Childhood and Postcolonization

Power, Education, and Contemporary Practice

Gaile S. Cannella, Radhika Viruru

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135953690
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book opens the door to the effects of intellectual, educational, and economic colonization of young children throughout the world. Using a postcolonial lens on current educational practices, the authors hope to lift those practices out of reproducing traditional power structures and push our thinking beyond the adult/child dichotomy into new possibilities for the lives that are created with children.

Part I
Postcolonialism Defining Postcolonialism and Cultural Critique

1
COLONIALISM/POSTCOLONIA LISM:

Historical and Contemporary Conditions

When the Portuguese set foot in Brazil, there were five million indigenous people…. Today they number 330,000. —as cited in Young, 2001, p. 1 (from Survival (May 2000)

Colonialism is a concept that many of us in the United States either associate patriotically with the settling of America, or associate with past conquests that no longer occur. We would even propose that many groups of people around the world whose lives have been privileged through economic, social, and political circumstances would deny and even be unaware that colonialist impositions are contemporary issues. Certainly, individuals, families, and communities struggling to survive, work, and be educated barely have time to consider notions of colonialism or Empire. How could colonialism be related to contemporary life, either locally or globally? For adults or children? Yet, physical colonialism is so extensive that the impact can be felt all around the world. Imperialism continues to be played out in economic structures, societal institutions, and ways that people view themselves, as well as through continued physical occupation in various locations of the world. Further, imperialist thought invades the daily lives of individuals and groups all over the globe.

In this chapter, we begin by explaining the history of physical colonization and the continued impact of this imperialist practice on the lives of real people living today even after most physical colonialism has ended. The terminologies and perspectives associated with postcolonialism are explained with an in-depth discussion of postcolonial critique.

THE EXTENT AND IMPACT OF PHYSICAL COLONIZATION

We begin by critiquing the notion that we could provide an accurate history of colonialism. Is there one version or perspective on colonialist/imperialist events? Are there simple or even complex truths about the extent and impact of colonialism? These questions represent the way we have learned to use postcolonial critique to challenge truth-oriented disciplines, including history. (The will to power embedded in the construction of academic disciplines is discussed in Chapter 2.) Although critique of dominant disciplines is necessary, we will use the traditional notion of history, which would attempt to closely approximate physical events. Recognizing that this orientation toward truth can be colonizing, we believe that providing some feeling for the massive physical influence of colonialist practice can also lead to broader constructions of history, continued critique, and the construction of decolonial practices.

Imperialist powers either controlled or occupied 90% of the world at the beginning of World War I. This occupation was violently imposed over a 500-year period and has a history of slavery, unimaginable and unnamed deaths, oppression, and forced migration (Young, 2001). Racism was institutionalized and cultural genocide legitimated as Enlightenment belief in patriarchal superiority reigned (Cannella, 1997; Chaliand and Rageau, 1995; Ferro, 1997). European intellect, culture, and understanding of the world were considered more advanced—superior to others. According to Mohanram (1999), by 1800 55% of the earth's land surface had been claimed by the imperial powers of western and southern Europe. Further, in the 19th century, Europe acquired new territories at the rate of 210,000 square kilometers a year. Magdoff (1978) estimates that 55 million Europeans moved to different parts of the globe between 1820 and 1920.

Young (2001) suggests that it is not a coincidence that European imperial powers turned upon themselves, attempting to conquer one another only when there was essentially no place left on the globe to conquer. “Fascism was a form of colonialism that was brought home to Europe” (Young, 2001, p. 2), as Germany attempted to create Empire during World War II (Cesaire, 1972). Although Italy and Japan basically lost their prewar possessions and the remaining colonial powers (e.g., Britain, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark) decolonized following World War II, many countries remained closely tied to their former colonizers. For example, although India's independence in 1947 from Britain began the process of decolonization that is for the most part over, there are many legacies, both visible and intangible, territorial and human, that remain. The United States is a very complex and unique example, being both a former colony, whose indigenous peoples were all but eliminated, as well as a contemporary colonizing power (e.g., control over Puerto Rico).

Even though physical decolonization seemed to happen quickly (colonizers moved out and appeared to no longer attempt physical occupation), the list of locations remaining under a dependent colonial status is long. Subordinate status is signified in a variety of ways through labels like dependent or unincorporated territory, overseas department, or trust. Examples of these include British Gibralter, Dutch Antilles, French Guiana, and U.S. Virgin Islands (Young, 2001). Further, in the contemporary world, less obvious, more hidden (although no less dangerous) conditions exist. These struggles are of various types and origins but include problems caused by conditions that were either created or compounded by imperial powers, such as the struggles between groups who were historically colonized. Examples include the focus by the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland to become part of a united Ireland, struggles for equal rights by various groups of Aboriginal peoples, and the conflict between Palestine and Israel.

Finally, colonization transformed and impoverished the structure of economies, generated privileged knowledges and discourses, and established imperialist institutions. Peoples, cultures, and countries changed. When physical decolonization occurred, there was no possibility of achieving some form of precolonial state of being (either metaphorically or physically). The remnants of Empire were embedded within contemporary societies all around the globe.

THE ILLUSION OF UNDERSTANDING:
RELUCTANTLY DEFINING TERMS

Unfortunately, we cannot proceed without defining or at least specifying our referents in using certain terms. The idea of definition invokes precisely the kind of images that are challenged by postcolonial critique—an enlightenment/modernist dualism (accurately defining or not), a colonialist scientific heritage (grounded in Western male, linear truth orientations toward the world), and a way of organizing thought that is alien to many people around the globe. However, many of us have learned to expect this way of functioning. We know that most of our readers will ask What is meant by colonialism? Imperialism? What is postcolonialism? What do they mean by decolonizing? A full discussion of the many constructs that are relevant to postcolonial critique is beyond the scope of the book (see the work of Young, 2001); however, a summary of constructs, issues, and ideas is necessary. We begin by providing our overall impressions of the related “-isms” (colonialism, imperialism, neocolonialism), however Western that might appear. We then address constructs that are often used throughout postcolonial discourse.

Colonialism and Imperialism

Although both colonialism and imperialism involve the takeover, subjugation, and control of one group of people by another, at least simplistically the purpose for control can be differentiated between the two practices. The physical occupation of India by the British and the conquest of South America by Spain and Portugal were attempts to civilize and exploit, to establish Empire, and as such, created imperialist structures. In contrast are such projects as the British settlements in North America and Australia that were undertaken for multiple reasons (e.g., fleeing the established church, as a location for convicts), but lacked any kind of ideological mission that would bring civilization to the natives or channel new financial resources to the center of the Empire. Thus, colonies established for the purpose of settlement can be characterized as colonial projects, and those established for the purpose of exploitation as imperial projects. If one adopts this simplistic framework of thinking, then much of postcolonial theory and writing would be more accurately labeled postimperial (Young, 2001).

However, colonialism was not a benign practice. For example, although the pilgrims settled North America with the purpose of establishing their own rule away from the Empire, indigenous peoples were exterminated. Although the actions may not have been created to support the Empire, certainly the results could be called an imperialist imposition. Similarly, in so-called settler colonies like Rhodesia and South Africa, the process of settlement by the new arrivals caused mass dissettlement for the original inhabitants. Colonialism, even if conceived as distinct from imperialism, still involves fundamental acts of geographical violence on human beings (Said, 1993).

Loomba (1998) also cautions against drawing simplistic distinctions between colonialism and imperialism since both practices are too complex to pin down. Although economic and power motives were no doubt primary in countries reaching out and expanding to different parts of the globe, there were also internal social issues that drove this effort. In Britain, for example, the question of population was a major factor influencing outward expansion. Colonies were places where surplus populations (often those labeled undesirable) could be safely exported. Thus, the colonization of the world was also tied to the need for colonial powers to export their internal social conflicts. Further, colonization and imperialism, although widely conceived as originating in Europe, are not purely European. Spanish imperialism in Latin America was influenced by the Islamic Jihad that led to the Moorish colonization of Spain. Colonialism and the construction of Empire have been recurring features in human history, albeit in different forms. The Roman Empire, the Aztec Empire, and rule by a royal family in Imperial Russia are illustrations.

Imperialism has multiple meanings and multiple histories, but is most often “characterized by an exercise of power, either through direct conquest or (latterly) through political and economic influence that effectively amounts to a similar form of domination” (Young, 2001, p. 27). French imperialism was both progressive and dismissive. French actions rested on the premise that all human beings were equal and shared a common humanity; conversely, the definition of humanity was based on individualist notions of enlightenment freedom that tended to disqualify the variety of ways human beings lived their lives (especially in the colonies). The French spoke a language of equality yet imposed their own views of humanity on others without hesitation. Additionally, British imperialism can be interpreted as inscribing a racist ideology because the determiner of what was considered to be civilized or not was skin color. This justified the imposition of continued colonialism because the difference (one's skin color) would never be overcome. This perspective was justified as a liberal form of imperialism, in that occupied native cultures were “respected” by being left alone to practice their own culture (with the exception of religion and, of course, economics!).

Another distinguishing feature of imperialism, and possibly the major reason for the existence of postcolonial theory, is that the establishment of colonies for the purpose of exploitation did much more than simply extract wealth (Loomba, 1998). Economies were restructured setting up a flow of both humans and capital that produced economic imbalances that made the industrial growth of Europe possible. Such systems resulted in conditions in which direct internal political control by the colonizers was not necessary because economic control was more secure and lasting. Further, this created a global system of capitalist imperialism through which capitalist economies established colonies that could provide human resources (like labor) to maintain the colonizers capital growth (Lenin, 1965 [1917]).

Smith (1999) also comments on the relationship between imperialism and colonialism, viewing colonialism as but one expression of imperialism. As an economic endeavor, imperialism is described as securing markets for European products. Correspondingly, colonialism was the system for establishing control over the populations who would be the market, the “outpost” for imperialism (p. 23). This perspective combines colonialism and imperialism to create methods that would legitimate the subjugation of large populations of people, a subjugation that was reinforced through the categorizing of native populations (the legislation of identities as indigenous or not). The economic power interest of the colonizer is the driving force. Further, imperialism can be located “within the enlightenment spirit” (p. 23) that assumed scientific progress and reasoned intellectual superiority. Large numbers of people were judged as lacking, deficient, not advanced—both at home and in the colonies. The enterprise did not just establish domination over native populations but also ensured that Europeans were kept under control—kept in the service of Empire.

Finally, Loomba (1998) explains another way of distinguishing between and connecting colonialism and imperialism, suggesting that the two practices ought to be separated in spatial terms. In her distinction, imperialism is considered to be the phenomenon that takes place in the metropolis that at least partially caused the colonizer to seek “others” to dominate and control. Thus, countries that undertook projects of outward expansion were considered imperialist. The result of imperialism is colonialism; the places, spaces, bodies, and minds that have been affected by imperialism are colonial. This connection is especially useful because a major theme of postcolonial critique can then be understood—the notion that imperialism can function without colonies, a perspective that is embedded thoughout our postcolonial analysis of the construction of child.

Neocolonialism

The European imperial powers could no longer afford (e.g., financially or politically because the United States wanted economic expansion) to continue direct domination of other countries following World War II. A neocolonialism, however, emerged that was, although more subtle, a version of continued Empire. As notions of country development were constructed to assist colonized peoples in movements toward independence, Eurocentric assumptions regarding people, country, culture, progress, and economy dominated. Understandings, forms of assistance, and constructions of appropriate actions were decidedly European and American.

Even more important, the international system of capitalist power (a contemporary Empire) that had been established through imperialism was not challenged (Young, 2001). Although the colonized had provided and continue to have resources, the control of the markets (and ways of viewing the world) were/are centered in places like London and New York. Formerly colonized territories have regained some physical and political independence, but they have remained dependent on major world powers economically. Using Gramsci's (1971; Anderson, 1976–77) definition of political and civil societies, the neocolonial situation simply shifted the power from control by military force (political society) to a condition in which control is maintained by a particular cultural, ideological, and economic elite who are complicit with the international capitalist system (civil society). Control is now maintained through “access to capital and technology” (Young, 2001, p. 47) using organizations like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. As Spivak (1999) explains, neocolonialism is “the largely economic rather than the largely territorial enterprise of imperialism” (p. 3), the latest and perhaps the last stage of Empire.

In 1965, the Ghanaian leader Kwame Nkrumah theoretically examined neocolonialism in his book Neocolonialism: The Last State of Imperialism. Just 4 years after Ghana had gained independence (in 1961), Nkrumah attempted to describe the flow of economic power in much of the postcolonial condition. Independence provided the illusion of international sovereignty, yet the economic system remained dependent on international capitalism inscribed during imperialist occupation. Nkrumah further explained that even political policy was directed from outside the country to meet the economic needs of the West. He proposed that the postcolonial era would be characterized by an international division of labor that would be used to maintain the relatively high living standards of the working class in the West. Nkrumah argued that because of American economic power, the contemporary period could be considered American colonialism, Empire without physical colonization. Finally, although Nkrumah described neocolonialism as continued colonial rule using different means, he also proposed that it is the “last hideous gasp” (p. 253) of imperialism. The use of capital for continued exploitation would not simply be detrimental to those who were formerly colonized, but would also eventually drown those doing the exploitation (Nkrumah, 1965; Young, 2001).

In the years since Nkrumah began the discussion of neocolonialism, a succession of economic theories have emerged that have both perpetuated and attempted to explain the power relations between so-called third world countries and their colonizers. Examples include development theory that assumes the importance of modernization, Latin

American and Marxist economic dependency theories that label colonialist power practices as purposeful underdevelopment that would maintain dependency, and world system theory that has attempted to mask exploitation by invoking the greater needs of the world market. Eurocentric, capitalist understandings of the world have been assumed to be correct. Imperialist powers have imposed economic restrictions on postcolonial nations that were not required of the colonizer. For example, the United States functions as if its markets work as ideal democratic entities—without the recognition that the markets have been built on the backs of slaves, women, poor people around the world, and immigrant laborers. In the name of the global market, colonialist powers have been and continue to be reinscribed.

However, social movements like anticolonialism and feminism have helped to generate critical activist and culturalist orientations that go beyond neocolonialism. Multiple ways of interpreting the world have been constructed that challenge Enlightenment logic, linear progress toward advanced development, and assumed superiority. Neocolonialist perspectives remain useful in that they continue to focus on economics and provide a framework for including the cultural and political within economic power analyses (Ngugi, 1981, 1993). Yet, postcolonial critique challenges the boundaries of economics, politics, and culture to combine the social sciences and the humanities, creating a mixture of activist, hybrid discourses that are embedded in action. Discussions of neocolonialism begin the conversation, but postcolonial critique generates possibilities (Arndt, 1987; Young, 2001).

POSTCOLONIALISM AND POSTCOLONIAL CRITIQUE

The term postcolonialism has been contested, legitimated, argued about, and discussed from a variety of perspectives. There are those who believe that the use of the prefix post is not appropriate because physical imperialism still exists, and certainly economic and Western intellectual imperialism permeates the globe. There are others who believe that the postcolonial discussion and construction of theory is very much a Western intellectual endeavor. We certainly agree with both of these points and a variety of others that demonstrate the complexity of the idea. (For additional information see (Appiah, 1992; Loomba, 1998; Shohat, 1992; Sleman, 1994.) However, we believe that the construct as terminology, theoretical disposition, and field of study is important for the recognition of the context in which we all live. Postcolonialism embodies the recognition of the Western imperialist project, followed by historical attempts to physically decolonize, while at the same time leaving nations and peoples living under one form of imperialist political and economic domination that is spreading to include power over identity(ies) and intellect, contemporarily infused with active critique and innovative interventions that would challenge oppression, objectification, and othering (Young, 2001).

Because of its origin on the three southern continents—Africa, Asia, and Latin America—postcolonialism could accurately be called tricontinentalism. Whether labeled postcolonial or tricontinental critique, an action emerges with the purpose of addressing the legacy of colonialism imposed by Western attempts to create Empire over the past 500 years. This particular “will to power” was profound because of the global influence, totalization of diverse societies into one universal, and the imposition of a narrow economic path on societies that previously interpreted human experience, as well as economi...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• SERIES EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
• INTRODUCTION: VIEWING CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION THROUGH POSTCOLONIAL CRITIQUE
• PART I: POSTCOLONIALISM DEFINING POSTCOLONIALISM AND CULTURAL CRITIQUE
• PART II: COLONIAL CRITIQUE, CHILDHOOD, AND EDUCATION
• PART III: POSSIBILITIES FROM THE MARGINS
• AVOIDING CONCLUSIONS: CONSTRUCTING DECOLONIAL POSSIBILITIES
• REFERENCES