Postcolonialism

Meanings, Controversies, and Criticisms

Although it is unusual to begin the discussion of a topic with the controversies and criticisms surrounding it, highlighting at least three controversies that haunt postcolonialism will help clarify what postcolonialism means. The first controversy focuses on the dissimulations and the political acceptability of the term postcolonial in Western academic circles. Some scholars suggest that the prefix post in postcolonial implies that we are now past the era of colonialism, global dominance, and hegemony. The term is thus preferred and has gained currency in Western academia because it is politically less threatening than terms such as neocolonialism, imperialism, and the Third World. Postcolonial scholars have challenged this misconception and stated in no uncertain terms that post-colonial does not imply the end of colonization: Rather, postcolonialism enables us to examine both the historical continuities and ruptures with classical colonialism.

The second controversy raises questions regarding the spatial parameters of postcolonialism. Should all societies that were once colonized be included under the umbrella term postcolonial? Should the United States, Australia, and South Africa, which had an experience of being both colonized and colonizers, be included with other post-colonial societies such as India, Senegal, and Brazil? In other words, are there specific features of the “truly” postcolonial countries that help us distinguish them from non–postcolonial ones, or is postcolonial a catchall word? On this issue, some postcolonial scholars suggest that while it is important to discuss the differences in the particular colonial histories, all colonizing practices, including the contemporary colonizing practices of nation-states, can be included under the term postcolonial.

The third controversy focuses on the allegedly culturalist focus of the postcolonialists and their neglect of materialist concerns. Critics accuse post-colonial scholars of neglecting traditional Marxist issues such as capitalism, poverty, and inequality and focusing too much on issues of concern to the poststructuralists, such as representation, identity, and culture. While some postcolonial scholars are guilty of focusing solely on culturalist concerns, most suggest that culturalist and material issues are mutually embedded. For them, isolating materialist from culturalist concerns would be a serious analytical shortcoming of any scholarship. For example, scholars like Edward Said, demonstrating the cultural underpinnings of classical imperialism, have suggested that the success of imperialism would not have been possible without the dissimulations affected by the cultural constructions of African, Asian, and American peoples as the savage, uncivilized “others.” Calls for mission civilisatrice (the civilizing mission) and “the White man's burden” not only obscured the violence and exploitation engendered by colonization, they were also successful in legitimizing the colonial enterprise.

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