Reading notes from "Postcolonial, Decolonial, Anti-Colonial: Does it Matter? By Lydia Ayame Hiraide"
As I am starting a new research, or rather continuing with The Untouched Collection, I feel the need to clarify certain terms.
Lydia Ayame Hiraide's article brought some light for me, even though, as I understand, polemics are still ongoing when it comes to which word to use.
As I read it, I feel that DECOLONIAL would be the term I would like to use for my work. But as I continue to explore the subject, I may come back to this ...
Her work was published in "New Voices in post-colonial studies"
"Our use of language is under constant change,
and this is perhaps nowhere truer than within the field of Postcolonial Studies
(Britton, 1999; Ashcroft, 2002; Ramanathan, 2005). From ‘Third World’ to ‘Global South’, ‘people of
colour’ to ‘racialised people’, there are
numerous examples of linguistic shifts, which once introduced, can feel eternal
and natural. In this vein, this article will reflect on the extent to which discussions around language are important for
resistance and liberation with
particular reference to the uses of ‘postcolonial’, ‘decolonial’, and
‘anti-colonial’. Are questions around these terms just lofty semantics in the
ivory tower? Or are there tangible consequences to the words we use in the
struggle towards emancipation? "
"One of the leading voices of the Latin American decolonial school Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui argues that “[t]here can be no discourse of decolonisation, no theory of decolonisation, without a decolonising practice” (2012: 100). "
"(...) I aim to strike a careful balance between two approaches: first, recognising the power of language as the tool which frames ideas and action, and second, stressing the urgency of resistance as collaborative action which must be grounded in coalition building that can accept linguistic differences."
ANTICOLONIAL
"Though I have suggested that anti-colonial is a term, which evokes historical social movements of opposition to direct rule (as well as cultural domination), it is also relevant to the practices and political postures of a number of communities in continued resistance today. In particular, indigenous communities who live in contemporary settler colonies, such as Canada, the US, Australia, and Aotearoa (also known as New Zealand). "POSTCOLONIAL
"Within academia, the term ‘postcolonial’ is perhaps most associated with the realm of literary and cultural studies and is not without controversy. "
"(...) the ‘post’ of postcolonial implies a temporality infused with a sense of past. "
"The term ‘post-colonial’ can thus be useful for describing the temporal period post direct rule for such nation states. As Frantz Fanon (1976) and Aimé Césaire (1955) have done, we should still stress the dangers of believing that colonialism is necessarily over after achieving national sovereignty. "
"(...) it is clear that the term is not universally applicable even as a temporal marker. Many communities still do live under the actual direct domination of the descendants of European settlers. "
DECOLONIAL
"The term ‘decolonial’ is largely associated with the school of decoloniality originating in Latin American scholarship. "
"(...) decolonial scholars interrogate how knowledge is
produced; denaturalising and critiquing Western knowledge as neither superior
nor universal. Ultimately, decolonial scholars are engaged in a project of what
Walter Mignolo (2007) describes as ‘de-linking’: a process of emancipatory
rupture which confronts and resists the pervasiveness of Eurocentrism. If we
pay attention to the literal construction of the word even outside of the
specific context of the decolonial school, the term is excitingly provocative."
"Where the prefix ‘anti’ expresses pure
opposition, I would argue that ‘de’ positions decolonisation as a more
obviously continuous and reiterative process, which not only seeks to overthrow
colonialism, but also to remove and redress its lasting traces and legacies
afterwards. Hence, it not only opposes domination, but actively opens up the
space of resistance of radical alterity."
"The precision that the deliberate choice to use
terms like ‘anticolonial’, ‘postcolonial’, and ‘decolonial’ may afford in
specific working contexts no doubt proves useful. It is perhaps productive to
underline an understanding of these three terms, which are not necessarily
antithetical to each other. If there is one thing they all have in common, it
is a fundamental spirit of resistance, a posture of defiance against the
domination of colonialism, no matter how said colonialism is conceived – the
latter being another contentious matter."
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