Introduction to Postcolonialism: blog tasks

 ‘The Theory Drop: Postcolonialism and Paul Gilroy’ in (MM75, p28) -

Answer the following questions on your blog:

1) Look at the first page. What is colonialism - also known as cultural imperialism? 

The belief that native people were intellectually inferior, and that white colonisers had a moral right to subjugate the local populace as they were ‘civilising’ them: in other words, trying to make them more like Western European society.

2) Now look at the second page. What is postcolonialism? 

Postcolonialism refers less to a time period and more to a critiquing of a school of thought that came before it.

3) How does Paul Gilroy suggest postcolonialism influences British culture?

Postcolonial Melancholia suggested that Britain had not quite faced up to its colonial past,

that the national psyche had not quite come to terms with no longer being a global superpower, and this had resulted in the desire to still subjugate those from different races, particularly immigrants.

4) What is 'othering'?

Othering is the phenomenon whereby we identify something as being different from, or alien to our social identity.

5) What examples of 'othering' are provided by the article?

Love Thy Neighbour, the seventies sitcom about a Black family living next door to a white family with a bigot for a man of the house.

6) What is 'double consciousness'? 

This confusion is referred to as a ‘double consciousness’ whereby people struggle to reconcile two nationalities or identities.

7) What are 'racial hierarchies'?

Racial hierarchies: the idea that some races are superior to other ones. In Western culture, people who promote these ideas are usually advocating for white supremacy.

8) What examples from recent media products challenge the idea of racial hierarchies? 

Leigh Anne: Race, Pop and Power.