Terry DeHay, English Department:
Postcolonialism, like other post-isms, does not signal a closing off of that which it contains (colonialism), or even a rejection (which would not be possible in any case), but rather an opening of a field of inquiry and understanding following a period of relative closure. Colonialism is an event which can be identified, given an historical definition, through its effects and characteristics as they reveal themselves in a given nation, among different cultural and social groupings. Partha Chaterjee, in The Nation and its Fragments, characterizes the colonial project as "...the normalizing rule of colonial difference, namely, the preservation of the alienness of the ruling group" (10). Later in the text, he clarifies this difference: "representing the "other" as inferior and radically different, and hence incorrigibly inferior" (33). Colonialism can further be defined as "a way of maintaining an unequal international relation of economic and political power" (Williams 4), employing social, cultural, and religious means of control, as well as economic and political ones, or following Althusser's categories, both institutional and repressive state apparatus.
The definition of postcolonialism that I am most comfortable with is as follows: the social, political, economic, and cultural practices which arise in response and resistance to colonialism. This corresponds to Mishra and Hodges' definition of postcolonial literature as, "an always present tendency in any literature of subjugation marked by a systematic process of cultural domination through the imposition of imperial structures of power," which as they point out implies that postcolonialism is "already implicit in the discourses of colonialism" (284). As I think will become clear, these categories will reverse, with colonialism being subsumed into postcolonialism. Always important, as well, is the incorporation of an understanding of material condition in any analysis of postcolonial cultural production. Postcolonial texts will incorporate culturally specific details, often not offering translations or explanations of non-European practices, decentering the European-based reading. In addition, the texts very often decenter the white characters, who become faceless, nameless representatives of a dominating power, shifting the power relationships within the text. Finally, it is perhaps most important to stress the ever changing nature of postcolonialism as a defining term, as it responds to the material conditions under which people live in colonial and neo-colonial situations. Although postcolonialism comes out of colonialism, in opposition to colonialism, in its development, it has literally become a critical perspective through which to view colonialism. By problematizing the Western humanistic metanarratives on the basis of which colonialism was justified, colonization itself becomes a motivated political, historical effect. In effect, "colonialism" no longer exists outside some critical framework; hence it always exists from within the postcolonial context.