The term ‘postcolonial’ first appeared in its composite form in the Oxford English Dictionary of 1959 and without hyphen in the American Heritage Dictionary of 1959. It refers to the field of study which came into being by enlarging the field of English studies to include American studies and more contemporary national and regional literatures such as Australian, Canadian or Caribbean literatures. Though the postcolonial studies may be said to have emerged with the writings such as Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978) and Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin’s The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post Colonial Literature (1989), it was things like the Algerian and Vietnam wars, the Black Power Movement in the United States of America, the rise of the Women’s movement, and anti-war radicalism etc. that set the social agenda for it.
The postcolonial text has been considered intertextual in that it represents the interplay of two types of discourses: colonial and post-colonial. Postcolonialism rises against the Eurocentric culture, offering redefinitions of both East and West and dealing with such issues as otherness, de-centralisation, ex/centric, centre/periphery, national identity, vocabularies of power etc.
John McLeod attempts to define post colonialism as a reading mode that undertakes to fulfill the following three functions or three ways of interpretation:
Reading texts produced by writers from countries with a history of colonialism, primarily those texts concerned with the workings and legacy of colonialism in either the past or the present.
Reading texts produced by those that have migrated from countries with a history of colonialism, or those descended from migrant families, which deal in the main with diaspora experience and its many consequences.
In the light of theories of colonial discourses, re-reading texts produced during colonialism; both those that directly address the experiences of Empire, and those that seem not to.
Edward Said continues Foucault in asserting that no discourse is stable, absolutely true and autonomous; the way in which Western writings construct the image of the Orient is analysed in the stereotypes it produces. Well aware that discourse can shape or distort the image of the Other, he deals with the process of representation as an “imagining process” which finally becomes a tool of power. His work Orientalism represents a warning against false representations, against cultural prejudices and stereotypes exemplifying his theory with false Western representations of the Orient, focusing upon the non-European, former Western colonies.
Following the same directions, Homi Bhabha declares himself in favour of a “reconstruction of the subject” beyond misrepresentations and stereotypes that he minutely analyses by critically taking into account an entire “apparatus of power”.
Concerns of Postcolonial Literature
Reclaiming Spaces and Places
Colonialism was, above all, a means of claiming and exploiting foreign lands, resources, and people. Enslavement, indentured labour, and migration forced many indigenous populations to move from the places that they considered “home”. Postcolonial literature attempts to counteract their resulting alienation from their surroundings by restoring a connection between indigenous people and places through description, narration, and dramatization.
Cultural Integrity
During colonization, the indigenous cultures of those countries subjected to foreign rule were often side lined, suppressed, and openly denigrated in favour of elevating the social and cultural preferences and conventions of the colonizers. In response, much postcolonial literature seeks to assert the richness and validity of indigenous cultures in an effort to restore pride in practices and traditions that were systematically degraded under colonialism.
Also Read: Postcolonialism and Key Points in Postcolonial Theory
Revising History
Colonizers often depicted their colonial subjects as existing “outside of history” in unchanging, timeless societies, unable to progress or develop without their intervention and assistance. In this way, they justified their actions, including violence against those who resisted colonial rule. Revising history to tell things from the perspective of those colonized is thus a major preoccupation of postcolonial writing.
Characteristics of Postcolonial Literature
Resistant Descriptions
Postcolonial writers use detailed descriptions of indigenous people, places, and practices to counteract or “resist” the stereotypes, inaccuracies, and generalizations which the colonizers circulated in educational, legal, political, and social texts and settings.
Appropriation of Colonizers’ Language
Although many colonized countries are home to multiple indigenous languages—in India, for example, more than 12 languages exist alongside English—many postcolonial writers choose to write in the colonizers’ “tongue”. However, authors such as Arundhati Roy deliberately play with English, remoulding it to reflect the rhythms and syntax of indigenous languages, and inventing new words and styles to demonstrate mastery of a language that was, in a sense, forced upon them.
Reworking Colonial Art
Similarly, authors such as Arundhati Roy rework European art-forms like the novel to reflect indigenous modes of invention and creation. They reshape imported colonial art-forms to incorporate the style, structure, and themes of indigenous modes of creative expression, such as oral poetry and dramatic performances.
Nationalism
Postcolonial writers are really interested in nationhood and nationalism. A lot of these writers are very patriotic. They write books on behalf of their nations.
The field of Postcolonial Studies has been gaining prominence since the 1970s. Its date is approximately established by Western academy in 1978, the moment when Orientalism, Edward Said’s influential critique of Western constructions of the Orient, was published. The growing currency within the academy of the term “postcolonial” (sometimes hyphenated) was consolidated by the appearance in 1989 of The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. Since then, the use of cognate terms “Commonwealth” and “Third World” that were used to describe the literature of Europe’s former colonies has become rarer. Although there is considerable debate over the precise parameters of the field and the definition of the term “postcolonial,” in a very general sense, it is the study of the interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized in the modern period. The European empire is said to have held sway over more than 85% of the rest of the globe by the time of the First World War, having consolidated its control over several centuries.
