COLONIALISM/ COLONISATION Military-political conquest. Cultural conquest: archive of knowledge about the colonised; imposition of the colonisers' cultures (the better you know your enemy the better you get to control/manipulate these places. English literature was first taught in the colonies. COLONIAL DISCOURSE Construction (artificial) of the native, usually in stereotypical ways, in European narratives. This construction becomes the unquestionable ‘truth’, it can be deconstructed. The construction of the natives as ‘the other’. IMPERIALISIM Three possible meanings: 1- Governance of other lands from the metropolis throug remote control, without actual settlement. 2- System of economic exploitation and political domination (=Colonialism). 3- The ideology that recommends, implements and justifies colonial rule (If Imperialism is the THEORY, Colonialism is the PRACTICE). NEOCOLONIALISM This exploitation is achieved through: Nation-state control (politicians and governments) ; economic (banking and financial systems) and business control (multinational corporations). POSTCOLONIALITY (present day material, economic, living conditions of the former colonies) It maps a continuum between these countries’ former colonised state and their present neo-colonised one. Very often a synonym of decolonisation. DECOLONIZATION (critical methodology and political process) Read in between the lines. It implies: resistance against class, race and gender oppression; freedom from colonial forms of thinking (revival of native culture and knowledge) --> Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya): need to decolonise the mind (if you want to become fully free, you must accept your roots). POSTOCOLONIALISM A critical mode of reading. Emphasising the formerly colonised subjects’ agency in the face of on-going opression. POSTCOLONIAL THEORY Set of critical approaches, ideas and critical methodologies that enable us to disclose and question colonial/ colonising practices and structures. An essentially political / critical reading practice. COLONIAL VS. COLONIALIST Colonial = Chronological term (literature related to or dealing with the colonial period) Colonialist = Political term (literature that strives to justify the colonial enterprise, literature written by the colonisers, for the colonisers to justify this imperialist ideology). POST-COLONIAL VS. POSTOCOLONIAL Post-colonial: most often used in a chronological sense (post = after) Postcolonial: most often used in a critical/ political sense (post = anti): - Term mostly preferred by critics (umbrella term), although it poses some problems: Chronological confusion (ill-defined) Term with a wide meaning: it may apply, not only to the English-speaking world, nor only to literature. It may suggest the imposition of a monolithic or homogenising tendency (differences are understimated in order to put exclusively the focus on the common colonial experience). It may suggest subordination (postcolonial implies colonial; it is better to be ‘pre-something than ‘post’- something; it is better to belong to an autonomous catgory in one’s own right). COMMONWEALTH LITERATURE Anomalies of the term: Britain is a member of the Commonwealth; English is not the only language of the Commonwealth. ANGLOPHONE LITERATURE (JOHN SKINNER) Anglophone Literature, in combination with the terms: mother tongue and stepmother tongue. Advantages: term based on linguistic and socio-cultural factors rather than political or ideological positions; it makes up for a semantic blind spot in English: Meanings of ‘English Literature’? (literature written in English or literature written by the English). Disadvantages: the term ‘stepmother’ may have a negative connotations (stepmother = a problematic figure), however, withthe new fluidity and flexibility of contemporary family structures this term could even be positive; often in fairy-tales ‘mother’ and ‘stepmother’ are the same person, the child projects onto the stepmother her/his unresolved feelings of hostility towards her/ his biological mother. ‘mother and stepmother’ look like yet another binary construct, privileging the ‘mother’ (= white writing) as more ‘natural’ or ‘authentic. However, sometimes ‘mother tongue’ and ‘stepmother tonge’ conflate: some did not have the option of rejecting Englihs, and now English has become yet another ‘mother tonge’ of theirs. Colonialist and anti-colonialist literatures did not simply articulate colonialist or anti-colonialist preoccupations. They contribute to their making. Chinua Achebe – Nigeria --> ‘Stories define us’
