Beginning postcolonialism

Second edition

John McLeod

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781847794055
• Edition: 2
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

Postcolonialism has become one of the most exciting, popular and stimulating fields of literary and cultural studies in recent years. Yet the variety of approaches, the range of debate and the critical vocabularies often used may make it challenging for new students to establish a firm foothold in this area. Beginning Postcolonialism is a vital resource for those taking undergraduate courses in postcolonial studies for the first time and has become an established international best-seller in the field. In this fully revised and updated second edition, John McLeod introduces the major areas of concern in a clear, accessible and organised fashion. He provides an overview of the emergence of postcolonialism as a discipline and closely examines its many established critical approaches while also exploring important recent initiatives in the field. In particular, Beginning Postcolonialism demonstrates how many key postcolonial ideas and concepts can be effectively applied when reading texts and enables students to develop their own independent thinking about the possibilities and pitfalls of postcolonial critique.

1
From ‘Commonwealth’ to ‘postcolonial’

Introduction

The purpose of this chapter is to approach a flexible but solid definition of the word ‘postcolonialism’. In order to think about the range and variety of the term, we need to place it in two primary contexts. The first regards the historical experiences of decolonisation that have occurred chiefly in the twentieth century. The second concerns relevant intellectual developments in the latter part of the twentieth century, especially the shift from the study of ‘Commonwealth literature’ to ‘postcolonialism’. After looking at each, we will be in a position at the end of this chapter to make some statements about how we might define ‘postcolonialism’.

Colonialism and decolonisation

At the turn of the twentieth century, the British Empire covered a vast area of the earth that included parts of Africa, Asia, Australasia, Canada, the Caribbean and Ireland. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, although there remains a small handful of British Overseas Territories (see www.ukota.org), the vast bulk of the Empire has not survived. All over the world, the twentieth century witnessed the decolonisation of millions of people who were once subject to the authority of the British crown. For many, the phrase ‘the British Empire’ is most commonly used these days in the past tense, signifying a historical period and set of relationships which appear no longer current.

But if the political realities of Empire have been transformed with the coming of independent government to many once-colonised locations, the material and imaginative legacies of both colonialism and decolonisation remain fundamentally important constitutive elements in the contemporary world. These legacies continue to inflect contemporary geo-political realities and conflicts around the world and impact upon how different people (are forced to) live today. And they also remain in the arts, cultures, languages and intellectual disciplines to which we often turn to make sense of the world, in the past and the present: such as anthropology, economics, painting, politics, music, philosophy, the media and – as we shall be highlighting in this book – literature.

Colonialism has taken many different forms and has engendered diverse effects around the world, but we must be as precise as we can when defining its meaning. This can be gauged by thinking first about its relationship with two other terms: ‘capitalism’ and ‘imperialism’. As Denis Judd argues in his book Empire: The British Imperial Experience from 1765 to the Present (HarperCollins, 1996), ‘[n]o one can doubt that the desire for profitable trade, plunder and enrichment was the primary force that led to the establishment of the imperial structure’ (p. 3). Judd argues that colonialism was first and foremost a fundamental part of the commercial venture of Western nations such as Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal that developed from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Some date its origins to the European ‘voyages of discovery’ in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, epitomised by those of Christopher Columbus who ‘discovered’ the Americas in trying to find a western sea route to the Indies. The seizing of ‘foreign’ lands for government and settlement was in part motivated by the desire to create and control opportunities to generate wealth and control international markets, frequently by securing the natural resources and labour power of different lands and peoples at the lowest possible cost to Europeans. As many colonial governments and entrepreneurs would come to realise, colonialism was big business and the profits to be made were hitherto unimaginable. The construction of the sugar industry in the Caribbean is one such example: the harvesting of sugar in the favourable environmental conditions by African slaves and, later, Indian indentured labourers meant that British businesses could produce a range of products at minimal cost which, when shipped to Europe, could be sold for extremely high profits. Colonialism was first and foremost a lucrative commercial operation, bringing wealth and riches to Western nations through the economic exploitation of others. It was pursued for economic profit, reward and riches. Hence, colonialism and capitalism share a mutually supportive relationship with each other. Indeed, the birth of European modernity was in many ways parented by this partnership of capitalism and colonialism, a fact which should remind us that colonialism is absolutely at the heart of Europe’s modern history.

‘Colonialism’ is sometimes used interchangeably with ‘imperialism’, but in truth the terms mean different things. As Peter Childs and Patrick Williams argue, imperialism is an ideological project which upholds the legitimacy of the economic and military control of one nation by another. They define imperialism as ‘the extension and expansion of trade and commerce under the protection of political, legal, and military controls’ (An Introduction to Post-Colonial Theory, Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1997, p. 227). Colonialism, however, is only one form of practice, one modality of control which results from the ideology of imperialism, and it specifically concerns the settlement of people in a new location. Imperialism is not strictly concerned with the issue of settlement, and it does not demand the settlement of different places in order to function. In these terms, colonialism is one historically specific mechanism of imperialism which prioritises the act of settlement, and its manifestations can be varied; as Robert J. C. Young has written, ‘colonialism involved an extraordinary range of different forms and practices carried out with respect to radically different cultures, over many different centuries’ (Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, Blackwell, 2001, p. 17). It follows, then, that colonialism is not the only way of pursuing imperialist ideals. This is why some critics argue that while colonialism is virtually over today as a practice, imperialism continues apace as Western nations are still engaged in imperial acts, securing wealth and power through the continuing economic exploitation of other nations (we consider this in terms of globalisation in Chapter 8). Benita Parry spells things out helpfully for us when she describes colonialism as ‘a specific, and the most spectacular, mode of the imperial project’s many and mutable states, one which preceded the rule of international finance capitalism and in mutated forms has survived its formal ending’ (Postcolonial Studies: A Materialist Critique, Routledge, 2004, p. 18.)

To recap: colonialism is a particular historical manifestation of imperialism, specific to certain places and times. Similarly, we can regard the British Empire as one form of an imperial economic and political structure among several which emerged in Europe. So we can endorse Elleke Boehmer’s judicious definition of colonialism in her important book Colonial and Postcolonial Literature (second edition, Oxford University Press, 2005) as the ‘settlement of territory, the exploitation or development of resources, and the attempt to govern the indigenous inhabitants of occupied lands, often by force’ (p. 2). Note in this definition (a) the important emphasis on the settlement of land, (b) the economic aims at the heart of colonialism, and (c) the unequal relations of power which colonialism constructs between colonising and native peoples.

Boehmer’s phrase ‘the attempt to govern’ points to the ways in which colonialism was never fully successful in securing its aims, despite its lucrative gains, and met with perpetual acts of resistance from the outset by indigenous inhabitants of colonised lands. In some cases too, members of the European communities who had settled overseas – in Canada and Australia, for example – in large numbers and who no longer wished to defer power and authority to the imperial ‘motherland’ came to agitate for forms of self-government. As regards the imperial venture of the British Empire, there are three distinct periods of decolonisation when the colonised nations won the right to govern their own affairs. The first was the loss of the American colonies and declaration of American independence in the late eighteenth century. The second period spans the end of the nineteenth century to the first decade of the twentieth century, and concerns the creation of the ‘dominions’. This was the term used to describe the nations of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. These nations (today referred to as ‘settler’ nations) consisted of large European populations that had settled overseas, often violently displacing or in some cases destroying the indigenous peoples of these lands – ‘First Nations’ peoples in Canada, Aboriginal communities in Australia, New Zealand’s Maori and the many different tribes in southern Africa. The ‘settler’ peoples of these nations campaigned for forms of self-government which they achieved as dominions of the British Empire. Yet, as a ‘dominion’ each still recognised and pledged allegiance to the ultimate authority of Britain as the ‘mother country’. Canada was the first to achieve a form of political autonomy in 1867, Australia followed suit in 1901, New Zealand similarly in 1907, and South Africa in 1910. Slightly after this period, Ireland won self-rule in 1922, although the country was partitioned and six counties in the north east remained under British control as Northern Ireland. In 1931 the Statute of Westminster removed the obligation for the dominions to defer ultimate authority to the British crown and gave them full governmental control.

The third period of decolonisation occurred in the decades immediately following the end of the Second World War. Unlike the self-governing settler dominions, most colonised lands in South Asia, Africa and the Caribbean did not become sites of mass European migration, and tended to feature larger dispossessed indigenous populations settled and governed by small British colonial elites. The achievement of independence particularly in South Asia and Africa occurred often as a consequence of indigenous anti-colonial nationalism and military struggle. India and Pakistan gained independence in 1947, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1948. In 1957 Ghana became the first ‘majority-rule’ independent African country, followed by Nigeria in 1960. In 1962, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean followed suit. The decades of the 1960s and 1970s saw busy decolonisation throughout the declining Empire. So, with the passing of Hong Kong from Britain to China on 1 July 1997, the numbers of those living under British rule fell below one million for the first time in centuries – a far cry from the days when British colonialism subjected millions around the globe.

There are, of course, as many reasons for decolonisation as there were once-colonised nations. One fundamental reason concerned the growth of many nationalist movements which mounted various challenges across the Empire – from passive resistance to armed struggle – to British colonial authority, and which very often took inspiration from each other in opposing colonial authority. Other reasons can be found too: one cause was the decline of Britain as a world power after 1945 and the ascendancy of the United States and the Soviet Union, while another reason concerns changes to technologies of production and international finance which enabled imperialist and capitalist ambitions to be pursued without the need for colonial settlement. Yet the dissident, often militant endeavours of colonised peoples and their sympathisers is a key preoccupation of postcolonial writers and thinkers, and in exploring the end of Empire it is important to many postcolonial scholars that such endeavours are sufficiently remembered and explored.

The emergence of ‘Commonwealth literature’

Let us move from this very brief historical sketch of colonialism and decolonisation to the intellectual contexts and development of postcolonialism. In particular, we need to look at two areas of intellectual study that have come to influence its emergence as an academic pursuit – these are ‘Commonwealth literature’ and ‘theories of colonial discourses’ – on the way to acquiring a useful understanding of how postcolonialism has developed within and eventually beyond literary studies in recent years. Of course, I do not wish to imply that the narrative which follows is a full account or representative of all the work that has occurred in the field; far from it. But in pointing to a few key developments we can begin to understand the intellectual scope and focus of postcolonialism as it is now often understood today.

One important antecedent for postcolonialism was the growth of the study of Commonwealth literature. ‘Commonwealth literature’ was a term literary critics began to use from the 1950s to describe literatures in English emerging from a selection of countries with a history of colonialism. It incorporated the study of writers from the predominantly European settler communities, as well as writers belonging to those countries which were in the process of gaining independence from British rule, such as those from the African, Caribbean and South Asian nations. Literary critics began to distinguish a fast-growing body of literature written in English which included work by such figures as R. K. Narayan (India), V. S. Naipaul (Trinidad), Janet Frame (New Zealand) and Chinua Achebe (Nigeria). The creation of the category of ‘Commonwealth literature’ as a special area of study was an attempt to identify and evaluate this vigorous literary activity, and to consider via a comparative approach the common concerns and attributes that these manifold literary voices might have. Significantly, neither American nor Irish literature were included in early formulations of the field, and so ‘Commonwealth literature’ was associated exclusively with selected countries with a history of colonialism.

The term ‘Commonwealth literature’ is important in the associations it beckons, and these associations have historical roots. One consequence of the decline of the British Empire in the twentieth century was the establishment of – to use its original title – the British Commonwealth of Nations. At first, this term was used to refer collectively to the special status of the dominions within the Empire and their continuing allegiance to Britain. However, as the relationship between Britain and the dominions changed in the first half of the century (with the term ‘dominions’ being gradually dropped) a different meaning of ‘Commonwealth’ emerged. In the early decades, Britain hosted frequent ‘colonial conferences’ which gathered together the Governors of the colonies and heads of the dominions. In 1907 these meetings were re-named ‘imperial conferences’ in recognition of the fact that the dominions were no longer strictly British colonies. After the Second World War, these meetings became ‘Commonwealth conferences’ and featured the Heads of State of the newly independent nations. The British monarch was recognised as the head of the Commonwealth in symbolic terms only; the British crown held no political authority over other Commonwealth nations, and the word ‘British’ was abandoned altogether. Thus, ‘Commonwealth’ became redefined after the war in more equitable terms, as meaning an association of sovereign nations without deference to a single authority. Today, the Commonwealth of Nations as a body exists in name only. It has no constitution nor any legal authority, and its membership – although based on the old map of Empire – is not compulsory for the independent nations. It aims to promote democracy, world peace, non-racialism, and consensus building within and across its 54 member states, as enshrined in its 1971 ‘Singapore Declaration of Commonwealth Principles’ (see www.thecommonwealth.org). But it remains troubled by colonialism’s legacies and violent contemporary conflicts. In the late 1990s, Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth after the execution in 1995 of the activist Ken Saro-Wiwa; Zimbabwe was suspended in 2002 and withdrew altogether the following year; and at the time of writing Fiji remains suspended after a military coup in 2006.

This shift from ‘colonial’ to ‘Commonwealth’ perhaps suggests a particular version of history in which the status of the colonised countries happily changes from subservience to filial equality. But we must avoid subscribing to this selective view, not least because the economic and political relations between Britain and the Commonwealth nations have remained far from equal. In many ways, the term ‘Commonweath’ proffers a sanitised vision of international fraternity which masks the exploitative and painful realities of British colonisation and its legacies. The identification and study of ‘Commonwealth literature’ certainly echoed the tenor of the specifically benign usage of ‘Commonwealth’, but it also had its own problems. In general the term welcomed a shared, valuable literary culture, freshly discerned within a disparate and variable collective of once-colonised nations. It distinctly promoted unity in diversity – revealingly, the plural term ‘Commonwealth literatures’ was rarely used. However, that common inheritance arguably served to reinforce the primacy of Britain among the Commonwealth nations. As A. Norman Jeffares declared in 1964, addressing the first conference of Commonwealth literature at the University of Leeds in the UK, ‘one reads [Commonwealth writers] because they bring new ideas, new interpretations of life to us’ (Commonwealth Literature: Unity and Diversity in a Common Culture, ed. John Press, Heinemann, 1965, p. xiv). It is not clear whether the ‘us’ in this sentence referred to the diverse audience at the conference comprising writers and academics from many Commonwealth nations, or specifically British (or, more widely, Western) readers in particular. ‘Commonwealth literature’ may well have been created in an attempt to bring together writings from around the world on an equal footing, yet the assumption remained that these texts were ultimately to be judged by a Western, English-speaking readership. Despite the egalitarian principles held by many such enthusiasts, the ‘Commonwealth’ in ‘Commonwealth literature’ was never fully free from the older, more imperious connotations of the term.

One of the fundamental assumptions held by the first Western critics of Commonwealth literature concerned the relationship between literature and the nation. In the introduction to a collection of essays The Commonwealth Pen: An Introduction to the Literature of the British Commonwealth (Cornell, 1961), the editor A. L. McLeod proposed that ‘[t]he genesis of a local literature in the Commonwealth countries has almost always been contemporaneous with the development of a truly nationalist sentiment: the larger British colonies such as Fiji, Hong Kong and Malta, where there are relatively large English-speaking populations, have produced no li...