The Idea of Resistance and Political Protest:
● When we first think about political protest, what comes to mind?
○ Attempts to change to laws or legislation
○ Organised political movements
○ Public protests
○ Petitions, marches
● However, we can look at political protest in terms of:
○ Cultural resistance
○ Everyday people
● Why look at cultural resistance?
○ Overt political protest is uncommon. When it occurs, it often results in a backlash.
○ Even if overt political protest does results in changes in legislation, it won’t necessarily change public
opinion.
○ Culture is what influences people’s hearts, minds and opinions. This is the site of popular change.
Key idea: the political, personal and cultural are always intertwined

• The idea of culture as a site of political struggle for Ghost Town see below)
• The the theory of hegemony – Gramsci

cultural hegemony functions by framing ideologies of the dominant social group as the only legitimate
ideology.

Key Concepts:
● Cultural resistance
● Cultural hegemony
● Subcultural theory

Subcultural Theory: The Birmingham School (1970s)
● In the 1970s, a group of cultural theorists in Birmingham applied Gramsici’s theories to post-war
British working-class youth culture
● Looked at working class cultures like the teddy-boys, mods, skinheads, and punks – subcultures
unified by shared tastes in fashion, music and ideology.
● They argued argued that the formation of subcultures offered young working class people a solution
to the problems they were collectively experiencing in society.

lyrics for essay-

1. Slavery’s still alive, check Amendment 13
   Not whips and chains, all subliminal
   Instead of ‘nigga’ they use the word ‘criminal’

2. We staring in the face of hate again
The same hate they say will make America great again

3. Police and policies patrol philosophies of control
A cruel hand taking hold.

4. Black bodies being lost in the American dream

5. Prison is a business, America’s the company

Postcolonialism:

This post is for students (and teachers) who would like some resources – videos, quotes, theorists, key texts, key words etc to help them think about the topic of POSTCOLONIALISM, which may appear in a range of creative, media, culture, communications, English, History and other courses.

Overall, this is a topic that concerns IDENTITY and REPRESENTATION. In other words, where does our identity come from? How is our identity formed? How do we understand our own identity and how is our identity represented in the local, national and global media? You can look at another post that looks at identity, representation and the self. But here it is specifically looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism.

ORIENTALISM:

The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism

Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii

critically looking at culture- key figure Edward Said.

Jacques Lacan- (the other)

search for identity, theory of baby’s first time looking in the mirror is when we first feel consciousness. we see ourselves differently for how to feel inside.

We are looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism. It had an aim to undermine the universalist claims that ‘great literature has a timeless and universal significance [which] thereby demotes or disregards cultural, social, regional, and nations differences in experience and outlook’.

Postcolonial criticism challenges the assumption of a universal claim of what is good and what is bad.

‘constituted a fundamentally important political act’

Edward Said

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism – Edward Said Culture and Imperialism

‘imperialism was principally economic‘ and looked to answer that question by highlighting ‘the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience’

‘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’ – V. G. Kiernan

‘the desire to contain the intangibilities of the East within a western lucidity, but this gesture of appropriation only partially conceals the obsessive fear.’

ORIENTALISM

– is a term expressing the varying historical and cultural relationship between Europe and Asia, specializing in the study of Eastern cultures and traditions. ‘In this view, the outlying regions of the world have no life, history or culture to speak of, no independence or integrity worth representing without the West.‘ culture is the identification of a country.

 Jacques Lacan

– we are going to look at the other

The mirror stage

we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not.

Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

Comparison

Jacques Lacan looks at how you reflect at yourself which apply to cultures and that is why explore the other.

In other words, postcolonial criticism challenges the assumption of a universal claim towards what constitutes ‘good reading’ and ‘good literature’; questioning the notion of a recognised and overarching canon of important cultural texts – book, poems, plays, films etc – much of which is institutionalised into academic syllabi.

Overall, POSTCOLONIALISM operates a series of signs maintaining the European-Atlantic power over the Orient by creating ‘an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness‘. (Said, 1978:238). Or as Paul Gilroy puts it, ‘a civilising mission that had to conceal its own systematic brutality in order to be effective and attractive’ (2004:8)

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism – Edward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii

Essentially, and most crucial for postcolonial critical thinking, it is possible to identify a process whereby REPRESENTATIONS of – the East /the Orient / the ‘Other’ – are CONSTRUCTED through the lens of WESTERN COLONIAL POWER. So as much as the concept and image of ‘the West’ itself, the Orient is an idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery, and vocabulary that have given it reality and presence in and for the West. The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other.

Jacques Lacan – The Other

A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror.

In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. – Edward Said

Jacques Lacan – The other. A good way to develop an understanding of this term is in his exploration of the mirror stage of child development, whereby, as we cannot actually see ourselves as whole, we use a reflection to understand who we are / who we are not. Lacan proposed that in infancy this first recognition occurs when we see ourselves in a mirror. Applying that theory to culture, communications and media studies, it is possible to see why we are so obsessed with reading magazines, listening to music, watching films, videos and television because, essentially, we are exploring ‘The Other’ as a way of exploring ourselves.

For example some Europeans may go over to Africa and say how it was there, but they are not truly representing the place, only seeing ‘The Other’

Music Video – Letter to the Free is a product which possesses cultural and social significance. It will invite comparison with other music videos allowing for an analysis of the contexts in which they are produced and consumed.

Common is an Oscar and Grammy award winning hip/hop rap artist who wrote Letter to the Free as a soundtrack to The 13th which is a documentary.

His output is highly politicised, existing in the context of a variety of social and cultural movements aimed at raising awareness of racism and its effects in US society. For example Black Lives Matter.

• Representation of ethnicity, with focus on how Common is a black man exploring black culture-specific issues.
• Use of specific historical and contemporary experience to construct a political narrative and argument
• How representations invoke discourses and ideologies and position audiences
• Representation of gender within the video and in the context of wider representations of women in the music industry
• Representation of place
• Common as celebrity persona

Postcolonialism

The arguments around postcolonial critical thought ‘constituted a fundamentally important political act’ (MacLoed, 200: 16)

Postcolonial critical thought emerged as a distinct category in the 1990’s, with an aim to undermine the universalist claims that ‘great literature has a timeless and universal significance [which] thereby demotes or disregards cultural, social, regional, and nations differences in experience and outlook’ (Barry, 2017: 194).

postcolonial criticism challenges the assumption of a universal claim towards what constitutes ‘good reading’ and ‘good literature’;

The Link between culture, imperial power & colonialism….

the power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialismEdward Said Culture and Imperialism, 1993: xiii

‘In this view, the outlying regions of the world have no life, history or culture to speak of, no independence or integrity worth representing without the West.‘ (Said, 1993: xxi)

orientalism

How people with power can change the way the general public view certain things like religions and race.

Jacques Lacan- The “other”

Lacan is a type of philosopher. You never actually see yourself you only ever see a reflection of yourself, so how do you know who you are?

In his book Orientalism, Edward Said, points out that ‘the Orient has helped to define Europe (Or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience.  most crucial for postcolonial critical thinking, it is possible to identify a process whereby REPRESENTATIONS of – the East /the Orient / the ‘Other’ – are CONSTRUCTED through the lens of WESTERN COLONIAL POWER

The two geographical entities thus support and to an extent reflect each other.

Edward Said & Jacques Lacan

Said explained that people with power influences the way we thing and Lacan said that we don’t actually know who were are as we’ve only ever seen the reflection of ourselves.