Course:WMST307:Student Pages: Jenny Chen

The word post-colonial refers to the “occurring or existing after the end of colonial rule or relating to a former colony. ” [1] Identity refers to “the quality or condition of being the same in substance, composition, nature, properties, or in particular qualities under consideration.” [2] The idea of a post-colonial identity is closely tied with these two definitions, it brings awareness to the idea of the self identity of those colonized after the colonial period. “…The period from approximately 1950 through the end of the twentieth century can be referred to as post-colonial” [3] Despite the word post-colonial alluding to the idea of colonialism being in the past, the identity of these people cannot return unharmed. “Many of the basic ideas prompting the cultural and political development of new nations outside Europe have a European origin.” [4] It is next to impossible to separate oneself from the colonizers due to its Empirical culture weaved within its own culture. This brings to question of what is post-colonial identity? “The terms in which formerly colonized groups shape their demands for post-colonial autonomy inevitably also bear the mark of those earlier signs of European dominance: nation and race.” [3] Rather than gaining autonomy, these cultures fall victim to a new form of colonization labeled under a different name. “The postmodern has made some features of the post-colonial visible or speakable for the colonizers, reassuringly strange and safely subversive.” [5] The term post-colonial has become a band-aid word used to re-assure colonizers that their colonies have become free and released from their homogenous control. Unfortunately, post-colonial identity does not refer to what it pretends to be but rather an identity that contains traces of the original cultures but heavily tainted by Empirical influence.

1. Oxford University Press. post-colonial, adj. OED Online. Sept. 2012. Web. 4 Dec 2012.

2. Oxford University Press. identity, n. OED Online. Sept. 2012. Web. 4 Dec 2012.

3. O’Brien, Susie, and Imre Szeman. Popular Culture: A User’s Guide. 2nd ed. Toronto: Nelson Education, 2010. Print.

4. Larsen, Svend Erik. The national landscape –national identity or post-colonial experience?. European Review, 13.2 (2005): 293 – 303. Cambridge. Web. 4 Dec. 2012.

5. Williams, Patrick, and Laura Chrisman. Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994. Print.