Framing Postcoloniality

1
Framing Postcoloniality

• What is postcolonial?
• When is postcolonial?
• Does it mean after colonialism?
• What constitutes the history of colonialism?
• Do such histories vary?

2
What is Postcolonial?

• Moments of consciousness when colonization is
  interpreted, framed and ideas of its subversion
  emerge
• It implies the development of ideologies refusing
  assimilation into colonial logic and dominance
• It signifies development of anticolonial
  subjectivity and concepts of an alternative
  society

3
When is a society Postcolonial?

• Moments of colonial coherence, institutionalizatio
  n and governance breed contrary ideologies and
  subversive attitudes evolving into postcolonial
  situations
• Caught in the processes of postcolonial
  ideologies are anticolonial nationalism,
  consciousness of decolonization and a critical
  attitude to neocolonial situations

4
Does it mean after colonialism?

• Absolutely not!
• Though the term post has both temporal and
  ideologically subversive meanings, the latter is
  usually stressed in definitions of postcolonial
• The after implied by post is deliberately made
  redundant because we want to assume colonized
  societies have multiple histories sutured into a
  dominant culture

5
What constitutes its histories?

• Local residual and emergent histories
• European expansions and imperial histories
• Colonization and culture
• Colonization and language
• Language and subjectivity

6
Representation and Subjectivity

• Agency, voice and subjective presence

7
Filmmaking as arena for subjectivity

• Defying dominant conventions of representation
• Thematically enunciating and denouncing
  domination
• Inscribing desires for anticolonial subjectivity
  on modes of representation

8
Film viewing and anticolonial attitudes

• Counter-interpretations
• Re-reading representations
• Activism and spectatorship