Representation and identity
Race and ethnicity through empire and colonialism (Atlantic slave trade)
Orientalism (Edward said)
The link between culture, imperial power and colonialism
Culture creates an accepted grid for filtering through he orient into western consciousness
V.G.Kiernan quote An economic system like a nation or a religion, lives not by bread alone, but by beliefs, visions, daydreams as well, and these may be no less vital to it for being erroneous
Edward Said The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism
Paul Gilroy A civilizing mission that had to conceal its own systematic brutality in order to be effective and attractive
Jacques Lacan
We are socially constructed and only understand who we are by exploring the other
Louis Althusser
ISA
Ideological State Apparatus
Hailing / interpolation the way you are called and others view you therefore how you view yourself
The dominant ideas are those of the ruling class
Frantz Fannon
wretched of the earth 1961
- Assimilation of colonial culture corresponding to the ‘mother country’ Chinua Achebe talks of the colonial writer as a ‘somewhat unfinished European who with patience guidance will grow up one day and write like every other European.’ (1988:46)
- Immersion into an ‘authentic’ culture ‘brought up out of the depths of his memory; old legends will be reinterpreted’
- Fighting, revolutionary, national literature, ‘the mouthpiece of a new reality in action’.
Syncretism, double consciousness & hybridisation
mechanisms for understanding cross-cultural identities.
Paul Gilroy / William Dubois
Hybridity and ambiguity in culture cultural poly valence (many cultures)
- Q1: Where can you identify ‘hybridity’, ‘ambiguity’ and ‘cultural polyvalency’ in this music video?
- Q2: How does this text apply to Fanon’s 3 phase plan of action?
- Q3: How is the audience called / addressed / hailed (interpellation)? Use examples from both the lyrics and the visual grammar (shot, edit, mise-en-scene) to show how audiences are drawn into a specific subject position / ideological framework?