ABSTRACT
Postcolonialism is used as a designation for critical discourses that thematise issues emerging from colonial relations and their aftermath, covering a long historical span including the present (Hoogvelt 2001: 167). It focuses on a conceptualisation of power in which there is a recognition of the relationship between power, discourse, and political institutions and practices, with the aim of casting new light on colonial and postcolonial experiences, and providing for a more comprehensive understanding of how past and present relations of inequality are constructed and maintained (Abrahamsen 2003: 190). A key interest of postcolonialism is a focus on relationships in colonial societies in which the colonisers depend on a discursive creation and normalisation of difference, through cultural classifications and representations of self and others (see Said 1979; Loomba 1998; Abrahamsen 2003; Kothari 2005). This ‘othering’ and creation of subject identities (Said 1979) was ‘based on particular types of knowledge which required the classifications of “other” and “difference”, superiority and inferiority in order to justify and sustain colonial power and control’ (Kothari 2005: 432). Thus, in Orientalism, Edward Said shows how the British created a version of the ‘Oriental’ as a person who was backward, not very handsome, unintelligent, laid back, incapable of self-rule and therefore deserving to be colonised (see Said 1979). Similarly, Mudimbe (1988) shows how complementary genres of ‘speeches’ contributed to the invention of a ‘Primitive Africa’ (see also Chipungu 1992; Hansen 1989; and Kazimbaya-Senkwe 2005 on various representations of Zambians by the British).
