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ANGLOPHONE LITERATURE
Modern diasporas and the representation of immigrants in Anglophone literature. Italy is certainly one of the countries of this phenomenon. Colonialism and Post colonialism is the background of the phenomenon that we are going to analyse. ▫ Mohsin Hamid, a Pakistan writer, represents in “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” the “other” and the Oriental ▫ Amitav Ghosh, an Indian author, writes “Sea of Poppies”, that is a novel about Indian colonialism. ▫ Leila Aboudela, a South-African writer, who wrote “Bird summons”. She lives nowadays between UK and Abu Dhabi. THE BRITISH EMPIRE (a short history) In Britain = First of all the British Empire extended all over the world and is the largest empire ever, by mass rather than by population. It is important to be aware that colonialism happened also in British Isles. The empire started in England and in Ireland, therefore we don’t define it “English”, but “British”. The British empire officially was born in 1707, when the Union of Parliament of Scotland and England took place: Scotland gave up its own Parliament in Edinburgh and united with England into the UK. The upper classes were concerned, there was a consensus. The two countries competed each other and even though England was powerful and richer, Scotland still represented a sort of competition, it was a tiny empire. The two countries decided to join forces in order to conquer the world. It was not an easy process; some people define it “internal colonisation”. The northern western origin of Scotland was unhappy with the union, they thought that union would have damaged them economically, they supported Jacobitism, which was about restoring Stuart dynasty on the throne of Great Britain. Jacobitism, not Jacobinism, came from Jacobus, Latin form of James (a common name in the Stuart family). The union was not an easy process, in fact there were areas that resisted to this event. In 1715 and in 1745, there were two dramatic tragic crisis: two civil wars (not Scottish VS English, but British against British, there were supporters of Stuart dynasty and supporters of Hannover dynasty, the monarchy), that were very painful, caused lots of deaths and negative consequences in particular for the Northern of Scotland. In 1745 the empire took off with the Pax Britannica. There was a sort of colonialism against the Scottish island, that was imposed to have a new language, a new political system, a new social system (the traditional language and way of life were made illegal, there was a denigration). In Ireland = Another history more complicated and dramatic is Ireland. Ireland was really regarded by Britain as a colony and a difficult colony because was a trade and political enemy. Ireland became part of the United Kingdom in 1801, with Irish Act of Union. Ireland becomes part of the United Kingdom and the upper classes were happy to sign the treaty, but the majority of people were not. There were rebellions and violence. The Parliament in Dublin was abolished, the Anglican church took over and no Catholics were allowed to hold public office and a political career. Irish also benefit from British empire and Scotland, too. For example, Scottish benefit from the exploitation of the African slaves in the Caribbean, nowadays in Jamaica we can find Irish town and name of colonisers. The ideology and policy of British empire shaped not only great part of the world, but also shaped the British Isles. The imperialism was not invented by British, ancient empire (Roman empire or Chinese empire) did it before the British existed. In modern age, there was a continuity with the ancient past, but a number of things happened and shaped this empire to a new direction. By the 19th century the British empire was the largest existed empire. Imperialism didn’t characterize only the United Kingdom, but other countries, too. Most European countries partake in this enterprise: French empire, Spanish-Portuguese empire, German empire, Italy empire with Mussolini, Nederland empire. Britain’s imperial century is from 1815 to 1914. By the 19th century: British Empire emerged as largest imperial power By the 20th century: British Empire ruled ¼ of the earth’s surface Before 1707, there was a ENGLISH empire and after 1707 it became BRITISH empire, Scottish empire was a tiny empire. Without the contribution of the Scots and the Irish, the British empire wouldn’t have done so much such a short time. The British empire was quite effective and efficient. How did England get so much power? From the Elizabeth period, with the first explorers begun a gradually develop. There were several strategies that England used to gain the control over the world: one of them was the Navigation Act, very efficient. it was like imposing a system of taxes, paid by anyone who wanted to trade between England and the colonies. Therefore, England gained the control of the main ship routes and did not allow anyone else to use the routes: ▫ The English Navigation Act: laws which restricted the use of foreign shipping and trade between England and the colonies;
▫ The Navigation Act of 1660: 50 years before the union of Parliament, require that all the European goods bound for America had to be shipped through England and the European countries had to pay taxes. In England, the goods would be unloaded, inspected, paid duties, and reloaded. Scotland also paid the same duty. In this way they manage to control the routes, to earn a lot of money and become more powerful: it was harmful, but efficient. British empire was a quite large empire, which included several colonies in the US before the declaration of independence. Scotland empire was tiny, limited to a couple of trading post in Africa and India. Scotland invested an enormous amount of money because it decided that Darien (Panama) would have been a splendid and useful strategic point, but for several reasons, this expedition failed miserably: all the ships died and there was also a financial disaster. This was the beginning of the end of Scotland independence. In 1763 the number of colonies has grown exponentially, the British empire became larger and larger and the 1815 is the beginning of the imperial century (nowadays there are several British Overseas Territories, that are not colony, but has a special relationship with the contemporary UK). The British empire stretch to include many different countries, conquered in different time, in different way and with very different strategies, which involved military occupation, trade (peacefully).. It’s difficult to generalize: the British empire was an enormous machine, that involved very different kind of relationship and actions. Generally speaking, like all the imperialism, it was wrong: no one has the right to occupy, conquer countries and exploit them. The chart represents the most dramatic, tragic and horrible chapter of the British imperial history: the exploitation of Africa slaves in the American colonies (Northern America or Caribbean). The chart gives a very clear idea at the glance of what the British empire was about. It shows how slaves were channelled from the cost of Africa to the colonies, their implantation: they produce sugar in the Caribbean, cotton or other things, then the produce was sent to Britain where it was turn into manufacturing, that was sold to the colonies. (e.g. the cotton that was produced in Britain pretend sold back to Caribbean, the same cotton would have been used to dress the slaves). This caused a mass migration: the millions of African slaves displayed on another continent to work there. That was the mass migration, generated by the new economic system introduced by the British and other European empires. The world where we live in is a large outcome has been largely shaped by European empires between the 18th and the 19th century. Both in terms of mass displacement of people, it changes traditional ways of life in the world and made migration necessary. The imperial century is not just about economic, ideology, like racism (African were sent to work because they are inferior than an imperial civilisation and they need a civilization),that is developed between 18th and 19th century and it’s pragmatic, without that the British empire would have happened. There was a huge impact in cultural, legal, linguistic terms at a global level. There were an ideology and ways of representing reality: the second aspect is about cultural things, literature. Imperial century was an age of a widespread religious belief: British very much like the other nations. “Belief” is a key word that they were acting guided and protected by God. The Anglican Church is important. Today Britain is a secular country. In the 19th century was the King or the Queen, who was the head of the Church, the head of the state and whose action were guided by God. Britain believed that God protected the British empire from invasion and helped with its commercial and territorial expansion, this power came directly from God. This ideology was very important and powerful. The British empire reached its climax in 1922, when covered about ¼ of the Earth’s total area and millions of people were affected by the empire. it had a huge impact in cultural, legal, linguistic, economic and political terms at a global level, in main countries. The decline The decline started with the World War 2, because of a number of reasons. This war was a global war, France and Britain played an important role, their armies included soldiers, who came from all over the world (Africa, Australia and other colonies), they were recruited, called to arms and had to fight for Britain. This certainly was a traumatic experience, but also important as far as soldiers went back home with a stronger sense of identity: this gradually brought to independent movement throughout the British empire. it really started in world war 2, when Britain couldn’t any longer control its colonies around the world, that wanted more and more their independence. Another reason was the fact that after the WW2 Britain wasn’t so powerful at the global level as it was in the previous century. The US was the most powerful nation and that’s the reason why the British empire started to decline. It’s a complex mixture of reasons that cause the slow decrease of the British empire. With the decrease of the empire started also the gradual process of decolonisation. The decolonisation took very different shapes and forms in the different colonies of the empire: in some countries it was characterized by military violence, by torture
religion, a kind of education, a way of life or behaviour) was a way of controlling these countries in an effective form. French and British empires were the largest and did this kind of exploitation of country and natives, but also smaller empire, such as Belgium, did it. TWO BRITISH POSTERS FROM 1927
- It’s a poster that show the visual strategies of the British empire in order to advertise the empire and the colonisation, how the empire and the “others” were represented. In the poster are used bright colours, that indicates something exotic, foreign population. The two natives with a dark skin colour seem happy and smiling. They are exotic and represented as “others” different from British people. The clothes that the persons is wearing, are exotic, too. It indicates the distinction of us and them. “Growing markets for our goods” indicate Britain as a money- making machine; “our goods” represent “us”, the “growing market” represents the capitalist view, the process of becoming more richer and richer. “Jungle today are gold mines tomorrow”: human resources and natural resources are the same things that British should exploit in order to increase the empire.
- “Buy empire goods from home and overseas” indicates that raw materials and goods were processed in Britain and then sold to the colonies. It’s a flat map that represents the whole world, it gives an idea of the control and the greatness of the empire. Great Britain is in the middle of the map and it represents the central position of the powerful Britain. Britain is represented as the centre of the world. IMPERIALISM OR COLONIALISM? Imperialism and colonialism are different practises. Both terms today, in 21st century, in most countries, have a negative connotation: imperialism and colonialism are not described as good practises; they involve violence, submitting countries and people. Imperialism is about a policy (it’s more specific), in which a strong nation seeks to dominate other countries, takes control over a country politically, economically and socially. It’s from a Latin word, “imperium”. Imperialism is a little more abstract word and focus on the political practise. Colonialism: on the Oxford English Dictionary, it is “The practice or manner of things colonial" and often serves as a synonym for “provincial”. Colonialism is the practise, what happen when imperialism is implemented. This is the main distinction between imperialism and colonialism: theory and practise; policy and practise. One of the definitions of colonialism is “The colonial system or principle. Now freq. used in the derogatory sense of an alleged policy of exploitation of backward or weak peoples by a large power”. As far as the etymology concern, the word comes from the Latin colonia (colony), that refers to “farmer, cultivator, planter, or settler in a new country”. it’s not just referred to the job, but to an imperialist practise. It was a practise of the Roman empire, but it was also enforced by the British empire. as far as Ireland concern, today the north of Ireland belongs to UK and the south of Ireland is independent: the reason why this happened was due to the colonial strategy implemented by United Kingdom. They sent protestant planters in Northern Ireland, they settled there and created the protestant majority that still exist today in Northern Ireland. Latin "colonia” indicates “farm”, “landed estate”, “settlement”: it can be a neutral term, but it can refer to a colonial practise, it depends on the contest. A related term is “colonial”, it has two different meaning: it can refer to something related to the past (romantic or nostalgia), or in a modern and contemporary English it has a derogatory meaning, if you are colonial, you are provincial, come from the margin. INTERSECTION WITH IMPERIALISM Imperialism goes hand in hand with CAPITALISM (Economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit), they depend on each other, and NATIONALISM, a Chauvinistic Nationalism (The belief that people should be loyal mainly to their nation – that is, to the people with whom they share a culture and a history, rather than to a king or ruler). Nationalism is not necessarily Chauvinistic, it’s not necessarily about defining your community, your country in terms that are grounded on race, religion, being born in a place; but there are nationalism that are inclusive and really constructed in terms of a community, which can be inclusive and not exclusive.
In the 19th century in Europe the kind of nationalism was exclusive and constructed in terms of race, origin and so on. That kind of extreme exclusive nationalism acts as a fuel for imperialism; in a certain sense, the imperialism is the bad expression of nationalism or the expression of a bad kind of nationalism. The kind of nationalism that you find, is a quite cryptic in the poster described before: it’s the belief that we are the centre of the world, we are superior we control the world. Nationalism is grounded on an idea of superiority and therefore on the right, to rule over the other people, who are represented as backward, savages. Capitalism is the machine, which supports and generate imperialism, and chauvinistic nationalism, that is the ideological fuel that is necessary in this enterprise. Imperialism is about exploiting ruthlessly millions of people, but having a good moral reason doing it. Thomas Carlyle He was a very well-known Scottish writer, philosopher, mathematician, based in London, he was an eclectic intellectual of the 19th century, one of the most influential intellectual. In the “Edinburgh Review”, printed in Edinburgh: “We remove mountains, and make seas our smooth highway; nothing can resist us. We war with rude nature; and by our restless engines, come off always victorious and loaded with spoils (bottino)”. This a representation of the British empire: it indicates the sense of superiority of the British. The representation of the “others” is often offensive and always related to nature: they are described as not fully human,. Carlyle described the nature, but not as the desiderated nature of the romanticism; the nature that he’s speaking about, is the violent nature. It means that British are invincible, nothing can resist them, not even the nature can stop them. There is also a clear reference to the industrial revolution, with the word “restless engines”; and a reference to the sense of superiority and the exploitation with the use of “we”. It is represented the big gap between the colonisers and the colonised. This strategy is very powerful in order to increase the ideology of superiority. Imperialism, capitalism, industrialisation are mutually dependent events. POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES Postcolonialism or Postcolonial refers by necessity to what comes after colonialism, the legacy of colonialism. Historically speaking, it’s what happens to the colonies once they become independent, in terms of society, politics, literature, cultures. It involves all aspect the human life (there are also literally effect). There are two ways to write Postcolonialism: ▫ without hyphen, that refers to a world where the formal age of colonialism is over, but there is a sort of continuity, new forms of colonialism, that are still there and there is something that is still going on; ▫ With hyphen, that indicates the separation between the two period. This term involves and covers many and different part of the world, different histories, ethnic groups and countries. There generalization is risky, but it’s useful because allow us to make comparisons to understand how certain things are different in different parts of the world. Who is postcolonial? Any population that has been subjected to the political domination of another population. It refers not only to British empire, but also other empires. Postcolonial Studies = analyses literature produced by cultures that developed in response to colonial domination. It includes some literature written by colonisers such as: ▫ William Shakespeare = he lived during the Elizabethan Era in which the British Empire took shape. His references to imperialism are present in the text “The Tempest”, set in an exotic island in the Caribbean ▫ Daniel Defoe = with his “Robinson Crusoe”, set in a similar part of the world of “Tempest” and it’s about the colonial relationship between Crusoe and Friday ▫ Rudyard Kipling = a Victorian writer who created “The jungle book”, set in India The focus of these studies is exploring the literature written by coloniser, while that of colonised people are: ▫ Chinua Achebe, from Nigeria ▫ Wole Soyinka, from Kenya, one of the first African writer to be awarded of Nobel prize They are two examples of the African literature in English, these people live through the age of colonisation and then the process of independence. They are extraordinary writers: Africa is a huge and complex continent and contemporary writers do not necessarily engage with the British empire, but they tell us about the world they live in and what happens in a world after colonisation. Postcolonisation studies (the central concern) is the study the process of colonisation and decolonisation. Both processes, colonisation and decolonisation (by decolonisation something happened: the European power withdraws, there are rising and rebellions, the countries become independent). Colonisation is a complex process, that involves military conquest, violence, trade and also cultural colonisation (what happened in the colonised countries, what is the kind of relationship that develop between the imperial power and the natives). Postcolonial studies provided us with insight into this process. The cultural colonisation consisted in the raising one culture, marginalising it, despising it, imposing a new set of values, a new culture, a new religion. Inevitably this involved also issues of identity (who am I?) because of this traumatic event. Identity issues are a central concern of postcolonial studies and this feeling are relevant to all of us.
the centre of the world, it’s the main aspect of civilisation: Dante and Shakespeare are the most important writer in the world and civilisation started here and spread throughout the world. Eurocentrism has many expressions, but basically the main thought is that Europe is the centre of the world and not the universe. There was also a process of “othering”: we have a longer and more refined civilisation, and the rest of the other are inferior and savage. There is a binary opposition: we should not immediately judge a new country, but we should appreciate it for its differences and try to learn something new. During the colonialism, Europe became the norm and the rest of the world is negatively contrasted: use of European culture as the standard by which all other cultures are negatively contrasted. Universalism It’s another colonialist ideology, it means that you perceived that whoever is writing is in the centre of the world and represent the world, but they aren’t; to be considered great, a literary text had to have “universal” characters and themes. All writers belong for a certain country, a certain culture, to a certain historical period, but it doesn’t mean that they are universal. It’s judging literature in terms of its universality. Another thing of a great writer is being able to travel across borders: for example, Shakespeare, a great writer, the most representative, whose masterpieces were advertised and translated in many languages across the world, also during the British empire. That “universality” depended upon resemblance to European ideas, ideals, and experiences: it’s a sort of conforming to a set of values, set of rules, experiences… The judges of this universality were British, European, and later American cultural standard – bearers, actually universal would really concern the whole planet and in order to judge you need the competence that all human being has. Eurocentrism as world order Another way in which colonialist ideology is still with us, still shapes our view of the world is that the Eurocentrism has created or shaped a sort of world order, that we often use in our everyday speech:
- First world (Europe and USA)
- Second world (white populations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Southern-Africa, Soviet Bloc)
- Third world (developing nations such as India, Africa, Central and South America, Southeast Asia)
- Fourth world (indigenous populations subjugated by white settlers and governed by the majority culture which surrounds them such as Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians) This is not so much common, but still exists: for example, we use Third World, the developing economies (a lot of poverty, unemployment, crime). However, there is a rapidly changing, countries have much more advanced way of living. It’s an example of how colonialism ideology in words matter: we have to try to understand fully the meaning of the word we use, and make sense of the world we live in, so if we have the wrong vocabulary, it’s very lightly that we’ll go on evaluating and making sense of the world we live in, in the wrong manner. The categories, that we need to use otherwise communication is impossible, had to be useful, had to allow us to understand in a useful way the world we live in. These colonial categories are not only harmful and questionable, but they don’t allow us to look at the world as it really is. Double consciousness One of the effects of the colonialist ideology, of the imposition of a new culture, a new set of values, a new religion, a new language onto the colony created is what postcolonialist have described as double consciousness. A double consciousness is a way of perceiving the world as divided between two cultures (for example the Nigerian are imposed to learn speaking English in colonial school, white people considered them as barbarian and destroy their way of life. It creates a gap and a fracture in your mind). It’s a traumatic event imposed by outside (the natives had no choice): the two cultures are in conflict each other and one is denigrated the other, it’s a complex process, that develops the double consciousness issues. It’s a process that produces an unstable sense of self, in the sense that natives were imposed to learn English because it’s a more prestigious language, that you need to learn in order to make progress and career; there is this sort of shifting between the two cultures and being caught between the two cultures, without being able to decide. In a certain sense, when post colonialist refer to double consciousness, lead to a sense of unhomeliness (an extreme colonial contest, the age of colonialism triggers a reflection, an education of own identity and issues of identity): issues of home and where it is, an important question that many colonials ask themselves. The unhomeliness means not feeling home at your home, after a traumatic event: Chinua Achebe describes it very well, for example the renamed place, the changing of social organisation, for these people the question “Where is your home?” is very painful. For example: Ireland was formally colonised between 18th and 19th century and the indigenous language was Gaelic, which it was a Celtic language. The Irish went through a very similar experience: British renamed and replaced Irish language. These people become “psychological refugees”, it’s a form of dislocation: you can be dislocated technically when you go from one place to another, you emigrate because you run away from your country for different reasons; but you can be dislocated in your home because of a traumatic and meaningful experience. ISSUES OF IDENTITY Cultural colonisation
It’s the imposition of British system of government and education, British culture, and British values. It’s also a systematic denigration of the culture, morals, and even physical appearance of subjugated peoples (e.g racism). It’s not only an imposition, but a real denigration of local cultural aspects and values. Britain had a vast empire and also there were different types of colonies, but it’s possible a generalisation: for example there were settler colonies, such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada were regarded as reasonably save and attracted migrants and families from Britain; the majority of settler are actually of quite British origin. In countries where climate or political situation was regarded as dangerous, threatening, fewer people went there, such as India, African countries, only young male colonisers went there and have a different approach with the country. In general, wherever they went, the British imposed on colonised countries forms of: Government = direct or indirect Education = became important in different ways, for example in Africa there was the primary school level or India, where Britain invested much more in university, they were educated largely in British university. It is important because it allows the British to control and communicate with different people across the world Cultural values = goes hand in hand with education and language. It allowed communication and negotiation with different countries Social practices = described in “Sea of Poppies” (Amitav Ghosh). Decolonisation It happened through different stages, in a different way throughout the British empire. Decolonisation entailed the fact that for example the army withdrew or the people, the officer that influenced the local government withdrew, the majority of settler withdrew, because there was not a save country any longer (colonisers retreated and left the lands they had invaded, removal of British military forces and government officials). All the other things of the British empire remained: the cultural infra-structures for example remained. English language, infra-structures, education, the structure of the government, political social structures, economic point remained. Decolonisation is not a clear process, is not a clear event. The residual effect of colonial domination on formerly colonised cultures is the fact that they speak/write English (in addition to the local languages). English has become such a popular language throughout the world because of British empire. In most ex colonies, English is still the language used at the university, for example in India (re-educating people to speak English as a second language); at government level, we use the native language but also English and also in business. Some colonies have more than one national language and some colonies have retained or retread their native languages, but there are not colonies, that have given up English. The paradox between the traumatic imposition during the British empire and the importance of English language is explained by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a writer and intellectual from Kenya, now based in the US. He was interviewed last year at the Edinburgh Book Festival and he was asked why he decided to write in his native language and its importance. He explained that it’s very empowering to speak English, but he said that if you speak English, your native language as many language as you can, than this is a form of power; if you speak only English and if you give up of your native language, that is a loss of power and understanding. He explains the importance of this legacy (the native language), but also the importance of overcoming, the binary opposition, created by the colonialism, when any native language was inferior to English. In addition, ex colonies are often left with a psychological “inheritance” of a negative self-image. This give an idea of how this violence and this imposition was: the outcome of this was a negative self-image, the colonised subjects interject a sense of inferiority, they were persuaded that they and their culture were inferior; this happened everywhere. This led to an ecological disaster because indeed main native cultures were marginalised to the point to be erased and hardly surviving into this world. Ngugi wa Thiong’o want to describe this negative aspect of the colonialism. In an ecological contest, we use the word “biodiversity”, it describes the importance of an ecological system that retains all the diverse elements in it (pollution and this kind of things tent to erase biodiversity and is damaging the planet). It is the same with cultures: diversity is a source of wealth, which should be protected and preserved (for example dialects). The imperialism leas to this: on the one hand lingua franca is great, on the other hand they leas to marginalisation of local forms of cultures and knowledge. What do postolonialist do at the contest of decolonisation? First of all, the postcolonialists’ contributions to the process of decolonisation is to make aware people that there was the colonialist ideology, many people were not aware and passively absorbed ideas and concepts, without a critical view (it was something that they have to conform to). The first step is making people aware of colonialist ideology. Ngugi wa Thiong’o writes a book, titled “Decolonising the mind”: colonisation, like practical colonisation (political, military, cultural colonisation). Decolonisation includes: understanding and rejection of colonial ideology; reclaiming of the pre-colonial past, be aware that it was not inferior, marginal, useless. Different writers and intellectuals have different approach and ideas: rejecting the colonial language for most, it means you must accept the colonialism as part of our history and English is part of our heritage, but we still must look back at our past and retreat as much as possible of that cultures and that languages and reclaiming it.
o Canon is a word of Greek origins that means “law, rules, principles”. In a literary context it refers to that set of authors and texts whom or which are regarded as the most representative of certain nations or historical period ▫ Redefining literary genres (e.g. orature) = postcolonial authors have introduced new literary genres. For example, any form of oral literature is studied even if it has been always existed It is typical of African countries because they just didn’t have a written tradition. By oral traditions we mean songs, proverbs, storytelling. ▫ Challenging eurocentrism = postcolonial studies consider the Europe not as the centre of the world ▫ Challenging established notions of identity (national, ethnic etc) = issues of identity is an important topic of post- colonial studies. In the 18th^ century the idea of identity is rigidly constructed as national or ethnic, but through the postcolonial studies we have learned that the literary history of Europe is transnational history (history of exchanges, of reciprocal influences, something that happened across border, not nationally). In Europe, by the 18th^ and 19th^ century, it encourages people to look at tradition, as rigidly coded and constructed nationally. The influential writers, those who were really focused on this topic, were: Michel Foucault is a French philosopher of the 20th^ century. One concept is borrowed from post colonialist field, from his assays “The Discourse on Language”, what he had in mind is something between semantic and social science: semantic treats language as a social practice. Language is meant to allow people to communicate. The idea of language within a social science is that language is an institution in the sense that there is grammar, norms that allow us to communicate in a proper way. Foucault starts from this idea and build his theory and conclusions: the discourse is a way of communication that defines and is defined by the notion of ‘power’ and ‘truth’. Discourse is a way of organising knowledge that structures social relations. It produces what Foucault calls ‘practices that systematically from the objects of which they speak’. The reality is realised thanks to power (governments or institutions) that prescribes rules and categories which define the criteria for legitimating knowledge and truth. These rules and categories are considered a priori (coming before the discourse). In this way, discourse produces knowledge and meaning. Bytheway, some of the characteristics of the discourse is that it can mask itself as a-historical, universal and objective. Discourses (e.g. imperial or colonial) affect our views on all things: it is not possible to escape discourse. Two distinct discourse can be used about guerrilla movements, describing them either as ‘freedom fighters’ or ‘terrorists’. How Foucault’s theory is applied to postcolonial studies? Ashcroft, Gareth and Tiffin published in 1998 “Key concepts in post- colonial studies”. A knowledge in harmony with power that through racism made possible the exploiting of nations and people. The key feature is that the world is not simply ‘there’ to be talked about, but rather, it is through discourse that speakers and hearers, writers and readers come to an understanding about themselves, their relationship to each other and their place in the world”. Cultural imperialism / colonial discourse = culture (literature, language, popular culture) supports imperialism and is one way to spread it: The definition of the self and Other are based upon representations (art, paintings, films) Hegemony = control by consent and accepted by culture (e.g. Orientalism) /-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------/ Lezione del 10/10/ ORIENTALISM It’s an example of constructed identity. Orientalism is a word that is coined between 18th^ and 19th^ century in Europe and it defines anyone who has an interest in the Orient, such as painters or historians. It’s like a broad interdisciplinary field that attract different kind of artist or literary people, writers; what they have in common is this interest in the Orient, which become prominent in the 18th^ and the 19th^ century for the simple reason that European empires start to expand across the world, especially in the Middle East. Originally, in the 18th^ and 19th^ century, this word referred to scholars or painters, who were interested in the Near and Far East culture, society, language and different aspects. This is an interesting word: in Italian there are the words “Orientale” e “Occidentale”, in English the words “Oriental” and “Occidental” also exist, but unlike in Italian, these words are used in a different and specific contest, which had to do with colonial and postcolonial perspective. Orientalism and Oriental, used between 18th^ and 19th^ century, referring to the geographical area, but also referring to a world, which is totally different from the West, the Occident. The words Occidental and Oriental represent an example of binary opposition, not only a neutral geographical definition or description, but it implies values, worldview, culture, two aspect that are totally different. That is an example of how European empire were organising and structuring the world through binary opposition, one of the most influential binary opposition. This word is revisited critically by Edward Said. He shows us what Orientalism was, as an ideology. Said studies Orientalism as an
ideological expression, an ideological event through with false and distorted representation of the Orient were given and they became very rooted in the Western imagination. They have nothing to do with the orient was about, it was a construction. This is an example of how discourse works, the construction of the Orient done by Westerner and it supports the logic of empire. Orientalism is a central issue, analysed by postcolonialist studies. Edward Said He was a Palestinian-American scholar, was born in Palestine in 1935 and died in 2003. He became University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, in the USA. He was an innovative intellectual and a founding figure in postcolonialism. “Orientalism” is the title of one of the first book that he wrote, it is a quite long book, published in 1978. It was a revolutionary, ground-breaking, controversial study, by now there are other scholars who are not entirely agree with Said. In his book Said claims that the Orient exists for the West, and is constructed by and in relation to the West: there is an oriental discourse, as Foucault explains, whereby the Orient is a construction made by Westerners in the imperial period. It’s also a fantasy, a projection of what Westerners think the Orient is about. The Orient, Said says, is always “the Other” (this word refers to this kind of construction, the other is not the other because he/she is naturally the other, but we construct him/her as the Other), that implies a binary opposition “me” (the colonisers) and “the Other”, who is different (savage, uncivilized). This binary opposition implies a hegemonic relation: I’m superior and the other is inferior, the conquerable. “Orientalism” is about producing an image of the Orient expressed as an entire system of thought, it’s not knowledge in the sense of something objective, truthful, reliable, it’s especially about producing a system of thought and way of thinking (the historical period is always 18th^ and 19th^ century). Behind this, there are real people, the Oriental, the person represented by such thinking. The Oriental is often represented through stereotypes, a stereotypical representation (the process of othering). The Orient includes a very huge territory, more than a continent (Middle East, Turkey and Asia): there are many languages, religions, cultures in these territories, therefore it’s not possible to capture them in one single stereotype, in fact this is what happened with Orientalism. Said explains how these culture and population are totally and arbitrary distorted. Another distinction is: Earlier Orientalism: the kind of Orientalism, that established itself in the 19 th century. Scholars from different European countries in this historical period, that studied cultures and learned languages, were defining, structuring, organising the knowledge of the Orient. That knowledge was produced exclusively in Europe, through the European scholars and it was excluded the perspective of natives. There was a huge process of inferiorisation: without us Europeans, our universities, our structure and organisation, our efficient and advance perspective, you are not be able to speak about yourself. This is an example of knowledge as power: assumption that a truly effective colonial conquest requires knowledge of the conquered people. It was essential to gain knowledge about the people you want to colonise, in order to control them and Orientalism explains this. Contemporary Orientalism: Said says that Orientalism never die and still shapes the way we look at the world, these clichés are so pervasive. They are still in surface and they shape our way of looking at the world and what we actually see. It’s a very powerful ideology, which we learn subliminally and are not even aware that we are using it to evaluate and understand the world in we live. Said argues that Orientalism can be found in current Western depictions of “Arab” cultures. Said’s Project He wanted to change things and made people aware that they are doing something that is wrong and questionable. Basically the “Orient” cannot should be studied in the non-Orientalist manner, you shouldn’t be influenced by non-Orientalist manner. How to do that? First, you should focus on a smaller section (India, Morocco, Turkey…), a smaller culturally consistent regions, rather than the ‘Orient’ as a whole. You should try to be objective, as scholar do. In addition, the Oriental should allow to speak for themselves, let the Oriental speak for themselves, without construction. You should listen to the Oriental and find out what they have to say, any knowledge that is produced, should be produced through cooperation or after a debate. This is sensible, it’s the self- representation. It doesn’t exclude other perspective, it’s interesting to see what other country think or see in a different population or culture. “Taking the late eighteenth century as a very roughly defined starting point, Orientalism can be discussed and analysed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient — dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.... Thus Orientalism is not only a positive doctrine about the Orient that exists at any one time in the West; it is also an influential academic tradition, as well as an area of concern defined by travellers, commercial enterprises, governments, military expeditions, readers of novels and accounts of exotic adventure, natural historians, and pilgrims to whom the Orient is a specific kind of knowledge about specific places, peoples and civilizations.” (From: Edward Said,
Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres , “ The Turkish Bath ” (1859-1863) In this painting are represented naked women, who have more or less the same hair, same size and the same body, therefore it is a bit unrealistic. It represents an important social moment: the Turkish bath in the Hammam. The representation of the ladies suggest sisterhood, but the way he represents it is not just to describe this moment of connection. There is a sort of homogenisation of female bodies. The shape of the painting is round, an original shape, that give the idea of a keyhole and spying this moment. This painting conveys laziness, sensuousness, that are part of the Oriental clichés. The exotic women are seen as sensual and attractive, that are part of stereotypes. Jean-Léon Gérôme , “ Moorish Bath ” (1880-1885) There is the black and white contrast. Something that characterizes more British than French colonialism is the idea of misgenation, a racist term that implies that man and women from different ethnic group intermarry and have children, live together (it had a negative connotation because it cause the “contamination” of the pure race during the imperial period). This picture evokes that possibility as something dangerous, frightening: it’s another kind of images of Orientalism. Eugène Delacroix, “ Turk Smoking on a Divan ” (1832) This picture is another example of Orientalism cliché. The man in the picture is dressed up with the typical costume, he is very lazy and drugged. In this picture are clear the stereotypes. Eugène Delacroix , “ Women of Algiers ” (1834) This picture is similar to the images above: laziness, sensuousness and racism. Eugène Delacroix , “ Odalisque Reclining on a Divan ” (1827-1828)
The painting represents a very sensual, abandon and erotic women. Therefore, are represented all the clichés of Orientalism. ORIENTALISM TODAY As Said explains, Orientalism goes on and has never fully deconstructed. These clichés still linger, still exist. We should be aware of this, these clichés are not something that really represent a country or people or Continent. We can find Orientalism in our culture, such as in comics, starting from the 19th^ century and throughout the 20th^ century: “Astounging Stories” represents an exotic and gothic Orient, we can find it in Walt Disney, in “Tin Tin” (French comics), “Indiana Jones” and so on. We still use clichés in different ways. Clichés exist also in tourism and marketing, such as in brochures: Orient is stereotyped (for example it’s linked to particular adjective, such as “mysterious” or “exotic”). How do you imagine Egypt, Africa and Middle East? Clichés lead us to think that Orient is not as advanced as European countries, but the reality is very different. These counties are modern and more advanced than we think (such as Johannesburg in South Africa, Cairo in Egypt, Doha and Dubai in Middle East). We should not be influenced by these clichés; we should open our eyes and observe and understand the reality. Example: the film “300” “300” is a film of 2007, is an extremely controversial American historical fantasy film. This film is about King Leonidas, who leads 300 Spartans into battle (Battle of Thermopylae, 480 BC) against Persian "God-King" Xerxes and his army of more than 300, soldiers. In the scene of the film, the problem is how these two kings are represented, we can find all possible Orientalist clichés. The orient is represented as a tyranny: The God King is very an undemocratic thought, there are not democracy and lot of slaves and soldiers, who are ready to die in the battle. On the other side there is Leonida, a democratic King that accuses the Oriental of tyranny. It’s very extreme: there is the Greek King, who is very good-looking and muscular, on the other side, the Oriental is presented as the opposite, he is not manly, he has a lot of piercing and jewels and even though he is so violent and powerful, he seems very a sort of effeminate man. (the contrast: on one side the despotism, feminises, lack of democratic values and on the other side a very muscular king, democracy). There are a lot of films that show a stereotyped Orient (it indicates how Orientalism work). OTHERING (Othering = representing the other) The process of othering indicates how other is represented. Colonial subject is represented as: ▫ savage/primitive; ▫ heathen, the opposite of Christian, a non-Christian; ▫ childlike, seen as gentle or an affectional way of dealing with the other, that means inferiority and interiorization; ▫ animal, a not fully human. Today these clichés linger whenever within immigrants: migrants are very often stereotyped and constructed. Example of Binary opposition: Coloniser Colonised White Black Civilised Primitive Advanced Retarted Good Evil Beautiful Ugly Human Bestial Teacher Pupil Doctor Patient Man Woman CULTURAL IMPERIALIMS AND LITERARY DISCOURSE Discovery + education= possession and exploitation. Exploration seems innocent, but it’s not; it’s only hate and exploitation. Education seems a good thing, but it’s instrumental to obtain something from whoever you colonise. This is the process of othering, that is also represented in canonical tests of English literature: “The tempest” by William Shakespeare and “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe. These are example of how the process of othering discovery + education leads to possession and exploitation.
how we can justify colonialism? The only things that we can do is to have a belief, an idea which somehow allows us to justify this terrible thing (“unselfish belief”). You must believe that God Is with you and God is guiding your nation, you have the superior mission to bring the torch of civilization, you have to believe that you have a mission and you have to help these people in some way. Colonialism is always finding a superior justification and then believing in it, this was a religion. When Conrad says this, he is not suggesting what we should do, he is critiquing this attitude; these sequences of action (“unselfish belief in the idea something you can set up, and bow down before”) refers to a worshipping ideal, “offer sacrifice to” is a metaphor to explain how this horrible things can be justified. There is not practical e physical real reason to justify colonialism, how can we justify it? We have to persuade ourselves that we are doing it for a religious belief (we set up, we convent, bow down before and offer sacrifice). He chooses this sequence of actions to define that superior ideal, that allows colonisers to colonize countries. British empire needed a higher justification higher moral justification in order to conquer, such as well-being or civilization (British teach natives languages, that allows them to understand themselves). There was a moral justification behind the colonisation. Conrad pointed out that even racism is not enough in 1901 to justify this, there must be some higher. He describes this higher ideal: the terms that he uses are “set it up”, “created or put it there”; “bow down before”, “frustrating worship” and “offer sacrifices to”. What these three actions suggest? Why does he use this metaphor? Conrad want to suggest a savage contest, a primitive contest: this action refer to idols, such as God. Conrad was against colonialism, imperialism and exploitation of people: in this passage the explains that who are really savage are the European, the moral idea that they use to colonise this people is basically that have idols, the savages worship: setting up idols, bowing down before and sacrifice is not what you do in a Christian church. Conrad was anti-imperialism and this book was published with this intention, critiquing Belgian colonialist but also all the other European colonisers. This is an important example: we all live in a certain age; an historical period and our knowledge is always limited. This because we live in language, think in language, express ourselves through language; language sometimes limits us. “Heart of darkness” is a great novel, but it was criticised, attacked by postcolonial writers and intellectuals for a long time, such as Chinua Achebe (one of the most important African writers and intellectuals). This work of Conrad illustrates quite clearly why it’s correct to say that Conrad stumbled upon the same prejudices that he was very openly criticized; he reproduces unconsciously quite several racist clichés. The passage is from Heart of darkness, is said by Marlow, the main character who travels throughout the heart of darkness, in Congo, in Africa. This is how he describes the world he sees (the land, the people and their culture). In the passage there are a lot of references to prehistory, the night of the first ages, that are gone leaving no memories: we have reached the age of civilisation, these people are in the beginning, that was the first age of civilization, that is so far from us, and we don’t remember what was about. This is an evaluation: he uses metaphor and that implies judgment. “Was cursing us, praying to us, welcoming us” are contradictory behaviour. This is an example of Eurocentrism, it’s an example of othering. There is also the sense of inability and impossibility to understand, it’s really something so entirely different that communication and understanding seem impossible. Conrad, in the text, did not describe people as common and fully human beings but it is like he dehumanized and dismembered them, talking about them as specific body parts. /------------------------------/ Lezione del 16/10/ In “Heart of Darkness”, people were defined as primitive, “you so remote from the night of first ages”. At the end of the passage, there is a sense of surprise/fear because it can be understood that, these monsters from an unearthly place, which are described in a horrible way, are human beings just as the author. The words addressed to them were “ugly, howled, leaped, spun, horrid faces, terrible frankness of that noise, monster”. Marlow doesn’t find any humanity in them, any values, he doesn’t know anything about their history and doesn’t attribute them anything human. Chinua Achebe, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’” (1977), says that the point of her observations should be clear that Joseph Conrad was a racist. Students of this work will often tell that Conrad is concerned not so much with Africa as with the deterioration of one Eruopean mind caused by solitude and sickness. But Africa as setting eliminates the African as human factor. His work celebrates the dehumanization, depersonalizing a portion of the human race, so this cannot be defined as a ‘great work’. Summing up the 18th^ and 19th^ century: In the 18th^ and 19th^ century, there were a very close interaction and interconnection between imperialism as policy, national identity (Britishness, being superior in order to undertake an imperial enterprise) and the discourses that developed in this period, that are part of this mechanism (scientific, literature discourse, such as “Heart of darkness”). Political aspect, national
aspect and cultural and scientific aspect are interconnected. THE FIRST THEORISTS There are numbers of leading theories, like in any fields of studies, defined by critics, philosophers, scholar, who study and question issues, problems and events. In postcolonial studies there are numbers of theorist, who contributed to the rise and the development of this field. Theorists of postcolonial studies (that we mentioned above) are Michel Foucault (the notion of discourse), Edward Said (orientalism, he is one of the founders of field of postcolonial studies). Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) = is one of the most important Marxist thinkers of the 20th century. He was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime, dies in prison at the age of
His concept is that of the cultural hegemony theory. Gramsci furthered Marxist thought on the concept of hegemony. The 'hegemony’ usually means the way which a certain group detains and remain in power. In a Marxist perspective, it is like the elite in power protects its own class interest (obtaining and maintaining your power through your superiority. How do they do this in practise? Gramsci explains that coercion doesn’t work too much, is not efficient to obtain and maintain power: you can force people and obliged them to do things (army and police), but in the long run, it doesn’t secure your power. Power that is based exclusively on coercion is a weak power, that collapse because of a violent response. The way of imposing power is not through coercion, but through cultural institutions that spread ideas persuading people. It leads to alliances with other members of the elite. Frantz Fanon (1925-1960) = born in the French Colony of Martinique, he was a West Indian (= Caribbean) psychoanalyst and social philosopher. He analyses imperialism form a social and psychological perspective. After attending schools in Martinique and France, Fanon served in the French army during WWII. He completed his studies in medicine and psychiatry at the University of Lyon. In 1953-56 he served as Head of the Psychiatry Department of Blida-Joinville Hospital in Algeria, which was then part of France. His role during this period is that of being psychiatric, he heals people from traumas and studies the causes. He joined the Algerian liberation movement in 1954 became an editor of its newspaper, El Moudjahid, published in Tunis. In 1960 he was appointed Ambassador to Ghana by the Rebel Provisional Government. In 1952, Fanon published “Black Skin, White Masks”, thanks to this metaphor he describes the interjective sense of inferiority caused by colonisation. The binary opposition is made by the contraposition of white and black in an attempt to escape the coloniser’s association of blackness with evil, the black man puts on a white mask. This represents a fundamental disjuncture between the black man’s consciousness and his body.
- “Black Skin, White Masks” (1952) is the first book ever created that analysis the effects of racism and colonisation. It focuses on the coloniser/colonised relationship and analyses the psychological and sociological aspects of imperialism. The title is a powerful metaphor, that describe the interjected sense of inferiority, that natives have as an outcome of colonisation: it’s not just the matter of violence or exploitation, it’s also matter of the culture, that persuade you that it’s a superior culture and therefore your culture or language is inferior. It mirrors Fanon’s personal experience as a black intellectual in a white world (e.g. language issue: speaking French means that one accepts, or is forced to accept, the collective consciousness of the French).
- “The Wretched of the Earth” (1961) discusses the effect of the torture on Algerian “terrorists”, it analyses the role of class, race, national culture and violence in the struggle for Algerian national liberation. It says “Colonial domination manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the cultural life of a conquered people. This is made possible by the negation of national reality, by new legal relations introduced by the occupying power, by the banishment of the natives and their customs, by expropriation and by enslaving men and women”. “Every effort is made to bring the colonised person to admit the inferiority of his culture which has been transformed into instinctive patterns of behaviour, to recognise the unreality of his ‘nation’, and, in the last extreme, the confused and imperfect character of his own biological structure.” This passage refers to the idea of racism in the 19th^ and 20th^ century. Racism is an ideology (not based on facts) in the mind of the colonisers, is instilled into the thinking of the victims as well as the oppressors and has a very powerful psychological effect. Fanon explains also the concept of “inferiorism”: making someone feeling inferior, that’s one of the ideological tools of imperialism. Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1938-) = formerly known as James Ngugi because was baptized in a Scottish Christian mission, he is a Kenyan teacher, novelist, essayist, and playwright. His work functions as an important link between the pioneers of African writing and the younger generation of postcolonial writers. By 1977, he declared his intention of writing novels in Gikuyu (or Kikuyu), his native language, rather than in English as he had been doing. This was also the same year that he was arrested and detained
accurately described by Ngugi wa Thiong’o: the colonisers imposed their kind of society, which was organised and structured in social classes and an hierarchical relationship; they imposed their social, modern on those countries and in doing so, they made them more weaker; they often succeeded, that was their aim. Imposing their society, laws and type of government and way of life, they divided and made this ethnic groups much weaker and much more subject to their control. Ngugi describes what happened and the aim of this was exploiting these territories. He also makes a distinction between East and central Africa, where the British and other Europeans powers sent settlers (settlers who live there) and West Africa which was much more characterised by direct exploitation. This was the strategy used by European powers, which authorised any local form of authority (religion, government, social organization). This involves also physical violence and cultural imperialism. Another work by Ngugi, which is very well-known, is “ Decolonising the Mind ”. It’s about the colonisation, that involved not only a military conquest, but also cultural imperialism. There was a process of decolonisation after WWII, that gradually let colonies to achieve independence, but there was also a decolonisation, which was much longer and much more difficult, called the decolonisation of the mind. It’s relatively quick and easy to get rid physically of the colonisers, but it’s much more difficult to overcome the sense of inferiority, that Fanon describes. “Decolonising the mind” is a collection of essays about language and its constructive role in national culture, history and identity. Ngugi and Fanon are related, in the sense that Fanon influenced Ngugi and they belong to that generation that went through the action struggle and fight for the independence. Franz Fanon, “Black Skin, White Masks”: “The Negro of the Antilles will be proportionately whiter – that is, he will come closer to being a real human being – in direct ratio to his mastery of the French language […] Every colonised people in whose soul an inferiority complex has been created by the death and burial of its local cultural originality – finds itself face to face with the language of the civilising nation: that is, with the culture of the mother country. The colonised is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adaptation of the mother country’s standards.” Ngugi wa Thiongo, “Decolonising the Mind ”: “On the Black Continent, one began to understand that their real power resided not at all in the cannons of the first morning but in what followed the cannons. Therefore behind the cannons was the new school. The new school had the nature of both the cannon and the magnet. From the cannon it took the efficiency of a fighting weapon. But better than the cannon it made the conquest permanent. The cannon forces the body and the school fascinates the soul.” In the passage of Fanon, he use the word “Negro”: in the French colonial world, black African in Paris rethread the word “Negro” and decided that they would use it as something that would be proud of, they wanted to revert the process of colonisation. In 1940 there was a cultural movement, made by African poets and artists and use the word “Negro” in a militant way. Caribbean was colonised especially by the French, the British and the Dutch. This explains very clearly what Ngugi develops in “Decolonising the mind”. There is the reference to racism, the colour skin became somehow the standard, Fanon describes also the cultural aspect: your culture and your origin are marginalised, you have no background and all you can do is accept and conformed to the French rules and culture. This is what attracted the attention of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, who develops this point in the “Decolonising the mind”. In the passage of Ngugi, he uses the expression “black continent”: it’s an example of colonial othering, but today this term doesn’t describe the continent of Africa and the people who lived there, with their different culture and language. The both writers use colonial terms (Negro, black continent) and Ngugi explains the process of colonisation, that started with the cannons and weapons, conquer a country through military conquest. Ngugi says that that wouldn’t be enough, what you need is the schools (for example the missionary schools): it’s in the school, that you learn to unlearn your own language and culture, in the schools you learn to speak English and also learn to despise your own language and culture; there you learn that English would replace whatever you spoke and replace your cultural world with another cultural world because where you come from is inferior, useless and marginal. He says that schools is very powerful and efficient as weapons and cannons, but they are also magnet that fascinate people: you want and you are grateful to learn new language (English) and new literature, but in an African country you should study also African seasons or the plants that grow there. It was a very radical replacement: in the mind of a child it’s the African culture, such as learning what kind of plants grow there, is useless and could not be object of poetry, and if you want to write poetry, it has to be English about a number of subject; all you can do is trying to conform as much as possible to the cultural world that British taught them (I’m inferior because my skin colour and my culture is different). This happened to children that went to schools. The cultural imperialism is permanent and has long lasting damaging effects: people, such as Ngugi, Chinua Achebe or Wole Soyinka, taught to restore dignity to their culture, but it’s not easy. Another example of cultural imposition happened in Italy: under fascism, dialects were strongly discouraged, even though they are really important for the Italian culture, they are a cultural wealth. This is an example of somehow inferiorisation leads people
to give it up and earn to something that are more prestigious. In the Edinburgh book festival, Ngugi explains that you should speak as many languages as possible, the more languages you speak, the more power you have, learning languages empowers you. However, if in order to learn other languages you forget your native language and consider it inferior, than you are disempowered. Homi Bhabha He is closer to us, he was born in 1949 in Mumbai (Bombay is the colonial name), in India (in 1947 India obtained the independence). He belongs to a younger generation; he is younger than Fanon or Ngugi. He follows them, read the books of previous generation and he develops his thought, he does this process of critique of colonialism: he wants to understand what happened to other generations and how and why they responded in a certain way. He is professor of English and American Literature and Language, and the Director of the Humanities Centre, at Harvard University. Homi Bhabha develops concepts, that were there before him, but he redefines them in a quite original way. The concept of Hybridity He develops the concept of hybridity , that means mix of cultures. The colonial world was structured in binaries, that implies a sort of white and black vision: advanced and civilised people or savage and primitive men and women. It implies two conflicted and incompatible poles and the two terms are related to one another with an hegemonic relation. Starting to this point, Homi Bhabha questions this way of organising the world, the idea that we should structure and seen everything in terms of “either… or” and he thinks that binaries doesn’t allow us to understand and make sense the world we live in. We are using categories that prevents us from seeing and understanding the world. Hybridity in a certain sense, replaces this structure, this pattern. Imperialism is a stronger country’s policy, taking over conquering, controlling and exploiting a weaker country; but it’s not just that. There is also a cultural encounter, that not necessarily only mean that one country imposes everything on the other country (it doesn’t necessarily imply the imposition of one culture on the other), but there is a sort of exchange. He investigates the history of imperialism and consider how that history is also an history of cultural encounter: we should be very careful not to explain or refer to this encounter in binary terms, if we use a binary pattern, we don’t pay attention to many things that are valuable. Bhabha criticises thinking in categories of black and white: it is not enough to use binary oppositions to describe the encounter of two cultures, which influence and transform each other. Britain imposed its way of life, government, language. From a British perspective and from European perspective that was a kind of encounter: what Europeans tent to say about the imperial age is that it was European country bringing the torch of civilisation, imposing their culture on countries that were inferior or had not civilisation at all. But even Europeans were transformed by this experience, not just in economic terms (not just in becoming richer through the exploitation of colonies), but also because they absorbed and learned things from them. An example of this influence is Picasso and the abstract art: this kind of art, which developed especially in the European metropolitan centre (such as Paris). Picasso is one of the inventors and creator of this new form of art, the modernist art, and was heavily influenced by African “primitive” art and the collection of this African “primitive” art are still available in Paris, in the museums. This an example of how something we regard as extremely radical, vanguard, innovative and Western was influenced and shaped by colonial encounter. Bhabha critics the binary opposition and says that there are a lot of things that happen without that pattern and we must be careful to see them (we have the duty of remembering what happened in the past and to preserve that memory, it’s important to be aware of the horrible things generated by imperialism). He has a positive outlook maybe because he belongs to a younger generation, he has written a number of essays and studies. Hybridity is examining and investigating especially in “ The Location of Culture ”, in 1994. Another key term that he uses related to hybridity is “liminality”: liminal is something that is on the border, which means faces two different sides and belonging neither to one nor the other. The kind of hybridity he has in mind is this kind of borderline: how do I define myself? Homi Bhabha has the answer à you don’t define yourself; you are liminal and that’s your identity. Bhabha doesn’t say that he was born Indian and now lives in US, he lives between two borders and therefore he is a hybrid, whereas another person who was born and lives in the same place is not. Post-colonialist writes back to the centre: hybridity happens all around us and in a certain sense we are all hybrid. If you come from a postcolonial world, this experience is much more formatted, is much more substantial and you are bounded to have meditated upon because this experience is traumatic. Theorisation comes from postcolonialists, but it doesn’t mean that this theorisation on identity apply exclusively to people who were involved in these situations. In this contest, hybridity doesn’t mean a mix of culture or different background, is not simply be mixed in a sort of genetic or physical sense, but it’s a philosophical concept, it’s a way of thinking and looking at the world not in categories black/white, but
