Postcolonialism in theory and practice

Postcolonialism in theory and practice

focuses on concepts of Postcolonialism. Key terminology of postcolonial studies will be introduced: the Other, alterity, subaltern, Orientalism, globalisation, diaspora, mimicry, and hybridity. Postcolonial studies is a discipline that contends with the consequences of colonial and imperial power structures, specifically the relationships between the colonisers and the colonised in which issues of hegemony are paramount. By surveying key writers in postcolonial studies — Said, Fanon, Spivak, Bhabha — and works by artists that engage specifically with colonial and postcolonial discourses — Moffatt, Bell, Shonibare— this lecture will give a broad overview of the terms and concerns of postcolonialism in contemporary art practice.

1. The Other: a philosophical concept, the Other is an individual (or collective concept) that exists outside of the centre/norm; or an ‘alien’ self that is incoherent to the self. Alterity is the quality of Otherness. The subaltern: a marginalised individual or collective that exists without agency.

2. Frantz Fanon’s work in the Caribbean, France and Algeria is considered seminal for postcolonial studies. Fanon advocates for ‘total liberation’ from the rule and influence of the coloniser, and he advocates violent revolution. His theories of the coloniser/colonised relationship remain prevalent.

3. Edward Said’s book Orientalism is also a foundational text in postcolonial studies. It describes the process by which the West Others the non-West. The West (Occident: Europe/America) constructs, romanticises, stereotypes, and dominates the East (Orient: the non-West).
   
4. Diaspora: from the Greek word for ‘scatter’, diaspora refers to the migration and/or dispersion of people from their homelands. Historically, diasporic migrations have often been violent and forced.

5. Homi K. Bhabha’s concepts of mimicry, hybridity and the third space: Mimicry refers to a method of subverting assimilation and the influence of the coloniser through the ‘mis-imitation’ of colonial power. Hybridity and the ‘third space’ refer to cultural exchanges and transactions that create new spaces and possibilities for discourse beyond old essentialist colonial binaries. Most importantly these hybridised spaces blur and defy boundaries and colonial categorisations.

6. Broadly, postcolonial studies is also concerned with counter-hegemonic and anti-imperial structures and possibilities. Hegemony: an imperial domination maintained through cultural constructs of ‘natural power’; maintaining the status quo; and the power of institutions and bureaucracies (education, law, religion, consumerism, etc).