What do you think?
Rate this book
Post-Colonial Transformation
In his new book, Bill Ashcroft gives us a revolutionary view of the ways in which post-colonial societies have responded to colonial control.
The most comprehensive analysis of major features of post-colonial studies ever compiled, Post-Colonial Transformation :
* demonstrates how widespread the strategy of transformation has been
* investigates political and literary resistance
* examines the nature of post-colonial societies' engagement with imperial language, history, allegory, and place
* offers radical new perspectives in post-colonial theory in principles of habitation and horizonality.
Post-Colonial Transformation breaks new theoretical ground while demonstrating the relevance of a wide range of theoretical practices, and extending the exploration of topics fundamentally important to the field of post-colonial studies.
The most comprehensive analysis of major features of post-colonial studies ever compiled, Post-Colonial Transformation :
* demonstrates how widespread the strategy of transformation has been
* investigates political and literary resistance
* examines the nature of post-colonial societies' engagement with imperial language, history, allegory, and place
* offers radical new perspectives in post-colonial theory in principles of habitation and horizonality.
Post-Colonial Transformation breaks new theoretical ground while demonstrating the relevance of a wide range of theoretical practices, and extending the exploration of topics fundamentally important to the field of post-colonial studies.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
3 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 28, 2010
In this rewarding book, Bill Ashcroft presents a subtle exploration of post-colonial transformation; that is, how those on the losing end of colonial-era power structures* can shift, augment and transform the dominant colonial discourse. The book is academic in nature - Ashcroft employs the vocabulary of historical and literary post-colonial theory - so a reader new to historiography or literary theory may find an introduction to post-colonial theory helpful. Although I find Ashcroft so lucid that an attentive, committed reader new to theory could make much of this book as well.
As a professor of English, Ashcroft dwells mostly in the literary, but history and sociology also figure in Post-Colonial Transformation. Essentially, Ashcroft argues that the most effective means of refiguring the dominant colonial discourse involves engaging that discourse, using it against itself, rather than (a) creating counter-discourses that engage-by-opposing the binary thinking of colonial discourse and trap colonial subjects further within those binary structures, or (b) creating inward-looking "islands" of discourse that refuse to engage colonial thinking at all. He seems to be saying, for better or worse, that the West's colonial discourse has become the world's dominant discourse - the entire world has, to various extents, inherited Western maps, chronologies, products, languages, etc. Now let's work with this Euro-centric discourse and whip it into a shape commensurate with the multiplicity of human experiences that have occurred outside of or while oppressed by Western paradigms of culture and thought.
Ashcroft examines both how this transformation of discourse has already occurred and how it can continue. Among other topics, he explores resistance, language, and habitation. For example, he looks at:
(1) resistance - how post-colonial people can and do resist the dominant discourse, especially where "resistance" equals something subtler, more mundane and constant than an armed uprising or political movement; Ashcroft observes, "if we think of resistance as any form of defence by which an invader is 'kept out', the subtle and sometimes even unspoken forms of social and cultural resistance...are most interesting because they are most difficult for imperial powers to combat." (20); He cites the development of African-American music as just this sort of non-violent, effective resistance to colonial cultural dominance;
(2) language - how post-colonial literature can employ the colonist's language to subvert, problematize and refute colonial values and how post-colonial authors can "write back" to colonial literature**; Ashcroft observes again and again that adopting and using an imperial language does not erase a person's agency or compromise their ability to elucidate values developed by cultures outside of that language; His analysis of language is reader-response heavy, which I love; and
(3) habitation - how post-colonial people inhabit space in ways that disregard colonial boundaries and ideas of place; This includes notions of time and history as well as geography; Ashcroft discusses in depth the idea of "home" both as a physical location and as a state of mind.
Exploring the history of European colonization around the globe, its oppression of "others", and our inheritance from that imperial past is always sobering, if not outright depressing. According to Ashcroft, eventually, out of this shameful history something hopeful and more egalitarian may grow. His optimism is appealing.
In the meantime, we now cope with the extension of imperial attitudes through globalization, the ascendence of American power (in place of European power), and the perpetuation of a preeminent discourse that ignores or subjugates other discourses for its own interests. As America's dominance becomes increasingly slight and ever more challenged by non-Western powers, the rise of a new discourse or discourses seems imminent. I believe, however, that in the phrase "dominant Western discourse", "dominant" is operative where "Western" is circumstantial. Any form of imperial or global dominant discourse that excludes others risks ending up hegemonic and oppressive. But like Ashcroft, I tend toward thinking can-do thoughts. It's a survival mechanism as well as a strategy to stave off despair at the human propensity to behave inhumanely.
*A brief note of clarification: Ashcroft generally refers to as "post-colonials" those modern people alien to but confronted or oppressed by the colonial Western discourse - this could include Australian Aborginals, descendents of Africans who lived under European colonial systems, Native Americans and descendents of enslaved peoples of the Americas, et al. In some sense, Ashcroft's study includes all residents of the world insofaras Western discourse has insinuated itself to some extent into every country. He also draws distinctions between colonial powers and the European colonial settlers of any given region - not to argue that they did not participate in the colonial discourse, certainly, but by way of observing that a settler's experience was yet still distinct from the the imperial power whose interests they served.
** Ashcroft sites many examples, including Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea that I had the pleasure of reading fairly recently. You can find my review in Goodreads
As a professor of English, Ashcroft dwells mostly in the literary, but history and sociology also figure in Post-Colonial Transformation. Essentially, Ashcroft argues that the most effective means of refiguring the dominant colonial discourse involves engaging that discourse, using it against itself, rather than (a) creating counter-discourses that engage-by-opposing the binary thinking of colonial discourse and trap colonial subjects further within those binary structures, or (b) creating inward-looking "islands" of discourse that refuse to engage colonial thinking at all. He seems to be saying, for better or worse, that the West's colonial discourse has become the world's dominant discourse - the entire world has, to various extents, inherited Western maps, chronologies, products, languages, etc. Now let's work with this Euro-centric discourse and whip it into a shape commensurate with the multiplicity of human experiences that have occurred outside of or while oppressed by Western paradigms of culture and thought.
Ashcroft examines both how this transformation of discourse has already occurred and how it can continue. Among other topics, he explores resistance, language, and habitation. For example, he looks at:
(1) resistance - how post-colonial people can and do resist the dominant discourse, especially where "resistance" equals something subtler, more mundane and constant than an armed uprising or political movement; Ashcroft observes, "if we think of resistance as any form of defence by which an invader is 'kept out', the subtle and sometimes even unspoken forms of social and cultural resistance...are most interesting because they are most difficult for imperial powers to combat." (20); He cites the development of African-American music as just this sort of non-violent, effective resistance to colonial cultural dominance;
(2) language - how post-colonial literature can employ the colonist's language to subvert, problematize and refute colonial values and how post-colonial authors can "write back" to colonial literature**; Ashcroft observes again and again that adopting and using an imperial language does not erase a person's agency or compromise their ability to elucidate values developed by cultures outside of that language; His analysis of language is reader-response heavy, which I love; and
(3) habitation - how post-colonial people inhabit space in ways that disregard colonial boundaries and ideas of place; This includes notions of time and history as well as geography; Ashcroft discusses in depth the idea of "home" both as a physical location and as a state of mind.
Exploring the history of European colonization around the globe, its oppression of "others", and our inheritance from that imperial past is always sobering, if not outright depressing. According to Ashcroft, eventually, out of this shameful history something hopeful and more egalitarian may grow. His optimism is appealing.
In the meantime, we now cope with the extension of imperial attitudes through globalization, the ascendence of American power (in place of European power), and the perpetuation of a preeminent discourse that ignores or subjugates other discourses for its own interests. As America's dominance becomes increasingly slight and ever more challenged by non-Western powers, the rise of a new discourse or discourses seems imminent. I believe, however, that in the phrase "dominant Western discourse", "dominant" is operative where "Western" is circumstantial. Any form of imperial or global dominant discourse that excludes others risks ending up hegemonic and oppressive. But like Ashcroft, I tend toward thinking can-do thoughts. It's a survival mechanism as well as a strategy to stave off despair at the human propensity to behave inhumanely.
*A brief note of clarification: Ashcroft generally refers to as "post-colonials" those modern people alien to but confronted or oppressed by the colonial Western discourse - this could include Australian Aborginals, descendents of Africans who lived under European colonial systems, Native Americans and descendents of enslaved peoples of the Americas, et al. In some sense, Ashcroft's study includes all residents of the world insofaras Western discourse has insinuated itself to some extent into every country. He also draws distinctions between colonial powers and the European colonial settlers of any given region - not to argue that they did not participate in the colonial discourse, certainly, but by way of observing that a settler's experience was yet still distinct from the the imperial power whose interests they served.
** Ashcroft sites many examples, including Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea that I had the pleasure of reading fairly recently. You can find my review in Goodreads
Displaying 1 of 1 review