Postcolonialism

Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands.

At the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been instilled into the veins of Europe and, slowly but surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery. ~ Aimé Césaire

Post colonialism can be described as a powerful interdisciplinary mood in the social sciences and humanities that is refocusing attention on the imperial/colonial past, and critically revising understanding of the place of the west in the world. ~ Daniel Clayton

Quotes

• Bond and Gilliam's Social Construction of the Past (1994) focuses on how historical reconstructions are crucial elements in the process of domination, subjugation, resistance, and collusion. This volume is sympathetic to the indigenous reclamation of subjugated views and demonstrates the ways in which power and economic domination establish one rendering of history and culture as objective and ethically neutral and brandish another as subjective and partisan: "Colonialism provides the immediate touchstone and background against which many post-colonial scholars and leaders have pursued strategies to reclaim their past and assert their individual and national identities."
  • Bond and Gilliam's Social Construction of the Past (1994) ,3 , quoted from Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 13

• First we must study how colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism; and we must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact, each time a little girl is raped and in France they accept the fact, each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread; and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and interrogated, all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been instilled into the veins of Europe and, slowly but surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery.
  • Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism (1955), as translated by Joan Pinkham (1972), pp. 35-36

• Post colonialism can be described as a powerful interdisciplinary mood in the social sciences and humanities that is refocusing attention on the imperial/colonial past, and critically revising understanding of the place of the west in the world.
  • Daniel Clayton, "Chapter 18: Critical Imperial and Colonial Geographies", (2003): in Anderson, Kay, Domosh, Mona, Pile, Steve, Thrift, Nigel (eds.); Handbook of Cultural Geography. Sage, London, pp. 354–368.

• If you look, you're sure going to find
  Through mankind's history
  A colonized mind.
  The one in power makes law
  Under which the colonized fall.
  • Prince, "Colonized Mind", Lotusflow3r, (2009)

See also

• Christianity and colonialism
• Colonialism
• Colony
• Decolonisation of Africa
• Empire
• Imperialism
• Neocolonialism
• Scramble for Africa
• Slavery