Week 3: Post-Colonial
The theme this week is historical and epistemological contexts of postcolonial theory. The prof instructed us to focus on “questions of time and transformation as they arise.”
The readings this week explore whether we are post-colonial, and the origins of postcolonialism.
The main argument of Appiah’s essay seems to be that post-colonialism requires a rejection of colonial ideas, in the same way that post-modern is the rejection of the “universal truths” of modernism. He argues that all aspects of African culture have been influenced by colonialism, but it has not moved to rejecting the authoritative values of colonialism, hence has not begun to be postcolonial. The culture that exists is mostmodernized not postmodernist, for it is influenced by the delegitimation of realism and nationalism not because of a goal of transcending past colonial politics, but existing in the reality of dissolved nations in the wake of decolonization.
What ways can popular culture in Africa begin to be post- (colonial | modern) and why has it not begun to explicitly reject neocolonialism? Does this process have to look like postmodernism, or will a new framework better describe the movement?
Relating to time and transformation, McClintock very explicitly writes about the terms Colonial/Post-Colonial being a temporal distinction, which not only removes the axis of power (colonizer/colonized) but also ignores the multiplicity in colonial history globally and continues perpetrating othering of non-Westerners. She criticizes the term “postcolonial”, saying that it was made from a Western view as its ideas of progress (industrialization => mass-consumption) was shattered, while ignoring the ongoing cultural and political legacy of colonialism.
Mignolo shows the need to redefine the term “decolonization” from merely the seizing of the state apparatus from the colonizer to a focus on delinking from colonial ideologies, to imagining and engaging in becoming decolonial subjects and living decolonially. This can only be done by epistemically redefining the ideas of modernity and colonialism, to dewesternize culture and politics.
McClintock and Appiah scope their definitions of “postcolonial” drastically differently. Appiah has a very narrow definition of postcolonial, saying only a select group of academics who are explicitly rejecting colonial structures are acting postcolonially, which doesn’t describe the majority of cultural life in Africa. McClintock instead says that “postcolonial” has a too broad definition to be useful, that it flattens the many different experiences of colonialism around the world to a single European timeline. Mignolo never uses the term “postcolonial”, instead using “decolonial” to describe a wide range of projects that name and reject colonial structures and ideas.
In Mignolo’s definition, do decolonial actions have to be explicit in the way Appiah needs postcolonial actions to be explicit?
All of these writers agree that more nuanced theories of power must be created and spread into public consciousness, to accurately describe the (neo)colonial experience around the world, delink our thinking from colonial ideologies, and better engage in anti-colonial politics.
One point in Post-colonial/Post-modern that I found interesting is that the outcome of modernization were not a sweeping of rational thought, but instead was money finances permeating into every aspect of our personal lives, which lead to the commodification of human experience. The other writings agree that the “universal values” of modernity are not actually universal, and were used as an excuse to carry out economic exploitation.
Guha’s understanding of the West fabricating the Orient through a few influential intellectuals is repeated in Appiah’s essay, who calls these people comprador intelligentsia who present an invented view of Africa to Western culture and academia.
I also learned about chronemics, the role of time in communication. There are two main ways of discussing time culturally, monochronic time which the West uses in which one thing at a time happens in a time that is precisely segmented. Polychronic time does not have this rigid structure, and is focused on goals and events which can take however long they take. I’ve always felt much more in thy polychronic mindset, and it’s nice to have a word for this difference.
Themes:
- “postcolonial” is premature, created by Western academia, and does not accurately address the legacy of colonialism
- “postcolonial” homogenizes colonial experience, continuing the othering by the West
- “postcolonial” is not enough, new frameworks need to be created and put into power to
- Will be built up by the everyday African culture, not top down theory by
- “modernity” did not sweep the world with rational thought, nor is that a universal value
Questions
- The difference between nation, state, and nation-state. In what ways are each of these actors in the context of colonialism?
- Appiah states that the Othering Machine is not exactly racist, for example black people in America are seen in the ‘us’ category. What then is the boundary of the Othering Machine?
- How can a more accurate framework be built outside of Western academia/politics, and then have it gain power here?
- Appiah pg. 348: What does condition mean in “Postcoloniality is the condition of what we might ungenerously call a comprador intelligentsia”