientalism the Orient serves as the other against which Europe defines its subjectivity. (Said)
Unhomely
For Bhabha, the unhomely is a paradigmatic postcolonial experience in which the displacement and dislocation of the postcolonial subject are not infrequent. Drawing upon Freud’s uncanny, the unhomely refers to the condition in which the subject feels displaced from one’s home and the home is felt as strange, unfamiliar and thus terrifying. In this state is blurred the distinction between the private and the public, and the home and the world. Because of this confusion of boundaries, the unhomely can be called as the shock of recognition of the world-in-the-home, and the home-in-the-world. (Bhabha)
Hybridity
Hybridity refers to the disjunctive and displaced experience of postcolonial diaspora. Diaspora, for Bhabha, is not situated outside, but inside such as within family and nation. As feeling unhomely while being located at home, the diasporic existences put into question such binary distinctions as private and public, and home and world. This experience with a double-edge of the colored South African subject represents a hybridity, a difference within, a subject that inhabits the rib of an in-between reality. And this border existence or hybridity created within is what opens up a possibility of negotiating and bridging the home and the world. (Bhabha)
Humanism
Senghor views negritude as a humanism of the twentieth century. Since it emphasizes on relations with others, an opening out to the world, contact and participation with others, it differs from, and can contribute to the Western concept of humanism, which is more focused on the self-contained, self-closing idea of subjectivity. In other words, a new type of humanism introduced by negritude places a human being as a collaborative and complementary part of the universe interrelated with others instead of at the center of the universe. (Senghor)
Agency
Spivak’s notion of agency is based on the Hegelian critique of the subject. It argues that the subject is an empty place because such process as history and political economy develops without a subject. Bringing up this idea of agency as an empty subjectivity, Spivak backs up Marx, who constructs models of a divided and dislocated subject whose parts are not continuous or coherent with each other. In this sense, the formation of a class is artificial and economic, and therefore the economic agency is impersonal, systematic and heterogeneous. (Spivak)
The Subaltern
Spivak’s idea of the subaltern is primarily based on Gramsci, who uses the term to refer to the rural peasantry in Southern Italy and in doing so criticizes the intellectuals. Spivak, while retaining its original intention of the critique on the intellectual, extends it to refer to the Third World women, or more precisely Indian women from working class and rural peasantry with a lot of varieties within. By dwelling on the two different meanings of ‘represent’, Spivak argues that a group of subaltern women is not adequately represented by the intellectuals, even if it is re-presented.
Necessity
The Marxist idea of necessity enables CLR James to argue for the need to do things to change the world for the proletariat and the disempowered.
Marxists break from traditional philosophy in that they are not preoccupied with explaining the world. Their point is to change the world in accordance with necessity instead of only examining it. By necessity, they mean the condition, especially the material condition that compels individuals. eg. if a revolutionary worker acts for his own good, it is because his material circumstances compel him to do so. Extended on the level of society, when masses of workers take revolutionary action, they act in accordance with historical necessity and fulfill a historical purpose. Through this philosophy of necessity, Marx and Engels can focus on the things that need to be done. M&E never tried to prove the necessity of their system by the Hegelian or traditional method. (C. L. R. James)
Authenticity
By authenticity, C. L. R. James means a mode of being. Drawing upon Heidegger, James suggests the dasein, the German word meaning “being there”, is the way a man can live an authentic life. For Heidegger, most people live inauthentic lives in the inauthentic world, doing the same things such as reading same books, hearing the same politicians, talking the same things in their idle talks. Conversely, the dasein, the being there is an uncovering of the truth of Being that exists and is what enables people to live a more authentic existence. When the dasein begins to function, people begin to be there in the world of everydayness, and therefore begin to accomplish the authenticity of their lives and their beings. James also points out Heidegger’s suggestion of language as the means to achieve the dasein since language is not just a tool but what makes man live a human life. (C. L. R. James)
Otherness (Said)
In Said’s Orientalism, the Orient represents the otherness for the West. Otherness is associated with something distant, unfamiliar, and possibly threatening as the Orient for the West. Western cultural and scholarly works on the Orient deals with the exteriority of the Orient, or the representation of it. And a number of Western representations turn this unfamiliar otherness into something relatively familiar and recognizable. These are what Said calls ‘the Orientalist texts’ that represent the Orient as a symbol. (Said)
Otherness (Spivak)
Spivak refers to the unnamed subject outside Europe as the Other. To maintain its subjectivity, Europe seeks for a counterpart outside, which results in the constitution of the Other. Even when Europe criticizes its formation of subjectivity, it often entails in reiterating of otherness as they assume the role of referee, judge and universal witness like Foucault, and Deleuze and Guattari. Also the international divison of labor makes Subject belong to Europe. (Spivak)
Three different ways “Orientalism” is defined
Said defines what he calls Orientalism in different ways in relation to different intersecting fields. First, in relation to the academic designation, Orientalism is the study or research with the orient as its main focus. Second, Orientalism means a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between the Orient and the Occident. Third, a more historical and material definition is that Orientalism is a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.
