Welcome Readers,
Colonialism is one of the main aspects of the experiences shared by the Asian and African countries in past. The European nations have established much of their power, control on these Asian and African lands and also have ruled these lands by establishing colonies. There was a physical occupation by colonies in the 19th -20th century which is studies today as a part of history. Nowadays, colonialism exists in different forms in the economic and corporate sectors.
Though it varies in terms of perspectives and subject matter, a new body of discourse that emerged as the text/ Course had shared critical observations with the support of a single common reference point.
Postcolonialism, as a branch of the discipline which tries to throw a very deep and accurate insight into the oppression and exploitation of the native counties by the colonies of European countries. The past few decades have observed numerous narratives on 'Empire Writes Back' which can be labelled as 'postcolonialism'.
Postcolonialism is broadly concerned with -
Ania Loomba - Colonialism- Postcolonialism
Ania Loomba in her work titled Colonialism- Postcolonialism states the definition of Colonialism thought in a general way by the white people in their own dictionary. To situate the study and practice of colonialism and postcolonialism, she inquires the very meaning a discourse of the words- Colonialism and imperialism, according to her, are often used interchangeably.
Colonialism not only enabled oppression but also widened the modes of representation in their literature portraying these countries as backward and portraying the subject matter as the one who demands to be refined in one or the other way. As per Ania Loomba's argument, the word colonialism, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), comes from the Roman ‘Colonia’ means ‘farm’ or ‘settlement’, and referred to Romans who settled in other lands but still retained their citizenship. Accordingly, the OED describes it as:
"a settlement in a new country … a body of people who settle in a new locality, forming a community subject to or connected with their parent state; the community so formed, consisting of the original settlers and their descendants and successors, as long as the connection with the parent state is kept up." (Loomba, 7)
Now Ania Loomba had made an inquiry into this very definition and is a question the discourse of the language which is again hugely problematic for understanding the subject because here the language is Prejudiced. The definition is from the colonizers' point of view and it centres around the Hence, says Loomba, it evacuates the word ‘colonialism’ of any implication of an encounter between peoples, or of conquest and domination.
The process of ‘forming a community’ in the new land necessarily meant un-forming or re-forming the communities that existed there already, and involved a wide range of practices including trade, plunder, negotiation, warfare, genocide, enslavement, and rebellions. (Loomba, 8)
As a result of which emerged a new critically theoretical approach in literary and cultural studies, which more importantly designated a politics of transformational resistance to unjust and unequal forms of political and cultural authority which extends back across the 20th century and beyond. Loomba questions whether it was a settlement or unsettlement? Wasn't it an encroachment of somebody's space? Are they forming a community or are they disturbing the community?
So Ania Loomba is questioning at the beginning of the text, the very nature of human-made language. It situates and locates the discourse of postcolonialism and questions the mechanism of colonialism in the historical process.
The word 'post' in postcolonialism has certain significance and is often misunderstood in the sense that it is a discourse as a reaction began after the colonies flew away. Ashcroft in his work, The Empire Writes Back believes ‘post-colonial’ covers all the culture affected by the imperial process from the moment of colonization to the present day. This is because there is a continuity of preoccupations throughout the historical process initiated by European imperial aggression. Hence, it's not the reaction of the subject after colonialism ended, in fact, postcolonialism began from the day the British/French landed or the from the day the colonizers landed.
Ania Loomba is questioning the definition as well as questions the interpretation and views the binary of language. It also sheds some light on the text further clarifies that literary text not simply reflect dominant ideological beliefs but takes into consideration the complexities and nuances within the colonial culture it also portrays how the other culture creates new genre literature is made of language and everything is a game of language. Loomba's text further sheds light on the environmental issues and concerns as a part of the discourse of Postcolonial Studies. Furthermore, Globalization globalization carries overwhelming connotations of cosmopolitanism, of the dissolution of national boundaries, of the free flow of capital, labour, and benefits across the confines of locally vested interests.
‘Globalization is just another name for submission and domination’
Loomba also explains the ‘market fundamentalism’ as a critique of globalization and deep insight into the development and capitalism.
'Language and literature are together implicated in constructing the binary of a European self and a non-European other is a part of the creation of the colonial authority.'
There is a direct connection between literature and colonialism. if England is also female, and if the imperial project is carried out in the name of a female monarch (in this case Elizabeth I), colonial relations cannot be projected always or straightforwardly in terms of patriarchal or heterosexual domination. These tensions between the female monarch, the male colonists, and colonized people were to be revisited and reworked during the heyday of British imperialism when Victoria was Empress. (Loomba, 70)
The text also discusses some new challenges for postcolonial studies, especially those raised by considerations of globalization, the environment, and a new global economic crisis. Globalization has dramatically changed the world.
Globalization, they argued, cannot be analyzed using concepts like margins and centers that were so central to postcolonial studies. Contemporary economies, politics, cultures, and identities are all better described in terms of transnational networks, regional and international flows, and the dissolution of geographic and cultural borders, paradigms which are familiar to postcolonial critics but which were now invoked to suggest a radical break with the narratives of colonization and decolonization. (Loomba, 9)
Conclusion-
Postcolonialism has sought and still seeks to reclaim agency and significance for people from the non-European world that are the people belonging to native countries like Asia and Africa who were formerly colonized and for the text and other cultural productions through which they have defined themselves.
References-
Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/postcolonialism. Routledge, 2015.
Loomba, Ania. Situating colonial and postcolonial studies. na, 1998.
Lydon, Jane, and Uzma Z. Rizvi, eds. Handbook of postcolonial archaeology. Vol. 3. Routledge, 2016.
Thank you.
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