Introduction to Post Colonial Theory

    In the "Introduction to Post-Colonial Theory" by Peter Childs and R.J. Williams they start off by defining what post colonialism is and how it isn't just the colonization of the Americas. The introduction also talks about how there is many definitions of 'post-colonial'. Throughout the piece there seems to be an over arching question about when does 'post-colonialism' end and how long does it last. There seems to be no answer for this as there is no strict point where it "ends". In addition, there seems to be no set period of time that a nation will be in the post colonialism era.  The word post colonialism is a word that seems like it can be slowly phased out but then on closer observation its prevalent that the word cannot easily be thrown away. The word itself describes a time after colonialism and without the word there would be no name for the era we currently in.
    Another big point that the article brings up is how different the length of the post colonialism is for each place as they are all going through different issues, different needs and also at different speeds of development. The issue with this is that some countries are able to colonialism extremely fast as they have funding and resources from their homeland while other countries during their colonialism time are lacking the funding and resources to reach a stable level. Therefor the gap that can be extremely large for some but virtual non existent for others. 

Comments

  1. shawnAugust 21, 2020 at 12:47 PM

    I agree that there seems to be no answer for the general term post-colonization. This term could be a potential problem, but no clear consensus has been made as to how to adjust or add terms to this subject.

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  2. Stephanie StollOctober 1, 2020 at 2:35 PM

    I found your analysis and takeaways to the question of “when is post-colonial” to be very interesting and eye opening. The definition in the book refers to post-colonial as, "time after colonialism has come to an end" .You concluded that there really is no set start and end to this time because of the generalizations we read about. When I think of the term and era, personally I find that it is not over yet. The term is used very loosely because it can vary from experience to experience, but points you discussed help me grow my thoughts and analyze it from a different view, which only aids in my clarity of this. I found this read to be a good foundation for the beginning of the semester and set the tone and prepared us for the deep analysis of the stories that later came in the semester.

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