ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys a major shift in postcolonial theory. The figure of the human fissured by anthropological differences of race, class, gender, sexuality, caste, and religion has been at the centre of postcolonial theory since it first emerged in the Anglo-American academy in the 1980s. Postcolonial theory’s commitment to human difference and oppositional thinking has only deepened in the last thirty years. But these concerns have been rendered more challenging and complicated in the last decade with rising awareness of humanity as the structuring force of the epoch identified as the Anthropocene. Balancing the perspectival shift that results from an awareness of the anthropos both as dominant species and as an entity riven by differences and inequalities is postcolonial theory’s challenge in the 21st century.
