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Name:
Gausvami Surbhi A.
Paper no. :
8
Topic: Postcolonialism and Culture
Submitted
to: Dr. Dilip Barad, Department of English
MKBU University
Roll NO.: 24
Batch year:
2016-18
What is
Postcolonialism :-
* The political or cultural condition of a former colony.
“A
theoretical approach in various disciplines that is concerned with the lasting
impact of colonization in former colonies. “
Postcolonialism
is an academic discipline that analyzes, explains, and responds to the cultural
legacy of colonialism and imperialism. It speaks about the human consequences
of external control and economic exploitation of native people and their lands.
Drawing from postmodern schools of thought, postcolonial studies analyze the
politics of knowledge by examining the functional relations of social and
political power that sustain colonialism.
As a
genre of contemporary history, postcolonialism questions the manner in which a
culture is being viewed. Challenging the narratives expounded during the
colonial era. Anthropologically, it records human nations between the colonist
and the people under colonial rule. Western cultural knowledge was applied to
subjugate a non Europen people into a colony of the European mother country.
*
Postcolonialism and culture :-
Colonialism
was presented as “the extension of civilization” it means people believed that
they are more civilized people than others and they have great culture heritage
so we find cultural superiority of the
western world over the non western world.
An
imperial power live England, Belgium, Portugal etc. They were hungry for gold,
trade, or perhaps even more power. The native people must struggle with this
newly arrived culture and all of its beliefs, values, habits and traditions,
which now become the part of their own lives native people must evaluate that
which part of that change brings benefits and and which part harm the nation or
society.
Certainly it
brings the harm in the field of traditional culture, belief and values, but the
issue of colonization touches upon more than just the struggle of native people
to adjust to a new culture. This new invader did not have the similar culture.
They considered their culture as superior this colonizer came with the idea
that the land he has come to conquer truly can be owned by him. They had strong
belief that his culture is superior to the one he has come to suppress.
Obviously,
the colonized people conscious about the closed identity. Here is where the
term “post colonialism” comes into play. The word is a tool, a methodology,
what happens when two culture clash based upon one of the culture’s assumption
of his superiority. We have the definition of colonized people as “victims of
imperialism” image of tortured natives at the hands of white oppressors. The
ideas, thoughts, values, culture, tradition was imposed to colonized people.
Teaching christain religious beliefs as one example. Intentionally they spread
the ideas to the indigenous population.
Post
colonial, as a term refers to more than just a people adjusting to changes. It creates
two distinct parties.
* Colonizer and colonized
* Oppressor and oppressed
* Changer and changed
* Superior and inferior
Even after
the colonizer has left, and the formerly colonized nation has been liberated the
presence of the colonizer still remains as something of a shadow and post
colonialism touches upon many issues : language, land, men’s and women’s roles,
nationalism and hybridism.
There was a
great impact of colonial society on culture. The impact was positive as well as
negative. For eg. colonial powers introduced western schools and health care
resources that often had a positive effect on the lives of the colonized
people. Government focused on training for low level civil service occupations
half of the children in most colony went to school and many leaders of post
colonial governments had been educated in colonial government and missionary
school. Also colonizers established medical centers.
Thus, the
traditional schools and medical readjusted according to new culture.
During the
colonial era, many European colonizers, such as great Britain, took a
paternalistic view of the native culture. They brought Christianity and
civilization. This attitude destroyed traditional beliefs and social values
however and had a negative effect on colonized populations.
Language a
means of identity as much as a tool of empowerment is at the heart of a culture
and of a people one can separate from others through their language and
colonizer had great impact on language. For eg. Today English is the
international language because they were in power and their language is English
and everyone is affected by the English language. The indigenous people must
struggle with a new force that threatens their old standard and come to some
sort of compromise. They had to accept the English language and also they ue
language as a tool against oppressor but English of colonized people were not
considered as the equal to rulers. They considered it as inferior and also did
not consider the literature equal to them. On the other hand native people saw
native person (who speak English) as a antinationalist. So there was a clash
between two culture.
“Post
colonialism” loosely designates a set of theoretical approaches which focus on
the direct effects and after colonization. It appeared in the context of
decolonization that marked the second half of 20th century and has been
appropriated by contemporary critical discourse in a wide range of domains
mapped by at least half a dozen disciplines.
Postcolonialism refers to a historical
phase under gone by third world countries after the decline of colonialism. For
example, when countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean
separated from the European empires and were left to rebuild themselves. Many
third world writers focus on both colonialism and the changes created in a
postcolonial culture. Among the many challenges facing postcolonial writers are
the attempts both to resurrect their cult.
At first
glance post colonial studies would seem to be a matter of history and political
science, rather than literary criticism. English is the global British
language. Postcolonial literary theorists study the English language within
this politicized context especially those writings that developed at the
colonial Front such as works by Rudyard Kipling E.M.Forster, Jean Rhys, or Jamaica Kincaid.
Edward said’s concept of orientalism was an important touch stone to postcolonial
studies, as he described the stereotypical discourse about the east as
constructed by the west. This discourse, rather than realistically portraying
eastern “others” constructs them based upon western anxieties and
preoccupations said sharply critiques the western image of the oriental As ”irrational
depraved child live, different” which
has allowed the west to define itself as “rational, virtuous mature, normal”.
The critical application of post structuralism in the scholarship of
orientalism influenced the development of literary theory. Cultural criticism and
the filed of middle eastern studies. The scope of said's scholarship
established orientalism as a foundation text in the field of post colonial
culture studies. Which examines the history of a post colonial period.
Frantz fanon,
a French Caribbean Marxist, drew upon his own horrific experiences in French
Algeria to deconstruct emerging national regimes that are based on inheritances
from the impereial powers, warning that class, not race is a greater factor in worldwide
oppression and that if new nations are perpetuate the bourgeois inequolities
from the past.
Homme K. Bhabha’s postcolonial theory involves analysis of
nationality ethnicity and politics with poststructuralist ideas of identity and
indeterminacy, defining postcolonial identities as shifting hybrid constructions.
Bhaba critiques the presumed dichotomies between center and periphery.
Colonized and colonizer. Self and other borrowing from deconstruction the
argument that these are false binaries. the concept of hybridity that is they are
something new, emerging from a third space to interrogate the givens of the
past. The old distinction between “industrialize” and “developing” nations does
not hold true today, when so money industrial jobs have been moved overseas
from countries like the united to countries like India and the Philippines.
Postcolonial literatures from emerging nations by such writers as Chinua acheba
and Salman Rushdie are read alongside European responses to colonialism by writers
such as george orwell and albert camus.
Among the
most important figures in postcolonial feminism is Gayatri Chakravorty spivak,
who examines the effects of political independence upon Subaltern women in the
Third world. Spivak’s subaltern studies reveal how female subjects are silenced
by the dialogue between the male dominated west and the male dominated East,
offering little hope for the subaltern woman's voice to rise up amidst
the global social institutions that oppress her.
We can compare
postcolonialism, cultural studies and globalization. Globalization has a
sustained engagement with and influence on local cultures. Some critics have
argued that we need to address the role of globalization through the
postcolonial lens. For instance, we need to ask how Hollywood films circulate globally.
Does the fact that crudeness in Asia or Africa will be viewing these films
influence the film makes ? Cultural studies in globalizing age would make us
ask several questions such as :
* Are local cultural products in any way determined by the
possibility of a global market ? For eg. export of mango, navratri clothes
kites etc.
* Age such cultural products financed by non local moneys ?
For eg. Hindi films being financed by non resident Indians.
Some multinational company also
rule over Indian culture. Such as pepsi, coca cola, pitza etc. and they mixed
with Indian culture in such a way that it creates hybrid culture.
* Conclusion
:-
Colonialism
was such a period in which we were directly ruled by British government. But
today we find postcolonialism in which we indirectly ruled by other nations and
power including business, market, literature, politics etc.
*Citation:
peoplef.oureverydaylife.com
www.postcolonialweb.org
