Postcolonialism and its
Critics
Chapter 8
McLeod’s Beginning
Postcolonialism
The debt to Western theory in
postcolonialism
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Because all postcolonial critics are products of Western
universities and because they depend so heavily on
Western philosophy – Freud, Lacan, Derrida, Foucault
– the decolonized are being recolonized by Western
theoretical imperatives.
The colonies are providing the raw textual materials
for processing by Western educated postcolonial
theorists. All literature from the colonies is read
through the lens of colonial (post/de/neo/re) issues.
There is most certainly another theoretical angle that
could (should) be applied.
One answer to these criticisms is that there is no
escape from history. A critic cannot move to an
interpretation of the literature that does not include
the colonial history. That would be to ignore reality.
The critic needs to focus on the hybridity of the
postcolonial nation’s history.
The new “ghetto” of postcolonial
literary studies
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Where do these texts and concepts get
presented in literature courses? We’ve got
whole courses on Shakespeare or the
Romantics, very sharply focused and limited
in their scope. Then, we’ve got postcolonial
or nonwestern world literature. Look at the
map, look at the timeframe. What does it
say about what we privilege?
Again, we colonize by division. How do we
need to restructure/rethink our ideas about
canon and about spheres of influence to shift
the focus? Do we need to shift the focus?
The problem of
“antifoundationalism”
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Poststructuralist theory has broken down the
difference between reality and textuality. Everything
traditionally defined as “real” has become redefined as
text, story, construct. Everything is story. All the
stories which used to help us define ourselves –
nationalism, Christianity, Marxism have been broken
apart. For most intellectuals, this is a positive thing,
promising more acceptance of the margins,
multiculturalism, tolerance.
How then, do the real contextual “facts” of peoples
lives – different social and economic conditions –
figure in? Is academia and academic theory too
separated from these sorts of “facts”? See p. 251
quote from Dirlik.
The issue of temporality
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is postcoloniality post?
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are all postcolonial experiences the same?
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Isn’t it ongoing, a process, rather than a product?
Isn’t Western multinational capitalism another form
of colonization?
When would we date the post? From which nation
or movement’s independence?
Is postcolonial African the same as postcolonial
Australia?
Is Japan postcolonial at all?
What word would work better? Can you
think of one?
The relationship between postcolonialism
and global capitalism
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Countries like Turkey, which were never
colonized, or like Iran and Egypt which
were occupied, but not colonized in the
same way that India or Nigeria were,
have been affected in terms of social and
cultural figurations, in very similar ways
to colonized nations. “[S]hould we
speak, not so much of colonialism and
postcolonialism, as of capitalist
modernity”? (Ahmad) Postcolonial
theorists and practitioners are complicit
in this exploitation of labor and cultures
because they don’t address it.
The relationship between postcolonialism
and global capitalism
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Postcoloniality is a matter of class, but issues of
class remain absent from the agenda of much
postcolonial theory. One critic Dirlik, claims that
“postcolonial intellectuals are actually trying to
hide their complicity with global capitalism.” He
claims that postcolonial intellectuals “avoid
making sense of the current crisis and, in the
process, . . . cover up the origins of postcolonial
intellectual in a global capitalism of which they
are not so much victims as beneficiaries.” He
posits that capitalist interest in transnationalism
and multiculturalism, looking for ways to deal
with difference and cultural otherness, assists
capitalism in establishing itself in different
places at different times.
The relationship between postcolonialism
and global capitalism
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Is Dirlik, perhaps a little paranoid? Can
you see Spivak and Bhabha and Said
sitting in a hotel room together
shredding their IBM sponsored expense
account receipts? Is it possible to see
that, while we are all connected in the
global environment of today’s business,
we are not all complicit? That some of
us might be resisting? Postcolonial
critics do seem to be quite aware of and
vocal about the problems caused by
multinational capitalism.