Postcolonialism 1 Flashcards
Fanon (1961)
The anti-colonialism movement was fuelled by the reaction against a certain ‘way of seeing’ the colonial subject. Such representations are clearly seen in media of the time; these were highly problematic. Non-Westerners were commonly framed as ‘corrosive elements’ within society. It thus became the white man’s burden to civilize non-Westerners.
Oxford Dictionary
The Oxford Dictionary defines colonialism as “a settlement of a new country […] a body of people who settle in a new locality, forming a community subject to or connected to their parent state”
There are many problems associated with this mainstream production of colonial knowledge…
1) There is no reference to those people who are being colonized
2) There is no reference to the violent nature of colonization
3) There is no account to the encounters between the colonizers and the colonized
4) Colonial spaces are labelled as ‘new’-this is not the case
Loomba (1998)
Defines colonialism as “the take-over of territory, appropriation of material resources, exploitation of labour and interference with political and cultural structures of another territory or nation”
But even this definition is not sufficient. The conquest of other people’s lands and goods is not new or specific to modern colonialism. We need to look at what is distinctive about modern colonialism.
Mignolo (2009)
Argues that “all varieties of [modern] colonialism is connected through the rhetoric of modernity [enlightenment, salvation, progress, development, well-being] and the logic of coloniality [racism, exploitation, oppression, marginalisation, appropriation of land, control of authority]”
Modernity and colonialism are essentially two sides of the same coin. Both need to be interrogated to understand colonialism.
Pratt (1992)
Defines contact zones as “the spaces in which peoples geographically and historically separated experiences come into contact with one another”.
Contact zones usually involve conditions of coercion, racial inequality and conflict.
Contact zones in the 17-19th century changed from maritime expansion into exploring and documenting new interiors. This involved the development of Eurocentric ‘planetary consciousness’. Science therefore became the mainstream way of knowing the world.
From a European expansionist perspective, the contact zone was akin to the ‘frontier’. Subjects were constituted in and by their relations to one another.
From the Western perspective, the people found in the contact zone were represented as objects of nature waiting to be classified. We must recognize that this is a two-way process- the West understood the other through a set cultural background.
During the 18th century, there was a movement away from traditional navigation narratives. Instead, knowledge building projects emerged based upon universal natural history. The world was increasingly understood as a resource to be exploited . Scientific racism arose as a way of classifying and controlling colonial subjects
Pratt (1992) argues that “one by one, the planet’s life forms were to be drawn out of the tangled threads of their life surroundings and re-woven into European based patterns of unity and order”.
Said (1978)
The Orient is a European invention- it has helped to define Europe. Orientalism is a way of coming to terms with the other that is based on the Orient’s special place in the Western experience
There are three types of orientalism: field of academic research, a style of thought (imaginative geographies) and a western style of domination and authority
“The Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery and vocabulary that has given it reality and presence in and for the west”
“The relationship between the occident and orient is one of power, domination and varying degrees of a complex homogeny”
For Said, it is hegemony that gives orientalism its durability and strength.
“Orientalism is never far from a collective notion identifying us Europeans against all those non-Europeans”
This is embedded in the idea that European identity is the superior one. “Too often literature and culture are presumed to be politically, and even historically, innocent”
“The argument, when reduced to its simplest form is clear. There are westerners and there are Orientals. The former dominates; the latter must be dominated”
However, we should not assume that orientalism begins with colonialism. Said argues that colonialism was kick-started by orientalism. It was “justified in advance” by the distinction between the east and the west.
Arendt (1951)
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Jazeel (2017)
Efforts to decolonize geographical knowledge will not be straight forward. Action must be practical, methodological and theoretical. It must also be collective, cautious, confrontational and unafraid to fail.
Spivak (1988) teaches us that failure will be inevitable; attempts to decolonize geography will always leave ever-more subaltern residues
The task of decolonizing geographical knowledge is now too important to leave to sub-fields like postcolonial geography- there is an equally collective responsibility. However, there is a danger that mainstreaming decolonization will merely establish a new kind of theoretical orthodoxy.
Postcolonial geography’s canonization risks its prescriptive stultification. We must remain vigilant against any authoritative prescription of ‘correct theoretical practice’.
“The planetary expansion of the social sciences implies that intellectual colonization remains in place, even if such colonization is well intended, comes from the left, and supports decolonization” (Mignolo, 2002, 64)
Decolonizing geographical knowledge requires us to think carefully about how to de-link the production of geographical knowledge from the hegemony of our disciplinary infrastructure. Not simply relying upon current ‘leading’ intellectual debates.
Driver (1992)
Argues that geographical knowledge was represented as a tool of empire, enabling both the acquisition of territory and the exploitation of resources. This knowledge served a particular purpose; it served the colonial purpose of the state.
“Geographical science lent ideological credibility to ideologies of imperialism and racism, especially through the discourses of environmental determinism… Geography served primarily to ‘legitimate the expansionary power of the fittest”
The vision of modernity has a space- a space located in the colonial encounter between Europe and the rest of the world. The relationship between geography and imperialism has been neglected by historians; it is as though the writings of our ancestors were “so saturated with colonial and imperial themes that to problematize their role is to challenge the very status of the modern discipline”.
Driver makes clear that we need to think more about the way in which geographical knowledge is produced, the forms it takes
[EXAMINES SAID- problem of representation and speaking on behalf of others]
Sidaway (2000)
The term postcolonial is contested and has multiple meanings. Can refer to the condition that succeeds colonial rule but is also used to signify a set of theoretical perspectives.
There is an important sense in which mapping any of the postcolonial is a problematic or contradictory project. Postcolonial approaches wish to invert, expose and transcend knowledges and practices of colonialism BUT, objectification, classification and the urge to map feature strongly in this
Postcolonial approaches are committed to critique, expose, deconstruct, counter and (in some claims) to transcend, the cultural and broader ideological legacies and presences of imperialism. It is also about the possibility and methods of hearing or recovering the experiences of the colonized.
McClintock (1992)
Insists on the need to be careful not to use the term postcolonial as though it described a single condition- she describes postcolonialism as ‘unevenly developed’ globally.
She also points out complications presented by societies which were subject to imperial power but not formal colonies (true for much of China).
