POSTCOLONIALISM

-First emerged in late 1970s; closely associated with postmodernism

-Roots lie in the works of Edward Said, who criticised the Western representation and treatment of the Orient (especially Islamic world). E.g. a single line in the Koran may be used as evidence of a general truth about all Islamic people. The result is that Western classifies the orient as inferior, irrational, depraved and primitive

-Said based his analysis on Foucault’s power/knowledge theory: that Western ppl had the power to create the knowledge about non-Europeans, and the knowledge which they created justified European domination  bunch of arrogant, self-loving, narrow-minded pigs

-These ideas spread by colonisation and became part of the colonised ppl’s understanding of themselves  remember Marxists’ and feminists’ false consciousness

Definitions relating to postcolonialism

-Imperialism: the influence (commercial exploitation) by one nation over other parts of the world using political, legal and military power to control

-Colonialism refers to one specific way that imperialism works: the settlement of one group of people in a new territory

-Decolonisation: the process by which former colonies become autonomous political entities; postcolonialists look at the impact of colonisation and the process of establishing post-colonial institutions and culture which still retain traces of the now-departed coloniser

-Hybridity: when the coloniser departs, the colonised do not return to their pre-colonised institutions or social organisation – postcolonial culture is a hybrid of the two

Decolonisation in Australia?

-Although Oz law may try to incorporate indigenous customary law and concepts such as land title, it does not confer any authority or legitimacy on such law in its own right, but subsumes it within the dominant legal system so it becomes consistent w/ the dominant structure of law

Some postcolonial themes

-The effects which colonisation and decolonisation have had on both the colonisers and the ppl who were colonised

-The exploration of ideas left behind in decolonised societies and how these impact on the development of these post-colonisation societies

-Whether decolonisation should take the form of a radical re-establishment of pre-colonial culture and institutions

-The nature of the national identities which emerge after colonisers leave

-The extent to which the military/political domination which characterised the colonial period has been replaced by new forms of domination in the form of economic imperialism or globalisation.

Davies:

-Subjects and objects: if you weren’t a subject, you were an object and on a continuum with nature – not only women but black people were associated with nature, and like nature, can be controlled, mastered and enslaved

  • But this is the WESTERN concept of nature (that it can be controlled and so on), which obviously is not a universal perception!

-International law allegedly based on natural law, governed relations b/w ‘sovereign’, ‘civilised’ European nations, but NOT concerned with colonised territories

-Natural law is appealing to colonisers because it is a very powerful justification for an absolute right (authority of Christian god) Acquina

  • But whose view of nature? The Whites’ obviously

-Australia Terra nullius: merely constructs a new fiction – NT – w/i the framework of Western law (a westernised version of indigenous law)

  • HCt used the justification – an act of state – to undermine the aboriginal community (same as Nazis in the attempted genocide of the Jews)

-The prevailing law in Western world is POSITIVISM – it excludes questions about its own existence; it excludes from the idea or concept of law any law which isn’t institutionalised after a Western model

  • On this basis, Aboriginal law does not have to be acknowledged and Western law is self-justified and assumed to be valid.

-Postcolonialism – describe cultures where colonial rule had formally ended but ALSo the continuation of colonialism in the consciousness of the formerly colonised ppl, and in the institutions which were imposed in the process of colonisation.

  • Effects of colonialism have become an INEXTRICABLE part of the culture and of its legal, educational and political institutions
  • The colonial state still serves as a REFERENCE POINT in local discourse
  • How culture and subjectivity are affected by the distinctive experiences of colonialism and its aftermath – CLASH of cultures

-Some continue to enjoy privileges and benefits of colonisers (white Australians)

-The non-Wester “OTHER”

  • What is the “truth” – link to Foucault’s concept of power and knowledge – Whites have the power to tell the “truth” about its object (what judges say is accepted as true because they have the power to do so)
  • They were able to create this knowledge as Western institutions had the power to create it about non-Europeans. The knowledge they created justified their domination
  • Colonisation process spread these ideas to the colonised world & became part of the colonised people’s understanding of themselves

-Colonised ppl TORN b/w two cultures – HYBRIDITY (identities which aren’t single or stable)

-This can lead to SUBVERSION – the creation and celebration of new identities and new ways of being (cross cultural) e.g. indian movies and music include English words

WHITENESS

-White studies are undertaking mostly by White people – talking about “ourselves”, the “poor us” syndrome

-Whiteness is usually associated with moral goodness and purity while coloured (esp black) associated with evil and moral degeneracy

-White ppl don’t even identify themselves as White or racial – taking for granted the privilege it confers and are rarely forced to question it.

  • Whiteness is a transparent quality when whites interact w/ whites
  • “colour-blindness” or “race-neutrality”
  • Whites have the power to define what is “neutral”, “rational”, take this power away, we are left with a mere PERSPECTIVE of the world

Problem…

-we claim our law is colour-blind/race-neutral: if we are not even conscious of our whiteness, let alone the social norms which might flow from it, how can we be so sure that any “race neutral” concept or decision is in fact so, rather than simply being an expression of white dominance, the whiteness of which is invisible???

Aspects of Whiteness:

-that it is invisible as a race

-that it carries hierarchical power

-that property value flows from whiteness

-it is associated with power to define the world

-the liberal self (which is regarded as the norm and is adopted throughout the world) is the Western white male.

-Whiteness has attracted formal legal rights, right to exclude

-White liberal values, as a result of colonialism have prevailed – taken for granted and regarded as normal

CRITICISMS

-Postcolonialism assumes that there is a single set of characteristics which defines the intersection of colonising and colonised cultures

-Masks the continuing oppression of ppl through reliance on Western theory – Western academia remains the primary source of postcolonial theorising

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