ABSTRACT
Post/colonial theory tries to unpack and rethink ‘the West’ from the inside, to subject to critical scrutiny the self-professed claims of Western superiority and universal progress in order to show the violence that lies just beneath the surface. Whilst the texts of A. Cesaire and F. Fanon are regularly cited within post/colonial theory, it is the work of Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha and Edward Said that is seen as foundational to post/colonial theory. Malcom’s sociology of sport textbook does have a separate index entry on ‘post-colonialism’ and a discussion of post/colonial theory, perhaps indicating a more developed engagement compared to similar texts of even a decade ago. Colonialism is seen to be exterior to this formation, therefore ‘colonialism must mean, for the Africans, Asians, and Americans, not spoliation and cultural destruction but, rather, the receipt-by-diffusion of European civilization: modernization’.
