File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_1998/postcolonial.9804, message 15


Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 00:47:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Ivison Douglas <ivisond-AT-magellan.umontreal.ca>
Subject: Re: Who is "us?" WAS: the enemy and they is us


On Thu, 2 Apr 1998, Keith Alan Sprouse wrote:

> But back to the topic at hand: my point is simply this: if we are to find
> any explanatory value in the body of knowledge known as postcolonial
> studies, then that term cannot come to mean everything, for a term that
> means anything and everything means nothing. We could certainly, if we
> wanted, claim that every society that has ever suffered under a colonial
> power and no longer does is "postcolonial" -- but that would get France back
> in, as it was colonized by the Romans, not to mention all those other
> societies that have known colonialism since the beginning of the world. But
> is this helpful in any way? I think not. 
> 
> I'm curious how you would define the postcolonial? Would you accept a
> definition that would include every society ever colonized? Or only certain
> ones? Who would the colonizer have to be to get one included? And does it
> matter if that society then colonizes? 
> 
It seems to me what's missing here is a recognition of the multiplicity of
colonial experiences, and thus the broad spectrum of postcolonial
societies that are produced by those very different experiences of
colonial oppression, colonial settlement, etc.  Also, the temporal
dimension is missing.  Why would it not be possible to talk about France
at a particular moment being in a postcolonial situation?  Or England
circa 400 or 1100?

Douglas Ivison
Departement d'etudes anglaises
Universite de Montreal




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