POL 2103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Postcolonialism, Identity Formation, Edward Said
19 Dec 2015
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Document Summary
How does post-colonialism fit in: *not so much a paradigm, in terms of postmodernism. Concerns of postmodernism are central to the project of post- colonialism. Tools of postmodernism e. g genealogy and deconstruction are central to post-colonialism. Genealogy, in the sense of showing the euro centricity of the dominant historical narratives and opening up space for alternative histories. Deconstruction, in unsettling binaries through which these narratives are constructed. As with postmodernism, post-colonialism refers to language: how language controls, determines the meaning of the world, how we also exercise control through language. One of the main features of imperial oppression is control over. The imperial education system installs a standard version of the metropolitan language as the norm, and marginalizes all variants as impurities. Language becomes the medium through which a hierarchical language structure of power is perpetuated: place and displacement. The concern with the development or recovery of an effective identifying relationship between self and place.
