Orientalism
the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism
Edward Said
we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not.
Louis Althusser: ISA’s & the notion of ‘Interpellation’
People are socially constructive
- 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’.
Antonio Gramsci – Hegemony
‘It is well known that Alhussser drew part of his inspiration from Gramsci’ (Althusser, 2016: xxiv) the way in which class relations and subject is ‘exercised through a whole set of institutions . . . the place where encounters between private individuals occur.’ (ibid)
However, Gramsci suggests that power relations can be understood as a hegemonic struggle through culture. In other words, Gramsci raises the concept of Hegemony to illustrate how certain cultural forms predominate over others, which means that certain ideas are more influential than others, usually in line with the dominant ideas, the dominant groups and their corresponding dominant interests. In terms of postcolonialism Said, notes how ‘consent is gained and continuously consolidated for the distant rule of native people and territories’ (1993:59).
Paul Gilroy
Suggests that we need to become interested of how the governmental dynamics of the country has responded to the change and tells us about the place of racism in contemporary political culture.
W.E.B de Bois
Double consciousness
Suggested that people are not of one of ethnicity if they only live there and are of their past cultures which combine.
Orientalism- looking at other cultures and their stereotyped identities made by communities.
Louis Althusser- theory of interpelloation. role models create/ construct children identities