Postcolonialism And Decoloniality

Question 1

What is Postcolonialism and Decoloniality?

Answer 1

1. Expand history- undo erasures
2. Present is constituted by the past: Colonised and Colonisers
3. Repair: Centre marginalized history/narratives
4. Justice through knowledge etc.

Question 2

Coloniality of Power: Systems of Hierarchy

Answer 2

• racial classifications: communities, individuals and beliefs
  1492: colonization of the Americas, religious discrimination becomes racial in Americas, not just territory (genocide of indigenous people)
  Bengal Famine 1943: racial hierarchy (3 mil ppl died during feminine under British)
  French Algeria 1830-1962: Ideological, cultural,, mental oppression, hierarchy of beliefs (focus on humiliation)
  1954-1962 Algerian War for Independence.

Question 3

Coloniality of Power: Systems of Culture

Answer 3

-economic extraction and racial capitalism
History of capitalism: first stage (mercantile capitalism) - portrayed as endogenous
Racial capitalism, transatlantic slave trade/human trafficking
Liberal capitalism, state-dominated trade to autonomy of private companies
Extraction and Climate change: Racial Justice= environmental justice and vice-versa, worst impact on global south, non-western approaches are dismissed

Question 4

Coloniality of Power: Knowledge Production

Answer 4

Enlightenment and Colonialism
- launches European ‘Age of Exploration’’, combines science and political theory (mutually reinforcing)
Civilization Hierarchy
- east/South Asia, Middle East = barbarians to convert
- Africa, SAicans = savages

Question 5

Founding Fathers of Liberalism

Answer 5

Kan’t political theory; perpetual peace - DPT, Hospitality & Cosmopolitanism
- race theory in Kast’s anthropology: belief in progress, non whites will ‘perish’, critical theorists and complicity in Coloniality

Question 6

Othering

Answer 6

West dependent on “The other”
-Edward Said - west needs ‘the other’ to prop up own identity
Eurocentric imperialistic views of ‘other’ paves way for colonialization justification

Role of discourse v. Culture

Question 7

Critiques of Postcolonialism

Answer 7

1. Postcolonialism= provincial?
2. Does it reproduce primacy of ‘the West’
3. Historically deterministic
4. Does it reify division between ‘west’ and ‘East’/‘north’ & ‘south’
5. Postcolonialism states have problematic history, or a case of ‘victim complex’ ?

Question 8

Challenging Epistemicide

Answer 8

Knowledge a key means of colonialism - Epistemicide, can the Global SOuth be ‘theory-makers’ not just data observations

Question 9

Decolonising Academia

Answer 9

S. Hoffman: ‘An American Social Science: International Relations’ 1977

•O. Waever: ‘The Sociology of a Not So International Discipline: American and European Developments in International Relations 1995

Question 10

Challenges of Decolonising the Academy

Answer 10

Sara Ahmad: CITATION IS POLITICAL
•Linda Tuhiwai-Smith: Go beyond academia – look at language, art, culture for knowledges
•Co-optation and Sanitisation of Decolonisation
•‘Epistemic disobedience’ (Fanon) takes courage