ABSTRACT
Between the postcolonial and the postsocialist, or what it means to be a void in the global coloniality
In their thought-provoking invitation to contribute to a special issue of the Journal of Postcolonial Writing on the intersections between postcommunism and postcolonialism, the editors pointed out the relative dearth of meaningful dialogue between postcolonial theory and postcommunist discourses and experiences. Postcolonial theory has become in the last two decades a well-established and integral element of any serious critical thinking on otherness, ethnicity, race and gender, as well as queer and ecological projects both in the west and in the non-west. Many categories of postcolonial theory have found their way into other paradigms, including the recently coined postcommunist studies, which have sporadically used postcolonial tools as an instrument to conceptualize the postsocialist imaginary and experience. Postcolonial studies are thus filling a theoretical void in the interpretation of postcommunist reality left by old Sovietology and not yet filled by the recently coined Eurasian studies.
