Colonialism analysis

Post-colonialism is a term coined by historians and scholars alike, it has to do with the effects of colonization, and for the literary world, colonization’s effect on culture.  Since the 1960s the term extends to the study of linguistic, political, and cultural effects that European societies had on native cultures. 

Slemon describes the term of post-colonialism as “western historicism” and believes it recounts on the absence of modern or technological culture.  This, Slemon’s idea, coincides with post-colonial reading; the approach to draw attention to the “profound and inescapable effects of colonization on literary production; anthropological accounts: historical records: administrative and scientific writing” (Ashcroft, 192).  I found the idea of post-colonial states being synonymous with ‘post-independence states’ demeaning. It undermines a native cultures ability to have autonomy and success; it implies the necessity of colonization or westernization.

Orality seems to represent the language and characters being passed down in native societies; since orality is interrelated with literacy.  I found it intriguing that in the West Indies the culture of the slaves was preserved in oral form. This orality and finesse has allowed for a “dominance of anthropological texts in the recording of ‘oral’ forms” (166). 

I would have to agree with the progressive use, or non-usage, of terms like “third world” because it, to me, stands for an underestimate of the people in a native society and is pejorative because it lacks sensitivity. 

Transculturation as a term, points to the influence of a dominant western society on how indigenous people respond and react to their conditions. In some cases and locations the native people will salvage and make the best out of their situation; to me, transculturation illuminates the indigenous people’s regard and sense of coexistence because they are inventing from materials from a dominant western society.