Cultural Studies — 2026-10-27
postcolonialism decolonisation
class 6
exam imperialism colonialism postcolonialism
recap, Foucault & post-structuralism
power/knowledge (pouvoir/savoir)
power and knowledge are deeply related, they mutually support each other
discourse
power operates through discourse, such as medical or legal discourse
amazing recap thank you professor
colonialism
imperialism or colonialism?
imperialism is the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory; colonialism, which is almost always a consequences of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on distant territory (Said, 1994)
imperialism can be taken to refer to the authority assumed by a state over another territory — authority expressed in pageantry and symbolism, as well as in military and economic power. it is a term associated in particular with the expansion of the european nation state.
imperialism
- broader term than colonialism
- refers to the formation of an empire: one nation extends its dominaton over other nations
- goes far as back as the roman times: the roman empire
colonialism
- consequences
- establishment of setttlements in distant territories
- exploitation of resources
- governing of indigenous inhabitants of the occupied land, often by force
when did colonialism start?
- no strict consensus
- broad agreement that it started in the early modern period of european expansionism - century
different forms of colonialism
administrative
- no permanent settlement
- administration is governed by a foregn power
- the indigenous population remains the majority
settler
- settlers stay in the colony and build a home rather than returning to the metropolis
- accompanied by erasing, displacing, or marginalising of indigenous populations to acquire land
neo-colonialism
- when economic, cultural, ad political control is in the hands of or significantly influenced by another country
- a formerly colonizedf country can thus be both “post-colonial” (in the sense of formally independent) and neo-colonial (remaining economically and/or culutrally dependent) at the same time
colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade
the transatlantic slave trade forcibly took over 15 million people including children
the triangular trade & the middle passage:
- the first leg, outward passage, ships depart from european ports
- the second leg, the middle passage, captive africans are loaded onto slave ships and transported them across the atlantic ocean,
- third leg, homeward passage, ships are loaded with goods produced by slaves and sail back to europe
post-colonialism
post-colonial or postcolonial
post-colonial
- the hyphenated term is often used to specifically refer to the historical period after colonialism or the period of formal independence
- the hyphenated term post-colonial seems better suited to denote
postcolonialism is a name for a critical theorotical approach that addresses the historical, political, cultural, and textual remifications of the colonial encounter between the west and the non-west
it also designates a politics of resistance to unjust and unequal forms of cultural, political, and economic authority, across the twentieth century and after.
orientalism
- edward said’s book orientalism (1978) is often regarded to have inaugurated postcolonialism in academia
- postcolonialism is indebted to a much longer tradition of anti-colonial struggle and thought
- clr james, frantz fanon, and aime cesaire are frequently invoked as the precursors of postcolonialism. teir work is either marxist or indebted to marxism
Edward Said (1935-2003) an American and Palestinian literary scholar and activist
in orientalism, said examines how the idea of ‘the orient’ is, and continues to be, constructed by the west.
orientalism creates binary oppositions whereby the west occupies a superior position
the orient is primitive, backwards; the west is modern
the orient is irrational; the west is rational
the orient is exotic, strange; the west is familiar, normal
orientalism engages in a process of othering
techno-orientalism
blade runner is a science fiction film set in a dystopian LA
synthethic humans work on space colonisation
the high-tech dystopian future is set in an asian-looking, urban landscape — despite being in LA
key postcolonial thinkers
Ambivalence & Mimicry (Homi K. Bhabha)
concepts developed in The Location of Culture (1994)
unlike said, bhabha considers colonial discourse as slippery. he recognises a fundamental contradiction in colonial discourse that he refers to as its ambivalence.
colonial discourse needs to make the colonised subject both knowable (similar), whilst at the same time having to keep them at a distance by making them unknowable (other)
colonial discourse produces the colonized as a social reality which is at once an ‘other’ and yet entirely knowable and visible
this creates a split: the colonial subject is radically different but can be understood. this makes the colonial subject unstable.
colonial discourse seeks to “fix” the subject through the anxious repetition of stereotypes: arabs are terrorists
mimicry
mimicry reveals the ambivalence of colonial discourse and disrupts its authority
mimicry is the process by which the colonised subject is reproduced as “almost the same, but not quite”
for example in the indian colonial context, the colonised subject is made to learn the english language & gets introduced to the cultural values of the british
within this attempt to mimic the colonizing culture, the colonized will never copy it perfectly: it therefore is never far from mockery
mimicry is at once resemblance and menace
Can the subaltern speak? (briefly) & strategic essentialism (Gayatri Spivak)
most cited essay: “Can the Subaltern Speak? (1988)”
subaltern: term from Antonio Gramsci and refers to marginalized groups who are subordinated to power and are excluded from partaking in power, such as peasants and workers → term adopted to speak about colonised subjects adn to historically retrieve their voices
the essay is a critique of attempts of her contemporaries (marxists historians/subaltern studies group) to seek and carry out histories from below (british marxism)
“can the subaltern speak?” asks the question whether it is possible to retrieve the voices of subaltern groups (in particular women), claiming that “speaking for” these women accurately represents them.
does not give a definite answer: she complicates the extent
strategic essentialism
first used in an interview with Elizabeth Grozs, further developed in the essay “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography” and a 1989 interview with Ellen Rooney
in conversion with french feminism, e.g Simone de Beauvoir, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva for whom being a woman is a social construct
working within the post-structuralist tradition, these French feminists maintained an anti-essentialist position: biological sex does not determine gender.what it means to be a woman
a strategy is not a theory
Spivak’s critique: essentialism (affirming identity) can serve as a short-term political strategy for minority groups
RACE
todays connotation: essentialism & biology
historically it was used to refer to distinct cultures
the biological essentialisation of race was consolidated in the 19th century supported by Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism used Darwin’s theory of evolution to explain social inequality as caused by fundamental biological difference. This allowed for a justification of oppression, racial segregation, and colonialsim
after WWII, scientific racism waned.
stuart hall: race is more like a language than a biologically assigned thing. skin colour is a signifiar which has meaning in a culture. the meaning of skin colour is not always the same. the meaning of skin colour changes with the context
racial formation theory
not unlike for Hall, “race” is a sociohistorical concept for Omi & Winant
relations drawn between bodily differences and more profound qualities are arbitrary
racialisation is the process through which meaning and difference is attributed to physical characteristics
racialisation “makes people” → social differentiation, justifying unequal treatment and oppression
double consciousness
w.e.b du bois used the term to denote the mental conflict that african americans are subjected to being both black and american. hes described it as a “peculiar sensation,… this sense of always looking at one;s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”
black skin, white masks (1952)
frantz fanon (1925-1961) born in Fort-de-France, Martinique (Antilles) which was still part of the French colonial empire
trained as a psychiatrics in france, lyon
he became a practitioner in algeria, where he joined the anti-colonial struggle
black skin, white masks was initially written as his dissertation for his degree at the University of Lyon, which got rejected
although Fanon does not directly refer to Du Bois’ double-consciousness, he describes a similar experience as a black man living in France
Black Skin, White Masks examines the psychological effects of colonialism on the colonized. The colonizes internalize their own perceived inferiority.
The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993)
Paul Gilroy (1956), completed a PhD under supervision of Stuart Hall at the CCCS
He dislocates the binary in Du Bois’ notion of double-consciousness: Black and American
Gilroy emphasizes the importance of routes instead of Roots for black intellectual and cultural life.
the double in Gilroy’s “double-consciousness” is marked by the slave trade black identity is not located in one nation, but in a history of transatlantic *diasporic* experience and shared emories of displacement, slavery and political struggle
ETHNICITY
ethnicity is a broader concept than race
ethnicity is a term that often gets used to avoid the biological essentialism that “race” got associated with
it focuses therefore on shared cultural practices, such as languages and traditions, rather than on bodily feaures like is the case with “race”
yet, as Hall points out, its insistence on inheritance, belonging, and shared cultural practices, “cultural identity appears as a part of kith and kin, rooted in blood and soil”
again, allowing for practices of othering and establishing hierarchies, with western culture understood as the norm.
Hall stresses that ethnicities continuiously evolve especially through diasporic experience
colonialit/colonisation
decoloniality/decolonisation
whereas colonialism denotes the historical and concrete existence of foreign control over a territory, coloniality denotes the underlying hierarchies of race, gender, capital, and knowledge that were put in place during colonial rule. i.e linguistic. cultural and economic hierarchies persist.
decolonial thinkers argue that coloniality is not over.
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decolonization through its critics
argues against the current academic practice of decolonization
CONCEPTS FOR THE EXAM exam
- imperialism/colonialism/postcolonialism
- orientalism
- ambivelance ad mimicry
look at the slides.