Postcolonialism, Anti-colonialism, Nationalism and History

2019 ◽  
Vol 56 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 92-108
Author(s):  
Christine Doran
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Nationalist Movements ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
Gayatri Spivak ◽  
Historical Developments

One of the most outstanding historical developments of the twentieth century was the gaining of national independence from imperial rule by most of the formerly colonized countries, especially in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. Yet, rather surprisingly, many of the leading contributors to postcolonial theory, including Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha and others, tend to minimize the significance of national independence and take a dim view of the nationalist movements, leaders and ideologies that struggled for it. The aim of this article is to probe the reasons for this, canvassing postcolonial theorists’ main arguments and outlining certain intellectual currents and commitments, notably poststructuralism, deconstruction and postmodernism, that have contributed to these negative stances. Some counterarguments are presented, as it is suggested that the achievements of nationalist revolutions in the former colonies should be reassessed more favourably. This could be a way of resisting the current hegemonic power of the ideology of globalization.

scholarly journals O olhar etnográfico e a voz subalterna

2001 ◽  
Vol 7 (15) ◽  
pp. 107-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Jorge de Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Edward Said ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Gayatri Spivak

O artigo propõe, em primeiro lugar, uma revisão teórica da Antropologia, avaliando seu lugar no rol das teorias atuais das Ciências Humanas. Para tanto, constrói a metáfora das metamorfoses do olhar etnográfico, o que permite detectar momentos importantes da recepção e reprodução, em países periféricos como o Brasil, desse saber plasmado nos países centrais nos dias do colonialismo. Em seguida passa em revista as idéias de teóricos do pensamento pós-colonial e dos estudos subalternos, como Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak e Homi Bhabha. Num terceiro momento, discute as possibilidades de uma etnografia pós-colonial, voltada para a narração das vozes subalternas, o que aproxima a Antropologia da Literatura Comparada. Finalmente, ilustra essas discussões com a apresentação de uma narrativa extraordinária de uma quebradeira de côco de babaçu do Maranhão, texto que erijo como emblemático da condição contemporânea de desenraizamento e perplexidade a que estamos submetidos, tanto os nossos supostos nativos como os etnógrafos e intelectuais dos países periféricos.

Postcolonial Approaches to the Study of African Politics

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grace Adeniyi Ogunyankin
Keyword(s):  
Urban Studies ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Discursive Construction ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Women And Gender Studies ◽  
Limited Applicability ◽  
Gayatri Spivak ◽  
And Gender

Postcolonial theory has been embraced and critiqued by various scholars since the 1980s. Central to the field of postcolonial studies is the examination of colonial episteme and discourse, European racism, and imperial dominance. Broadly, postcolonialism analyzes the effects, and enduring legacies, of colonialism and disavows Eurocentric master-narratives. Postcolonial ideas have been significant to several academic disciplines, largely those in the humanities and social sciences, such as cultural and literary studies, anthropology, political science, history, development studies, geography, urban studies, and gender and sexuality studies. The key scholars that are connected to postcolonial theory, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak, have been critiqued for grounding their work in the Western theories of postmodernism and poststructuralism. Given the predominant association of these three scholars to postcolonial theory, Africanists have argued that postcolonial theory is dismissive of African theorizing. Moreover, some scholars have noted that Africanists have hesitated to use postcolonial theory because it is too discursive and has limited applicability to material reality. As such, the relevancy of postcolonial theory to Africa has been a repetitive question for decades. Despite this line of questioning, some scholars have posited that there are African thinkers and activists who are intellectual antecedents to the postcolonial thought that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. Additionally, other Africanist scholars have engaged with the colonial discursive construction of African subjectivities and societies as inferior. These engagements have been particularly salient in women and gender studies, urban studies and studies of identity and global belonging.

Postcolonialism in International Relations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Wilkens
Keyword(s):  
International Relations ◽  
Theory Development ◽  
Discourse Theory ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
Subaltern Studies ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Social Theories ◽  
Gayatri Spivak ◽  
Theoretical Paradigms

Some of the main genealogies within postcolonial scholarship are discussed, with a focus on key thinkers, such as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Aníbal Quijano, and Walter Mignolo. Key concepts, such as colonial discourse theory, development, and subaltern studies are presented. The discussion of postcolonial thought is embedded in a reflection on its relation to other theoretical paradigms and social theories (e.g., poststructuralism, world-system theory, Marxism). This focus seeks to highlight some of the main contours of the field, while also pointing out the ways postcolonialism has shaped the discipline of international relations (IR).

Postkoloniale Theorie

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria do Mar Castro Varela ◽  
Nikita Dhawan
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Gayatri Spivak

Das Standardlehrbuch zu Postkolonialer Theorie in neuer Auflage. Kompakter Überblick über die Theorien von Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak und Homi Bhabha Diese Einführung erschließt das weite Feld postkolonialer Theoriebildung über eine kritische Debatte der Schriften der drei prominentesten postkolonialen Stimmen – Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak und Homi Bhabha. Die aktualisierte dritte Auflage unterzieht insbesondere die neuen Schriften Spivaks und Bhabhas einer kritischen Würdigung und erlaubt einen aktuellen Überblick über diese bedeutenden Theoriewerke. Die dritte Auflage setzt sich zugleich mit den gegenwärtigen Diskussionen um Globalisierung, Religion, Menschenrechte und Dekolonisierung auseinander und gibt einen Überblick über die aktuellen Debatten in den Postcolonial Studies. Das Standard-Lehrbuch zum Thema Postkoloniale Theorie gibt einen Überblick über die wichtigsten Theorien und Debatten in den Postcolonial Studies und bereitet diese systematisch für das Studium der Kulturwissenschaften auf.

Homi Bhabha and Communication Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Daniel Elam
Keyword(s):  
American Literature ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Frantz Fanon ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
British Rule ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
Political Commitments ◽  
The U.S

Homi Bhabha (b. 1949) is among the founding generation of scholars of “postcolonial theory” as it emerged in the U.S. and U.K. academies in the 1980s and 1990s, and is currently the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of English and American Literature and Language. Bhabha’s intellectual emergence coincided with the emergence of “postcolonial theory” in the 1980s and 1990s. Bhabha’s particular contribution to postcolonial critique is unique in successfully combining the fields of post-structuralism, history, and psychoanalysis, and in relationship to the texts and histories of British rule in South Asia. Bhabha is best situated within an often-overshadowed strain of postcolonial theory committed to the recovery of universality rather than the demand for particularity, a lineage that includes Frantz Fanon and Edward Said. Bhabha’s key concepts and terms, especially “ambivalence” and “hybridity,” have been taken up across many fields under the rubrics of postcolonial and/or diasporic intervention. Bhabha’s writing and theoretical arguments are based primarily in perpetual negotiation, in opposition to negation. Understanding this key intervention makes it possible to grasp the full scale of Bhabha’s driving concerns, theoretical conceptions, and political commitments.

scholarly journals Moving beyond Edward Said: Homi Bhabha and the Problem of Postcolonial Representation

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumit Chakrabarti
Keyword(s):  
Edward Said ◽  
Religious Nationalism ◽  
Freudian Psychoanalysis ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Gayatri Spivak ◽  
European Modernism

The essay takes up the issue of postcolonial representation in terms of a critique of European modernism that has been symptomatic of much postcolonial theoretical debates in the recent years. It tries to enumerate the epistemic changes within the paradigm of postcolonial theoretical writing that began tentatively with the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978 and has taken a curious postmodern turn in recent years with the writings of Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha. The essay primarily focuses on Bhabha’s concepts of ambivalence and mimicry and his politics of theoretical anarchism that take the representation debate to a newer height vis-ŕ-vis modes of religious nationalism and Freudian psychoanalysis. It is interesting to see how Bhabha locates these within a postmodern paradigm.

scholarly journals La mirada etnográfica y la voz subalterna

2002 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 287-328
Author(s):  
José Jorge De Carvalho
Keyword(s):  
Edward Said ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Gayatri Spivak

Este artículo propone una evaluación teórica y metodológica de la antropología y su lugar en el pensamiento actual de las ciencias humanas. Para ello, el autor construye la metáfora de las metamorfosis de la mirada etnográfica y detecta momentos importantes de la recepción y reproducción de ese saber generado en los países centrales en los días del colonialismo, en países periféricos. Luego de un recorrido por teóricos del pensamiento poscolonial y los estudios subalternos, como Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak y Homi Bhabha, se discuten las posibilidades de una etnografia poscolonial, centrada en la narración de voces subalternas. Finalmente, ilustra esas discusiones conceptuales con la narrativa de una mujer el estado brasileño de Maranhão y compara ese texto con la lectura que hace Heidegger de un poema de Hölderlin.

scholarly journals Indigenous Identity through Hybridity and Humor: A Postcolonial Reading of Robert Merritt’s The Cake Man

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Parvaneh Ganjtalab Shad
Keyword(s):  
Focal Point ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Colonial Discourse ◽  
Indigenous Identity ◽  
Australian Society ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Gayatri Spivak ◽  
Central Argument

The major thrust in this research has been in the area of postcolonial studies. As one their primary missions, post-colonial works of art relate stories as seen by the oppressed and the colonized. Beginning with Edward Said’s Orientalism, postcolonial figures as diverse as Franz Fanon, Gayatri Spivak, and Homi Bhabha emerged and each targeted an aspect of postcolonial conditions. The present article was undertaken to trace postcolonial elements of “colonial negotiations,” and “hybridity” in an Aboriginal play by Robert Merritt entitled The Cake Man. The central argument of this article is that in its anticolonial stance, this play discusses issues of Aboriginal race and identity. To realize this argument, the play is studies with the background of Edward Said and Homi K. Bhabha’s theories. While these two figures are the leading theoreticians of the research, Aboriginal anticolonial strategies, like Aboriginal humor and figurative emasculation, are also pointed out. In fact, the novelty of the study is in its amalgamation of Western theories and Aboiginal strategies. All through the play, history as seen by the oppressed becomes the focal point, making it eligible to be called postcolonial works. Merritt’s The Cake Man, which is a well-known example of forced conversion, contains a very prominent manifestation of Said and Bhabha’s colonial negotiations. In addition, by creating an anticolonial character in the play, Merritt highlights and criticizes colonial Christianity, colonial otherization, and figurative emasculation of Aboriginal men in Australian society. All these issues, as the play leads the audience to believe, contribute to the realization that colonial discourse has the policy of obliterating Aboriginal traditions.

scholarly journals ENCONTRANDO PARAÍSO PERDIDO NUMA CONVERSAÇÃO PÓS-COLONIAL

Em Tese ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 41
Author(s):  
Luiz Fernando Ferreira Sá
Keyword(s):  
Edward Said ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Gayatri Spivak

Ao usar o circuito pós-colonial de teoria e de prática textual de Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak e Homi Bhabha este ensaio introduz a possibilidade de uma des-leitura contrapontista de um texto de Milton: Paraíso Perdido poderá finalmente libertar-se de seu conteúdo colonial e liberar seu conteúdo pós-colonial.

scholarly journals Displacement and Identity in Ahdaf Soueif’s Sandpiper and Melody

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Mira Hafsi
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
English Language ◽  
Literary Study ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Arab Culture ◽  
Female Protagonists ◽  
Postcolonial Criticism ◽  
Homi Bhabha ◽  
Gayatri Spivak

This paper presents a literary study that is concerned with the experience of crossing cultures and theme of not belonging. It examines the condition of displacement and its effects on the identity of the female protagonists in two short stories written by Ahdaf Soueif: Sandpiper and Melody. The researcher’s investigation relies on recent postcolonial criticism provided by Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha. As such, this paper explores: the representation of the Arab culture in the the Western thought; the way linguistic hegemony is subverted through the use of a hybridized version of English; and the agency of the subaltern through using the English language as a vehicle for the transmission of Diasporic Arab female voices and concerns. This paper concludes that Ahdaf Soueif succeeds in painting an original view of the effect of the state of displacement on the psyche of her female subjects, highlighting the semi-autobiographical aspect which is used as a means to express a quest for identity. The writer also succeeds in writing back to the colonial metropolis against the hegemonic imperialist discourse. Moreover, the writer goes beyond postcolonial writing in her literary endeavor as an appeal towards developing approaches for the modern-day challenges of globalization.

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