Postcolonialism is a defining metanarrative of our time
Metanarrative - literally 'a story about a story', metanarratives help us to make sense of the world. Examples include religion and science, which both present satisfactory answers to why things are the way they are. Metanarratives can also refer to other concepts as broad as Marxism, football, and racist
Our society is built on a history of colonialism
Colonialism - the process of conquering or taking over a country, settling in it, and exploiting it in some manner
An excellent example of colonialism would be the British Empire, or the commonwealth, where Great Britain embarked on a campaign of invasions and colonisation, in countries such as certain countries in Africa, certain parts of north America, Australia and New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka, and certain Caribbean countries.
Cultural imperialism - where one culture imposes its culture on another culture. Examples of this can include religion, sports (such as cricket), language, food etc
Paul Gilroy argues that although we live in a postcolonial society, we still have colonial attitudes. British people and British culture still evidence deeply entrenched racist and negative ideologies towards people it considers to be foreign and different. This has lead to a rise in nationalism. Parties such UKIP (which campaigned to leave the EU), the BNP (British National Party) and the National Front symbolise and represent this discontent.
Promoting British values in schools and other education settings is a legal obligation
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| Image courtesy of TES |
One example of postcolonial identity in practice is the legal obligation for teacher in the UK to embed 'British values' in their lessons. 'British values' here include ideas such as multiculturalism, acceptance of other culture and ideas, and an emphasis on the ideologies of democracy and individualism. It is unlikely that most people would disagree with this! However, do the promotion of 'British values' actually instead promote an idea of British exceptionalism? The idea that Britain still has significant power and exists as a more powerful nation to other countries? That 'we' are 'right' and everyone else is 'wrong'?
Symbolic annihilation is the symbolic removal of a certain group from a media product
Examples of postcolonial attitudes and ideologies in Woman and Adbusters include
- "British women] are like snow capped volcanos" - reinforces the notion that British culture is superior to other European cultures
- Exclusive representation of white women symbolically annihilates all other representations of women of colour
- The shot of the 'African person's' feet in the Louboutin spoof advert reinforces and plays with certain stereotypes of the representation of people from central Africa
- Adbusters presents an extremely complicated and nuanced attitude to postcolonialism, and it acknowledges that international relationships are extremely complicated
- Front cover uses a stereotypical representation of a middle eastern man in order to challenge the audience to confront their own prejudices