Post-colonial Theory: Key Concepts

Postcolonial Concepts Glossary

This will be added as I complete more of my research, to aid in writing my essay. I have sourced the definitions from http://www3.dbu.edu/mitchell/postcold.htm  and http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf  and put them into my own words to ensure my understanding. I have cross-referenced these definitions with other sources to ensure their accuracy.

Colonialism: The expansion of the control of imperialist nations (predominantly European) across the world over the last 400 years. This often resulted in a hierarchy of the European ‘mother’ nation, European settlers, the local, educated elites in the colony, and the indigenous residents. Inherent to this political system are notions of racial inferiority and otherness.

Post-colonialism: Broadly, a study of how colonialism has affected the societies it affected: the European nations that colonised, and the affected groups- how the latter responded and resisted. Some theorists argue that the post-colonialism, both as a theory and study of political change, is evolving through three stages:

-          Initial awareness of the enforced inferiority (culturally and psychologically) of being in a colonized state.

-          Discussion of the struggle for autonomy: culturally and politically.

-          Awareness of hybridity and cultural polyvalence.

 Resistance: the theory focuses on the ways that thinking, writing, and acting resist the colonizers.

Imperialism: In ‘poco’ theory, these terms are used more loosely than they are in the dictionary.  Generally, imperialism refers to the formation of an empire, in which one nation has extended its domination over one or several neighbouring nations, to increase economic and political power.

Subaltern: someone who is economically oppressed. Has a racial significance- the term is mostly used to talk about people who countries were colonized by imperialist.

Appropriation: The taking over of aspects of imperial culture by post-colonial societies. These aspects may include language, forms of writing, film and theatre. The appropriation of these tools is  form of resistance of the political and cultural control of the imperialist cultures.

Hybridity: When experiences of more than culture give rise to new transcultural forms, which can be social, political, linguistic (the rise of Creole language in the Caribbean, as an example).

Marginalization: The implication that certain forms of experience are peripheral, unimportant. Also refers to the limitation of a subject (ie the colonized) to power.

Subaltern: Meaning ‘of inferior rank’. The colonized (lower) classes, who are dependent on the language and means (the hegemony) of the colonized (ruling) class to express themselves.

Essentialism: the belief that people and things have an innate, unchangeable nature that is not something that is not dependant on any kind of circumstance, and several defining features exclusive to members of the group concerned. The practice of essentialism tends to overlook individual differences within groups, to maintain the status quo or gain power. Claims of essentialism can be used both by the colonizers (to maintain the oppression of the colonized?) and by the colonized as a way of resisting the claims surrounding them.