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POSTCOLONIALISM
by Francesco Bernardini
Definition
• Postcolonialism = a great category of social
studies, literature and anthropology developed in
1950s and 1960s .
• It was built on the idea of the end of the Colonial
period which overlapped with the crush of the
Western colonial empires (mainly France,
England).
• Most of Postcolonial writers come from excolonial countries.
Cultural Background
• After WWII, almost all colonial countries
started rioting against European countries to
get independence
• Some writers were sensible to such issue and
started writing about such social and
anthropological matters
• Also in Europe intellectuals began to consider
the conflict not from the European way looking
for a new point of view
Objective
• a political objective: to make excluded and
exotic communities free
• to enable them to express themselves without
European meddling
• Postcolonialism also awoke European
minorities’ conscience: women, homosexuals
and immigrated people, too started expressing
with their own voice
Main Features
• Postcolonialism speaks to all minorities that
are not free to speak by their own voice
• An important concept in Posmodernism is
“resistance”: against white people and against
invaders, in favour of local culture
• Every human science shall be revaluated
because such matters have always had a
Western-centric vision and need an
alternative reading key
• Another important theme of Postcolonialism
is the contact between populations through
immigration and integration
Literal Devices
Postcolonialism often uses realistic and social
histories in his literature
The device is used to present problems in the way
in which they are felt by people
It also uses slang words from ex-colonial countries
and not common expressions and words (for
example Foe)
Conceptual Devices
• Anthropology
• Populations and cultures
• Relativity
• Decentered vision
• Folklore
• Exocitism
• Social questions