Postcolonialism is a term largely used to refer to all the cultures affected by the imperial process from the time of Colonization to our own time. Postcolonialism means ongoing issues and debates between East and West since the colonial process started. Marxism and Poststructuralism have been a major influence on thinkers from Fanon to Gayatri Spivak. Postcolonialism tries to decenter/deconstruct Eurocentrism or Eurocentric beliefs.
Postcolonialism critically examines the relationship between the colonizers and colonized, from the earliest days of exploration and colonization. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of ‘discourse’, Gramsci’s notion of ‘hegemony’, and Derrida’s ‘deconstruction’ postcolonialism focuses on the role of texts, literary and otherwise in the colonial enterprise. It examines how these texts construct the colonizers (Masculine) as superior and colonized (effeminate) as inferior. To be fair Said has responded positively to some of the criticism made of him. In recent years he has looked more closely at resistance to Orientalism, covered in his book ‘Orientalism Reconsidered’ and ‘Culture and Imperialism’. However, it would be unfair to conclude that just because Said does not venture into the latter territory he necessarily suggests that the colonialist discourse is all pervasive. Foucault’s own work suggests that domination and resistance are inextricably linked. Foucault himself has been criticized by Gayatri Spivak for not paying attention to colonial expansion as a feature of European civil society or how colonialism may have affected the power/knowledge system of the modern European state. Hence to put it in a nutshell we cannot disregard Said’s contribution to literary studies. He opened the way for various critics, such as Spivak and Bhabha to explore their theories. His book Orientalism served as a monument to postcolonial studies.
No comments: