ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a broad approach to postcolonialism to understand it as a variety of responses to colonialism and decolonization that have inspired both liberation struggles and academic inquiry. Different strands of thought have contributed to what understand as postcolonialism. Although there are no direct links between the political and cultural movements of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the postcolonial theory that emerged after the 1980s, there are some similarities in the politics and ethics that inspired them. Pan-Africanism is usually seen as a political movement that emerged out of the Atlantic slave trade and the removal and dispersal of people from the continent to disparate parts of the world. Although African slaves and their descendants had diverse origins and cultures, one shared experience was of their location in systems of exploitation where African origin and skin colour became a sign of their subaltern status.
