LITR 5831 Colonial-Postcolonial Literature UHCL research projects 2011

The field of Postcolonial Studies has been gaining prominence since the 1970s. Some would date its rise in the Western academy from the publication of Edward Said’s influential critique of Western constructions of the Orient in his 1978 book, Orientalism (Palladino, 10). The growing currency within the academy of the term “postcolonial” (sometimes hyphenated) was consolidated by the appearance in 1989 of, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. Since then the use of cognate terms “Commonwealth” and “Third World” that were used to describe the literature of Europe’s former colonies has become rarer (Masefield, 72). Although there is considerable debate over the precise parameters of the field and the definition of the term “postcolonial,” in a very general sense, it is the study of the interactions between European nations and the societies they colonized in the modern period. The European empire is said to have occupied 85% of the rest of the globe by the time of the First World War, having consolidated its control over several centuries (75).

When reading Jamaica Kincaid in Dr. White’s World Literature class it sparked my interest in global issues amongst post-colonial civilizations, this is not the first time I read Kincaid, I studied her in Global Issues in Film class taught by Dr. Deborah Blakely during my undergraduate degree. It was then I realized the impact that not only Europe has on colonizing “third world” countries and then leaving; but also the effect the United States has on countries like Iran, Iraq and Vietnam when we basically do the same. Kinkaid’s own flee from Antigua was brought on by her feelings of distrust towards the English. She famously said in an interview that she grew to “detest everything about England, except the literature” (Kinkaid, 35). Yet she also expressed her anger at the natives of Antigua, who she felt, made no move to improve them through education.

In Dr. White’s class we studied Kinkaid’s Lucy, where we highlighted the experience of Lucy, the protagonist and being unable to see a clear reference to the ineffectiveness of colonial and postcolonial education in the West Indies and elsewhere. This is an example of the European empire and its disintegration after the Second World War, which have led to widespread interest in postcolonial literature and criticism in our own times.

Despite the reservations and debates, research in Postcolonial studies is growing because postcolonial critique allows for a wide-ranging investigation into power relations in various contexts. The formation of the empire, the impact of colonization on postcolonial history, economy, science and culture, the cultural productions of colonized societies, feminism and post colonialism, agency for marginalized people, and the state of post colony in contemporary economic and cultural contexts are some of the broad topics in the field (Aosa, 34).

The following questions suggest some of the major issues in the field of post-colonialism:

1) How did the experience of colonization affect those who were colonized while also influencing the colonizers?

2) What traces have been left by colonial education, science and technology in postcolonial societies?

Major issues in Kinkaid’s book, Lucy, are the oppression of the indigenous people by the imperial powers, the gaining of independence, the impact of colonization on postcolonial history and culture, the search for personal and national identity but also the economic dependency of the post colony on its former colonizers. Thus, some critics even question the term Post colonialism, since it indicates that the period when the colony was depend on its colonizers is over. They argue that most former colonies are still or even again economically dependent on the mother country that colonized them. Those neocolonial forms of oppression and exploitation are probably caused by globalization, which means by the increasing mobility of goods, services, labor, technology and capital throughout the world. Kinkaid’s Lucy is an autobiography of her life. An example from how to the two storylines match:

In Lucy, in 1965 she left Antigua and went to Scarsdale, a suburb in New York, where she worked for the Masons. She described her employers as being very nice and protective but nevertheless she felt depressed and hopeless in the place she had always wanted to be more than any other places

In Kinkaid’s life, in 1969 Kinkaid left Manhattan for Franconia College in New Hampshire, to which she had won a full scholarship to continue her photographic studies but within two years she left the college without completing her degree because she too old to be a student, although she was only around twenty years old. During all this time she had no contact with her Mother and like Lucy she left her mother’s letters unanswered.

It is so true, the departure of the colonizers or those colonized are rarely a passage of smooth transition, and consequently the little good will that remained between countries was not a solid basis on which development could proceed. This is the case for Antigua and Jamaica Kinkaid, and of course Lucy. The modernist focus on the development of the ‘grand narratives’ (Glaeser, 6) through the export of educational systems by powerful nations prevailed up to the 1960s. The colonial powers used education as a tool in the armory of colonialism, and its export, including the total package of teachers, curriculum and texts, was designed to promulgate the met narrative form of civilizing culture perceived to be utopian at the time (7). The imposition of a form of utopia culture was not only attempted through education, of course; but this modernist focus permeated the government and civil services, had a particular affinity with religious organizations, and coincided with the enterprising objectives of industry and technology.

This is what happened to Kinkaid. Due to her upbringing in a colonized country when she left her always felt empty a sense of hopelessness until she was able to dissect her own experiences and deal with their impacts through authoring several non-fiction books; which mostly related to postcolonial effects on the country and its people.

This of course is just an example in our readings in Dr. White’s class and my studies in Dr. Blakely’s class there are so many more that post colonialism has become a study in literature that never really finds all the answers. Another worldly example is the Green Revolution, when focuses on the lesser developed countries of Latin America, Asia and Africa. If focuses on the relationship between technical innovations to raise the productivity of agricultural producers in the lesser developed countries, especially rice, wheat, and maize varieties; and its distributions of their costs and benefits (Palladino, 3). During the past three decades, people have studied and focused much attention on the emergence in the imperial outposts of Great Britain, France, United States and elsewhere, of distinctly sciences (Raghaven, 77). That is why the Imperialism, is a claim to a distinct nature based on the observations that medical and agricultural programs for the empire were characteristic by a problem-oriented, vertically intergraded approach, which encompassed a very limited definition of socio-economic problems favoring the political agenda of the imperial powers. It has been called by some historians an important cause in the disintegration of the colonies, and is due to its poverty and ill-health. Thus, proving when the imperial powers left the countries they left them uneducated, poverty stricken and in ill-health. Most of which many of the countries have never recovered from, and even though many could make their lives better choose not too; mainly because they have no one hovering over them making them be something they are not. So the effect on these countries is simple there is no inspiration to make themselves better economically, socially, politically, and agriculturally. It is a failure on not only the courtiers but also on the imperial powers that be; for leaving them unable to fend for themselves.

Until the 1960s, there existed in both Great Britain and France a set of institutions especially dedicated to agriculture work in the colonial or formerly colonial possessions of these two countries, such as, for example, the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, and the Institute d’Enseignement et de Recherches Tropicales (Davis & Rathgeber, 191). These institutions were also quit distinct from organizations for agricultural work in the British and French metropolitans by enjoying separate sources of funding, namely the Colonial Research Council and the Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique d’Outre Mer. These institutions, according to Daniel Headrick “are particularly notable for their unrelenting efforts to transform indigenous modes of agricultural production and develop export agricultural economies in British, French and Dutch imperial possessions. It is important to understand that this analysis have encompassed and reflected the views of policy-makers in the metropolitan areas and local experiences in the countries they invade have a different outlook. Also, it is clear from the 1930s, even these policy makers’ plans, especially those for agricultural development in the British colonial domain, and perhaps to a lesser extent those for the French one as well, were far more complex. There was a very definite dual approach, emphasizing, on the one hand, the development of crops for export to the imperial countries, and, on the other hand, problems of food production for indigenous populations (Masefield, 66). The latter perhaps was one aspect of a broader effort to promote the general welfare of these populations and thus support the former activity against the kind of social unrest which had rocked the British West Indies of 1938. Greater attention began to be paid to the social implications of programs to transform indigenous modes of food production, sometimes by calling, in the typically technocratic fashion of the day, on the technical expertise of social as well as agricultural scientists (Glaeser, 8).

By the early 1960s, Community development programs were being strongly criticized by both government agencies for foreign assistance and the recipient governments. The former, and especially the United States agency for International Development, which by the 1950s had become the major driver of programs of technical assistance for economic development, were divided between those who supported the broadly sociological approach of Community Development programs, and those like the American Economist Theodore Schultz, author of the very influential Transforming Traditional Agriculture (1964), who believed that programs for development should focus first on enhancing agricultural productivity because institutional change would follow automatically. Recipients’ governments lost interest in Community Development programs because they failed to produce the desired economic change. Soon the Community Development programs were abandoned; they started enhancing the productivity of agricultural producers by providing them with improved crop varieties and taught them how to make the most of their profits. The struggling agricultural economies of Pakistan, India and the Philippines quickly became self-sufficient (Glaeser, 2). This small success provided the nucleus for the creation of the international system for research in the lesser developed countries under the guidance of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (Aosa, 22).

In the context of technology education, forms of rationalism could be explained in a number of different ways. During colonial times, the modernist approach could be characterized by the representation of technology education as a modern woodwork and metalwork, regardless of the significant indigenous technologies related to construction or hunting or food preservation or appropriate agricultural technologies. This type of rationalist approach was related to notions of progress, and the determination of a single path toward what was a western conception of progress which resulted in superiorority (Ullrich, 9). An analysis of two significant aspects of the development of technology education in the US epitomizes the demise of modernism. The curriculum ideas which came to be known as the Jackson’s Mill Curriculum Theory identified four universal technical systems: communication, construction, manufacturing and transportation – technical systems that are basic to every society (Hales & Snyder, 27). The notion of universal was that the systems were timeless and they had existed since the beginning of technology, and that they were spacious and existed in every country. In a post colonial era we would have viewed this type of theory of a very universal narrative as a very modernist and rational. Rational because of the view of knowledge as nonterritorial: truth which has been revealed by an objective process is valid for everyone, anywhere at any time (Sholte, 7). The absence of claims to international technology is consistent with a postmodern approach which values respect for situational developments.

Globalization could be perceived as the next chapter in a process of exploitation which began in the colonial period and continues the domination of the third world, with colonial nations such as England, France and Spain being supported or replaced by powerful global corporations, supported by international agencies such as the World Trade Organization (Raghavan, 45). Alternatively, the positive aspects of globalization include the spread of liberal democracy and the decline of authorial regimes, and the developing interconnectedness of the global community. Postmodern critiques of the relevance and the usefulness of colonial education have been scathing, and yet the globalization of education continues.

Social media is playing a huge part in globalization, we have especially seen the effects in the past year with Egypt, Iraq, Iran utilizing social media to get the word out they are tied of the imperialism that has so long been allowed in their countries. You ask yourself is this a bad thing the social media network, or is it a good device for natives of their countries to speak about their unhappiness with their circumstances in life. Most of which was caused by the imperial powers that be. Globalization and social media is a double-edge sword. We have not yet seen its effects on many people, just a few million. It has done some good, but has the potential to do even greater damage. How do you control it? The answer you don’t. You can’t. That is the whole entire reasons why globalization and social media exists people are tired of being put down, being maintained, being treated like idiots. They want a change. Do they know how to make the change, not entirely sure. But their desire, their hope is their just like Jamaica Kinkaid.

Yet, even a passing overview of the role played by technical innovation in the history of globalization, suggests it will always cause a social disruption; technical change, all technical change, and is a continuation of politics by another name, according to Bruno Latour.

Aosa, Edmund. “The political economy of international agricultural research: A review of the CGIAR’s response to critisicism of the Green Revolution” in Glaesar, The Green Revolution Revisited, pp. 13-55.

Davis, C. & Rathgeber, E. “Transplntation of science to Anglophone and Francophone Africa.” Science and Public Policy 12, 1985: 191-202.

Glaeser, Berhhard. “Agriculture between the Green Revolution and ecodevelopment: Which way to go?”. The Green Revolution Revisted, London: Allen & Unwin, 1987, pp. 1-9.

Hales, J. & Snyder, J. Jackson’s Mill Industrial arts curriculum theory. Charleston: West Virginia Department of Education 1981.

Palladino, P. “The Empire, Colonies, and Lesser Developed Countries as a Mirror. 1987: Department of History, Lancaster University Press, Pp. 267-299.

Marsden, K. Progressive technologies for developing countries. Eds: R. Jolly, H. Singer and F. Wilson. Third World employment. 1973: Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Masefield, G.B. A history of the Colonial Agricultural Service. 1972, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 65-75.

Raghavan, C. WTO Conference: How the developing countries lost out. 1997: Third World Resurgance. Pp. 77-78.

Ullrich, O. The development dictionary: a guide to knowledge as power. 1993: Johannesburg, Witwatrand University Press, pp. 275-287.