Postcolonial Theoreticians

Postcolonial theory is a continuity of post-structuralism in critical theory. Its early form was enclosed within the study of Orientalism like the work of Edward Said. That is to say, the inspection of Western academia be it literature, philosophy or science and look for colonial and racist tropes articulated by the West so as to study, represent or govern the cultural other.

Edward Said was greatly influenced by Antonio Gramsci at the level of the notions of the public role of and historical duty of the intellectuals in their respective societies. He was also influenced by the outcome of the post-structuralist debate about the text and context, and also the outcome of Foucault’s work on Discourse, Power and Knowledge. These notions were the tools by which texts produced by notorious and canonical writers such as Joseph Conrad and Pierre Lotti or even policy makers like Lord Cromwell (former British governor of Egypt) and Henry Kissinger (former American Secretary of State), were decorticated and analyzed according to the set of colonial tropes inscribed within them.

The dynamic of Orientalism spread to other disciplines and theoreticians as Homi K. Bhabha who did go beyond the reasoning of Edward said and his “monolithic approach” to get into a deep analysis of the Western psyche and its imaginary when it comes to framing, encapsulating and representing the cultural other through Lacan’s Mirror Stage.

Another French scholar, Jacques Derrida, was the source of inspiration of postcolonial studies through the readaption of his work on deconstruction by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Indeed, she used deconstruction to re-read and reinterpret the colonial text, and discourse, to the extent that they become unaware of their ambivalence and self-deconstruction.

These theoreticians established a new academic dynamism which effect is still visible and have even become “fashionable”. Still, their effect as cultural studies scholars had little effect on the self-awareness on the part of the colonized subject this dynamism was not translated at the political and social spheres and there debate, issues and struggles are still enclosed within academia and elite spheres.