Post Colonialism and Cultural Studies

S. B. GARDI DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

M.K.BHAVNAGAR UNIVERSITY

Written by: Gohil. Devikaba. J

Roll no.: 05

Course No.:08

Course Name: The Cultural Studies

Enrollment No. : Pg14101015

Post Colonialism and Cultural Studies

Introduction:

The term post colonialism is engaged with the study of cultural study. So, before we start understanding the term ‘Post Colonialism’ we have to start from the Cultural Studies. Cultural Studies is an umbrella term which includes every aspect of the society. In simple words, culture means the way of living life of the people of the particular area. Starting from geography to their beliefs, their ideas, their lifestyle, their food habit, their clothes, their language, their religion, their rituals and festivals etc. so, in simple words we can say that all the things which does not exist in nature is culture means culture is opposite of nature. All cultural activities done on a piece of land with people we can say that this is the culture of a particular land.

Literature is the only fine art in which the creative medium and criticism is done in the same way and that is language. So, here we have to think that then how culture is reflected in literature. The answer is that all most all literary work is always having indirect means. It means in an indirect way the author reflects a particular culture in his/her work of art. So, here we can say that literature is the center and around it the other arts like music, sculpture, dance etc. stands and at last Culture. It means Culture is reflected in the literature indirect way. Basically it means that a person is a small component of a large society.

Brief introduction of Cultural Studies:

Basically the word ‘Culture’ derives from ‘cultura’ and ‘colere’ meaning ‘to cultivate’. It also means ‘to honor’ and ‘protect’. But there is the different in the meaning of the culture in the current phenomena. ‘Culture’ is the mode of generating meanings and ideas and meanings are governed by power relations. Every discipline studies culture in different way. And when we talk about culture in context of literature it includes creative faculty means we studies the ideas of culture in a way ideology. In short we can say that whatever is around us is called Culture.

Term Cultural Studies: 

Cultural Studies designates a recent and rapidly growing cross-disciplinary enterprise for analyzing the conditions that effect the production, reception, and cultural significance of all types of institutions, practices, and products; among these, literature is accounted as merely one of many forms of cultural "signifying practices." A chief concern is to specify the functioning of the social, economic, and political forces and power-structures that produce all forms of cultural phenomena and endow them with their social "meanings," their "truth," the modes of discourse, in which they are discussed, and their relative value and status. Typically, cultural studies pay less attention to works in the established literary canon than to popular fiction, best-selling romances (that is, love stories), journalism, and advertising, together with other arts that have mass appeal such as cartoon comics, film, television "soap operas," and rock and rap music [M.H.Abrams’  book ‘A Glossary Literary Terms 7^th edition’].

Post Colonialism is a different view point looking towards Cultural Studies. So, here my focus is only on the Post Colonialism and Cultural Studies. We all know that now a day the word ‘Globalization’ is very much important. Here this word is directly related with both these term Cultural Studies and Post Colonialism.

Term Globalization:

“Cultural globalization refers to the transmission of ideas, meanings and values around the world in such a way as to extend and intensify social relations. In the contemporary period, this process is marked by the common consumption of cultures that have been diffused by the internet, popular cultural media and international travel.” Basically Globalization is process in which a group of people, a company, or a government interchanges the ideas, meanings, and values around the world to develop the social relationship more powerfully. In short we can say that what is adoptable around us is the globalization. Here I would like to give the example of ‘Facebook’ that how it has reaches almost all the houses.

 Term Colony:

The roots of the word Post Colonialism is in the word ‘Colony’. A colony is a group of people who settle in a place but keep ties to their homeland. Basically the word ‘Colony’ comes after the Latin word ‘Colonia’ means ‘settled land, farm’. Here, the word ‘Homeland’ is important because it suggest that a group of people leave there land and settled down to other land, but still keep in touch with their native people. Here the concept of mother land and other land is related with this term. So, if we analyze this word deeply then we will come to know that before the outer people came to settle down there were some people already living there. And of course the outer people with them also bring their culture. For example, the people founded the United States first came to America to live as part of a British colony.

Term Post Colonialism:

Post colonialism is a study in which the world is presented /seen through Europeans. Certain aspects of Cultural Studies are alert to the post-colonial perspective in global cultures. Colonialism is a kind of globalization where the European settler imposes his cultural modes on the colony, even as he adapts and appropriates local cultures. As noted in previous section that globalization has some impact and influence on local cultures. That is why some critics have argued that we need to address the role of globalization through the post-colonial lens. Post-colonial studies are related with the oppression [in the past or present] of the non-European ones, and cultural studies in this globalized era also need to be conscious of the racialized nature of globalized /globalizing culture. So, the theme of race and unequal relations has to be worked into any analysis of global cultures. Post colonialism refers to a historical phase undergone by Third World countries after the decline of colonialism. For example, when countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean separated from the European empires and were left to rebuild themselves. Post colonialism’s main focus is on third world developing countries like Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. At first glance post-colonial studies would seem to be a matter of history and political science, rather than literary criticism. However we must remember that now a day English is the world language. Which shows the elite power of white people (here Britain). The general meaning of Post colonialism is master - slave relation, colonized - colonizer concept, white - brown, black race inequality and concept of cruel and innocent comes. But here the meaning is little bit different. Post-colonial literary theories study the English language within this politicized context, especially those writings that developed at the colonial “Front”. Many third world writers focus on both colonialism and the changes created in a pos-tcolonial culture. They face many challenges but their attempts are both to resurrect their culture and to combat the preconceptions about their culture. Here are some theories given by different theorists.

Simon During a cultural theorist gives reasons of connection between post colonialism and globalization studies that

                           i.            All culture now is linked with the supply of money.

                        ii.            All cultures now have transnational subsidiaries, opponents or collaborations.

                      iii.            Cultures are no more territorial and hence do not cohere or fuse into wholes or ‘traditions’.

We can sense from these points that now a day the culture doesn’t go back to the ancient time means now culture has increasingly little to do with traditions or territories. Global economic and media flows determine what aspect or abandoned. It shows that local culture has direct impact of global culture. If we analyze these points more deeply then we can see these points very applicable around us. For example fashion patterns. In India at the present time elite members or wealthy members of the society can purchase clothes from the shops like Levi’s, Yves St. Laurence because now these shops are available at India. Here we will see the mixture of two cultures because the distributors will take care of both the sides of global fashion pattern as well as the local demands. So, as the result cultures and traditions are therefore modified not with the local people culture in mind but with global patterns. In current time, local cultures and global economics, markets needs and money are linked together and that is why contemporary culture has to examine the role of a non-local market / money which requires a post-colonial awareness between the ‘First World’ and ‘Third World’ country.

If we say it in other words, then globalization has indeed become synonymous with ‘Americanization’, because the global companies like MTV, CNN, Levi’s, Mc Donald’s are now with local presence and effects. As above said that now globalization has start at internet level also and there we can see the more effect of America or American culture. The applications like Facebook and what’s app are the best example of Americanization. Now a day cyber space is more important than any other multinational company and here also we can see the effect of European. How these apps are now become the part of our life and start merging with our local culture. Cultural Studies not only studies all the aspects of the culture but also studies the economic state and that is why contemporary globalization is a mode of cultural exchange, appropriation and marketing. Contemporary Cultural Studies there for examines the role of globalizing finances and markets in the formation of cultures.

What does such a link between post-colonial studies / theory mean for Cultural Studies in a globalizing age? This approach makes us ask certain questions:

·       Are local cultural products in any way determined by the possibility of a global market?

·       Are such cultural products financed by non - local moneys?

·       How are such products, rooted (supposedly) in local traditions circulated and marketed globally?

To understand these all points in a clear cut way here I would like to give the example of film industry of India means of Bollywood that,

·       Hindi films being financed by non-resident Indians.

·       Hindi films and their popularity in other countries where both non-resident Indians and others watch them.

·       The stage shows performed by Hindi film stars abroad, extending Bollywood culture in other ways.

Here we have to be very careful while understanding this topic that just by the examples of clothes or food it doesn’t mean that it carries the whole cultural values of America and that a culture cannot be reduced to its material goods or products. But still here we have to be aware about some more points about this that,

·       The material nature of any particular products / object

·       The marketing and symbolic values assigned to the object

·       The economic gains or losses with the arrival of a global product

·       The share’ of the local culture or economy in the production and profits of the global product

·       The kind of images associated with the object (its cultural values)

Even though globalization produces ‘hybrid’ products and cultural values, the question of economic gain must underwrite our analysis of even these products. Thus we need to keep in mind that global material goods and products are manufactured in South and South East Asian sweatshops – where employees are paid extremely low wages – but are marketed by agencies that are both global and local, and generate profits for ‘First World’ companies. This analysis therefore is firmly rooted in a post-colonial perspective.

Another critic named Edward Said gave the concept of ‘Orientalism’ was an important touchstone to postcolonial studies. Orientalism is a study about third world people, neglected by European people. He described the stereotypical discourse about the East as constructed by the West. Orientalism provided a rationalization for European colonialism based on a self-serving history in which “the West” constructed “the East” as extremely different and inferior. He also sharply critiques the Western image of the Oriental as “irrational, depraved (fallen), child-like, ‘different,’ which has allowed the West to define itself as “retional, virtuous, mature, ‘normal’” (40).

Another French Caribbean Marxist named Frantz Fanon’s book ‘The Wretched of the Earth (1961)’ has been an important inspiration for post-colonial cultural critics and literary critics who’s main focus is on third world writers, especially African and African American texts. We generally assumes that post-colonial point of view means the race inequality, but he gives the concept of class inequality not the race inequality and how the power is inherited by the imperial members of the society.

Homi. K. Bhabha’s post-colonial theory involves analysis of nationality, ethnicity, and politics with post-structuralist ideas of identity indeterminacy, defining post-colonial identities as shifting, and hybrid constructions. He proposes instead of dialogic model of nationalities, ethnicities, and identities characterized by what he calls hybridity; that is they are something new, emerging from a “Third World” to interrogate the gives of the pat. He tried to prove that colonialism is not a one-way street but it involves an interaction between colonizers and colonized. And colonized tries to molds the colonizers in systems in which they already are affected. He also put stress on the meaning of ‘industrialized’ and ‘developing’ that now these words doesn’t hold the meaning which was in past. For example now industrial jobs have been moved overseas from countries like the United States to countries like India and Philippines.

Now, we know what post colonialism is, but here with this the other side is also connected. We can say that this study is after effect of colonialism and the study is diaspora study. In this study the writers talk about post-colonial effect.                 

Brief introduction of Diaspora:

Diaspora Literature involves an idea of a homeland, a place from where the displacement occurs and narratives of harsh journeys undertaken on account of economic compulsions. Diaspora is the word used for minority, living in other land. ‘Diaspora’ now also refers to anybody of people living outside their traditional homeland. We can say that diaspora is one kind of force implied upon minority by majority. The author finds a common element in all forms of diaspora; these are people who live outside their ‘natal (or imagined natal) territories’ and recognize that their traditional homelands are reflected deeply in the languages they speak, religion they adopt, and cultures they produce. Diaspora can be of two types:

                                 i.            Forced

                              ii.            Voluntary

The word diaspora is specially used for African and Asian people, where European people explore the most. Post-colonial literature from emerging nations by such writers as Chinua Achebe and Salman Rushdie are read alongside European responses to colonialism by writers such as George Orwell and Albert Camus. We can see some powerful conflicts arising from the colonial past in Rushdie’s ‘Midnight’s Children (1980)’, for example, which deconstructs from a post-colonial viewpoint the history of modern India.

Among this the other phase has also emerged with this point of view is post-colonial feminism. Among the most important figures in post-colonial feminism is Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who examines the effects of political independence upon “subaltern” or sub proletarian women in the Third World. Spivak’s subaltern studies reveal how female subjects are silenced by the dialogue between the male-dominated West and the male-dominated East, offering little hope for the subaltern woman’s voice to rise up amidst the global social institutions that oppress her. So, here we can say that to understand the term post colonialism we also have to understand the other term as well. So, we can say that this all terms are related with each other.

Conclusion:

We have to be careful when we studies this point Cultural Studies, because while studying this we don’t have to be judgmental about anything. We just have to be observer of everything or if I say every aspect of the Culture.

What we have learn so far:

·       Local cultural artifacts are now ‘produced’ keeping a global market in mind.

·       This ‘production’ of local (‘Third World’) culture is often engaged in a relationship with the First World.

·       The relationship between local cultures and the First World market remains, mostly, a colonial one, where the local culture is exploited or exoticized by the First World.