When was the postcolonial period

Postcolonial theorists critically study both colonial texts and texts written after colonialism. One of the primary reasons postcolonial literature has become as popular as it has is due in large part to theorists such as Said, Spivak, Fanon, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Homi Bhabha, and others, who explain the significance of the literature in relation to history, politics, philosophy, and literary traditions and discuss its place in contemporary society.

Many of these theorists and critics are themselves from postcolonial countries and so speak with the authority of experience. In challenging how writers and others have represented colonial subjects, these theorists seek to empower themselves and the literary projects of postcolonialists in their attempts to reshape perceptions and thinking about formerly colonized people.

What postcoloniality and postmodernism and postfeminism may have in common is the reconstruction of history or rather the demonstration that history is a human construct, just like fiction. Salman Rushdie in Shame wrote : "History is natural selection.

Marxist historians had already begun to view colonial history from the perspective of the proletariat, but this was sometimes seen as unsatisfying as it was still a Eurocentric way of viewing the globe. The term subaltern is used in postcolonial theory. The exact meaning of the term in current philosophical and critical usage is disputed.

Some thinkers use it in a general sense to refer to marginalized groups and the lower classes—a person rendered without agency by his or her social status. Others, such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak use it in a more specific sense. She argues that:. In postcolonial terms, everything that has limited or no access to the cultural imperialism is subaltern-—a space of difference. Now who would say that's just the oppressed? The working class is oppressed.

It's not subaltern Many people want to claim subalternity. They are the least interesting and the most dangerous. I mean, just by being a discriminated-against minority on the university campus, they don't need the word 'subaltern' They should see what the mechanics of the discrimination are.

They're within the hegemonic discourse wanting a piece of the pie and not being allowed, so let them speak, use the hegemonic discourse. They should not call themselves subaltern. Subaltern was first used in a non-military sense by Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Some believe that he used the term as a synonym for proletariat, possibly as a codeword in order to get his writings past prison censors, while others believe his usage to be broader and less clear cut.

In several essays, Homi Bhabha, a key thinker within postcolonial thought, emphasizes the importance of social power relations in his working definition of subaltern groups as. He refers to this in the context of counter-hegemonic practices, movements, resistances and struggles against neoliberal globalization, particularly the struggle against social exclusion.

He uses the term interchangeably with cosmopolitan legality as the diverse normative framework for an equality of differences. Here, the term subaltern is used to denote marginalized and oppressed people s specifically struggling against hegemonic globalization. Subaltern and marginalized people are different in different places and in different historical contexts.

In India women, dalits, rural, tribal, immigrant laborers are part of subaltern. In Punjab rural, dalit, illiterate women are the most oppressed. Postcolonial theory tries to understand the power and continued dominance of Western ways of knowing.

Edward Said's work on Orientalism is related to the idea of the subaltern in that it explains the way in which Orientalism produced the foundation and the justification for the domination of the Other through colonialism.

Europeans, Said argues, created an imagined geography of the Orient before European exploration through predefined images of savage and monstrous places that lay outside of the known world. During initial exploration of the Orient these mythologies were reinforced as travelers brought back reports of monsters and strange lands. The idea of difference and strangeness of the Orient continued to be perpetuated through media and discourse creating an "us" and "them" binary through which Europeans defined themselves by defining the differences of the Orient.

This laid the foundation for colonialism by presenting the Orient as backward and irrational and therefore in need of help to become modern in the European sense.

The discourse of Orientalism is Eurocentric and does not seek to include the voices of the Orientals themselves. Stuart Hall argues for the power of discourse to create and reinforce Western dominance. The discourses on how Europe described differences between itself and others used European cultural categories, languages and ideas to represent the other. The knowledge produced by a discourse gets put into practice and then becomes reality.

Alik Shahadah comments on this by stating that:The Eurocentric discourse on Africa is in error because those foundational paradigms which inspired the study in the first place were rooted in the denial of African agency; political intellectualism bent on its own self-affirmation rather than objective study.

Joanne Sharp, following Spivak, argues that other forms of knowing are marginalized by Western thinkers reforming them as myth or folklore. In order to be heard the subaltern must adopt Western thought, reasoning and language. Because of this, Sharp and Spivak argue that the subalterns can never express their own reasoning, forms of knowledge or logic, they must instead form their knowledge to Western ways of knowing.

The subordinated individual can only be heard by his oppressors if he speaks their language. Therefore, filters of conformity muddle the true voice of the subaltern. These filters manifest themselves in a multitude of ways.

In Colonial Latin America, for example, the subaltern must utilize the filters of religion and servitude in their language. In order to appeal to the good graces of their Spanish oppressors, slaves and natives would mask their own voice with the culture of the Spanish Crown.

In , Francisca de Figueroa brought an appeal to the Crown. As an Afro-Iberian woman, she must repress her own native tongue, and speak Spanish with her adopted Spanish tongue. And she has written to call for me in order to help me. I will take with me in my company a daughter of mine, her sister, named Maria, of the said color.

And for this I must write to Our Lord the King to petition that he favor me with a license so that I and my said daughter can go and reside in the said city of Cartagena. For this I will give an account of what is put down in this report.

And of how I Francisca de Figueroa am a woman of sound body and mulatta in color…And my daughter Maria is twenty years old and of the said color and of medium size. Once given, I attest to this. I beg your Lordship to approve and order it done. I ask for justice in this. There are multiple layers of meaning to consider when engaging the voice of the subaltern. There is no remote hint of pride or defiance in her words. In this letter specifically, Francisca does not mention her own religion.

By identifying herself as a Catholic, her favor would probably have been granted sooner. So that Francisca may attain what she requests, she must subject herself in her own letter. Rather than claiming lineage as an African woman, she degrades herself by constantly identifying herself with the label the Spanish gave her heritage. This form of self-subjugation is a pure example of how the voice of the Subaltern sounds: self-relegating and trapped behind a megaphone of colonialism. We cannot ascend to a position of dominance over the voice, subjugating its words to the meanings we desire to attribute to them.

That is simply another form of discrimination. Spivak and bell hooks question the academic engagement with the Other. To truly engage with the subaltern they argue that an academic would need to decenter him or herself as the expert. Traditionally the academic wants to know about the subaltern's experiences but not their own explanations of those experiences. The subordinated subject, gives up their knowledge for the use of the Western academic.

No need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. This edited volume remains the most widely available source for many important influential essays that are foundational to the field but difficult to find, some of which are listed here Senghor , cited under Anticolonialism ; Hall , cited under Affiliations and Alliances.

In other cases, it offers a good selection of longer texts for undergraduate classes, like those by Aijaz Ahmad, Cesaire, and Said. The book also includes good examples of early postcolonial literary criticism. Young, Robert J. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. London: Blackwell, This sweeping account of the emergence of Postcolonialism not only offers a phenomenal introduction to anticolonial thought, but it illuminates the ways in which postcolonial theory is directly indebted to anticolonial thought.

Oxford: Oxford University Press, In the guise of a neutral text, it is actually a vibrant defense of the field and a reconceptualization of its origins. It is also, therefore, an excellent manifesto for the field. Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login. Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.

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