Postcolonialism

PAUL GILROY – Concept 1: Racial binaries, otherness and civilisation

Paul Gilroy wrote a book called ‘Ain’t no black in the Union Jack’ which is based on race relations in post war Britain following a large wave of immigration from the west Indies that had promoted anxiety around immigrant behaviours. Gilroy highlights the racist attitudes that transcend the left-right political divide whilst also challenging the current sociological approaches to racism from the bias of the British cultural studies. Postcolonialism refers to specifically looking at identity and representation through the lens of Empire and Colonialism under the shadow of slavery. This references the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their land. It is a way of looking at culture critically.

Postcolonial critical thinking emerged as a distinct category in the 1990s that aimed to undermine the universalist claims that ‘great literature has a timeless and universal significance- thereby demotes or disregard cultural, social, regional and nations difference in experience and outlook’ – (Barry, 2017:194). In simple terms, how the use of literature conformed to the hegemony from those in power and deprived the oppressed through little exposure/representation. Postcolonialism challenges this by questioning the notion of a recognised and overarching canon of important cultural texts such as books, poems, plays and films which were born into an institutionalised academic syllabi.

EDWARD SAID – Concept 2: Orientalism

Orientalism is the link between culture, imperial power and colonialism. Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world – stereotypes.

‘The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming or emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism.’ – Edward Said

Said comments and says ‘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.’

The mode is characterised by ‘the desire to contain the intangibilities of the East within a western lucidity, but the gesture of appropriation only partially conceals the obsessive fear’ (Suleri, 1987:255)

Similarly, ‘the East becomes the repository or projection of those aspects of themselves which Westerners do not choose to acknowledge (cruelty, sensuality, decadence, laziness and so on). At the same time, and paradoxically, the East is seen as a fascinating realm of the exotic, the mystical and the seductive.’ (Barry, 2017:195) – Simply, western cultures will demonise the East for their cultural aspects as they are unfamiliar making the stereotype of under development or maybe a lack of awareness.

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) – showing the hypocrisy of the western power. This links to Jacques Lacan who talks about the theory of ‘The Other’.

JACQUES LACAN– Concept 3: The Other

Jacques Lacan was a French philosopher who came up with the ideology that we never really know who we are and our identity, it is impossible to see ourselves truly. His theory stems from the first time that children see themselves in the mirror and make the connection that it is their reflection in the mirror. They become self -conscious. We only get a sense of who we might be or who we could be.

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

This also links to Paul Gilroy who talk about racist attitude and anxieties surrounding immigrant behaviours as groups of people from a variety of ethnicities and cultures choose to create barriers by using plural pronouns such as ‘they’ and ‘them’ which displays distance and difference showing that ‘they’ are not who they identify with, ‘They’ are not the same as ‘us’. This is through the western colonial power.