POSTCOLONIAL LITERATURE

What kind of textual practises do postcolonial writers deploy to challenge the representation of the colonized subject as 'Other' in colonist history?



What kind of textual practises do postcolonial writers deploy to challenge the representation of the colonized subject as 'Other' in colonist history?

Background

There are a significant number of literary texts that are written from both a feminist and post-colonial standpoint. These texts often share views on the individuality and disparity of the subject ? as well as agreeing on shared strategies of resistance against dictatorial external forces. (Guha 1997) This suggests that the colonised space in feminist discourse is the vulnerable female body ? thus reflecting the fertile ? productive nature of both body and place ? which has the power to yield crop but also to destroy it. Both are capable of ruthlessness if forced to it ? as is the case in Toni Morrison's novel Beloved ? where the ex-slave Sethe is forced to commit infanticide ? in order to save her child from the untold horrors of colonialism. In this paper we will be discussing Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhw with respect to colonialism. (Pratt 1994) In this paper we will be discussing the kind of textual practises do postcolonial writers deploy to challenge the representation of the colonized subject as 'Other' in colonist history.

Introduction

Materialist postcolonial scholars understand colonialism to be a territorial expression of political-economic expansionism. Its foundations in domination ? appropriation ? and exploitation place the colonizer and colonized populations in a fundamentally antagonistic relationship that Fanon famously described as "Manichean." Deconstructionists tend instead to understand colonialism as a cultural ? epistemological ? or psychological condition ? and they perceive its political dimension as a "will to power" that operates autonomously of material determinants. In general ? deconstructionists regard Fanon's Manicheanism as a binary opposition that requires breaking down. Accordingly ? they interpret colonial dynamics as ambivalent ? indeterminate ? or negotiated. (Anderson 1991)

Discussion

The Concept of “Others” in Postcolonial Literature

All practitioners share an understanding that colonies played a constitutive role in the emergence and development of metropolitan Europe. These global dependencies have been studied in all spheres of human activity: (Bhabha 1994) cultural ? economic ? subject-formation. Ann Laura Stoler and “others” have developed Foucault's ideas of power/knowledge ? discourse ? and governmentality. This Foucauldian wing analyzes the production and regulation of colonial identities through modes of government ? sexuality and gender ? and educational systems. Colonial discourse analysis is concerned with knowledge production by various agencies of empire about colonized "“others”" (travel writers ? missionaries ? administrators ? merchants ? ethnographers ? and so forth). Some practitioners emphasize the "epistemic violence" performed by these discourses; “others” emphasize their self-deconstructive qualities. (Fanon 1968)

Materialists analyze historical anticolonial nationalist resistance as a collective and liberatory struggle for self-determination; deconstructionists analyze it as a master narrative derived from and complicit with the West. The Western source is ? for some deconstructionist thinkers ? the Enlightenment ? for “others” ? humanism ? for “others” ? (Pratt 1994)colonialism ? ...