What postcolonial theory doesn’t say

Abstract

This article proposes that there is a category error at the heart of ‘postcolonial studies’ as an academic field. There has been a notable failure in the field to situate the historical projects of colonialism and imperialism in the determinant contexts of the inception, consolidation and development of the modern world system, whose developmental logic is that of combined and uneven development. Even on the best postcolonialist accounts, imperialism is typically situated in civilisational terms and refers to ‘the West’ rather than to capitalism. The social and temporal power identified through this means is a euphemism. The idea of ‘the West’, as it is deployed in postcolonial studies, inevitably issues in a dematerialised — and, for that matter, unhistorical — understanding of the forces powering the world system over the course of the past 500 years. This case is argued through reviewing work by Edward Said, Andre Gunder Frank, Benita Parry, Fredric Jameson, Susan Bassnett, V. Y. Mudimbe, Rey Chow and novelists such as Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Ousmane Sembène, inter alia.

Through eurocentric logics

“…Chavistas and the opposition not only represent differing ideologies on the redistribution of wealth and state intervention in the economy; the two groups also hold opposing views on the role of Venezuela and Latin America vis-à-vis global capitalism. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that the construction of difference in foreign news discourse not only follows Western cultural norms but is also imbued with the legitimation of western political and economic structures, in turn exposing the limitations of theoretical perspectives that do not complement the West-Other dichotomy in the context of global capitalism (Dirlik 1997;Lazarus 2011). Because difference-making, according to Eurocentric logics, is visible in newspaper media generated from several geopolitical contexts, this study suggests that Eurocentrism works as an overarching framework that guides the discursive construction of difference in foreign news discourse, both in Western and nonWestern elite newspapers.…”

“…By associating Islam with irrationality, violence, and even terrorism, the media in turn others and delegitimizes Muslims. However, the Saidian perspective can be criticized for focusing too heavily on culture, which risks simplifying (post)colonial relations and neglecting class hierarchies and interests within 'othered' groups while failing to situate colonialism within the history of capitalism (see Dirlik 1997;Lazarus 2011).…”

World-literary resources and energetic materialism

“…As has been suggested, world-literary studies has always represented a desire to "recalibrate the emergent field of world literature from a materialist perspective" (Graham, Niblett, and Deckard 2012, 466) and, in so doing, to move beyond the limitations inscribed into postcolonial studies from its institutional beginnings (see Lazarus 2011). Part of this effort has involved revisiting the "emergence of Weltliteratur" in relation to the work of Marx and Engels (Niblett 2012, 15), and in relation to what John Bellamy Foster (2000) has labelled Marx's Ecology.…”

E então, por que o Índico?

“…8-9). Assim sendo, os Estudos do Índico desdobrados na perspetivas do(s) transnacionalismo(s) menor(es) contribuem sensivelmente para redefinir a mesma noção de pós-colonialidade, apontando para discursos críticos capazes de desmantelar o cariz hegemónico do pós-colonial como abordagem assombrada pelo feiticismo da alteridade e pelo seu desengajamento das condições materiais do literário, do artístico e do cultural (AHMAD, 2002;LAZARUS, 2011).…”