The Future of Postcolonial Studies (Ania Loomba - 3rd Edition of Colonialism/Postcolonialism)

TOPIC OF THE BLOG:-

This blog is a part of a task given by Dilip Barad Sir from The English Department, MKBU, Bhavnagar. For more information about other writers, Poets, Poems and related topics visit this Blog site of Dilip Barad Sir (Click here). In this blog I am going to discuss the point of view of mine or what I understand on The Future of Postcolonial Studies, in short this blog is a continuation of Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies (Ania Loomba - 2nd Edition of Colonialism/Postcolonialism) (Click here to read it).

THE FUTURE OF POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES (ANIA LOOMBA - 3RD EDITION OF COLONIALISM/POSTCOLONIALISM):-

This article starts with reference of last Edition of this book and the idea of Gayatri Chakravarti Spivak, 

'They no longer have a Postcolonial perspective. I think Postcolonial is the day before yesterday’.

With this Some postcolonial thinkers, like Dipesh Chakrabarty, are facing new challenges, especially in environmental studies. Despite years of studying globalization, Marxism, subaltern studies, and postcolonial criticism, Chakrabarty feels unprepared to analyze the global climate crisis. This raises questions about how postcolonial ideas can adapt to and tackle these emerging challenges.

ECOLOGY 

In Ecology, people talk about how colonialism has a lasting impact. Vandana Shiva, who cares about the environment, says colonialism is connected to ruining nature. She thinks capitalism and big global companies make it worse, hurting local cultures that were good to women because they played a big role in making food. Some feminists who care about the environment doubt that all pre-colonial cultures were great, pointing out issues like social divisions and male dominance. But everyone agrees that nature and human culture are closely tied. Especially in the third world, saving the environment should also think about people's needs and communities.

Ramachandra Guha and Juan Martínez-Alier point out a problem in American environmentalism: it focuses too much on wilderness and forgets about other places. Rob Nixon adds that American literature and natural history contribute to this by ignoring the history of colonized peoples, creating a kind of forgetfulness about non-American places. Nixon calls this 'spatial amnesia.' This might be why postcolonial criticism is cautious about Earth-first environmental criticism and doesn't talk much about environmental issues. But, considering the battles in the third world between environmentalists (like Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria) and big companies ruining land and communities, this needs attention. Including such issues in postcolonial studies, beyond what's commonly discussed in the Anglo-American academic world, is essential for a broader perspective.

The US focus on a 'wilderness tradition' causes forgetfulness about places outside America, but this tradition itself ignores the harmful history of settler colonialism and the suffering of Native American peoples. Postcolonial criticism hasn't paid enough attention to this history and its effects. Jodi A. Byrd and Michael Rothberg say it's because indigenous people feel the impact of ongoing colonial projects, not just historical legacies. Also, postcolonial studies often rely on models of colonialism from South Asia and Africa, which might not fit the situations in settler colonies like the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand (2011: 2). So, the issue isn't just about using different models of colonialism as Vilashini Cooppan highlights,

Since the beginning, [there is] a prevailing version of postcolonial studies in the United States that so embraces its aura of ‘new work’ and its dual allegiances to high theory and a rather reified, distanced, and monolithic ‘Third World literature’ that it largely estranges itself from the individual and collective histories of several important allied traditions such as American studies, Native-American studies, African-American studies, Asian-American studies, Latino studies, and Gay and Lesbian studies.

Even though disadvantaged groups worldwide share political concerns, there are notable differences. For instance, Native Americans or African-Americans, despite facing disenfranchisement, are citizens of a powerful nation like the United States. In contrast, many immigrants from the third world, particularly within the U.S., might come from relatively well-off backgrounds as Tony Morrison noted, ‘most enduring and efficient rite of passage into American culture: negative appraisals of the native born black population’, making forming solidarities challenging despite being necessary. 

'Indigeneity' and 'ongoing colonial projects' aren't limited to specific settler colonial societies. They also apply to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, sparking debates on Arab displacement.

Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish highlighted this parallel in his poem called 'On This Land'.

We have on this land that which makes life worth living

We have on this land all of that which makes life worth living

April’s hesitation

The aroma of bread at dawn

A woman’s beseeching of men

The writings of Aeschylus

Love’s beginning

Moss on a stone

Mothers standing on a flute’s thread

And the invader’s fear of memories

We have on this land that which makes life worth living

September’s end

A woman leaving ‘forty’ behind

with all of her apricots

The hour of sunlight in prison

A cloud reflecting a swarm of creatures

A people’s applause for those who face their own erasure with a smile

And the tyrant’s fear of songs.

We have on this land all of that which makes life worth living

On this land

The lady of our land

The mother of all beginnings

And the mother of all ends

She was called Palestine

Her name later became Palestine

My lady….

Because you are my lady

I have all of that which makes life worth living.

In areas like South Asia and Africa, discussed in postcolonial studies, indigenous communities face displacement and land theft. Ken Saro Wiwa opposed multinational drilling in Nigeria, causing displacement and environmental harm. (Here is a video available on YouTube on this)

The Narmada Bachao Andolan in India protested large dams, causing ecological damage and displacing tribal communities. Despite these struggles, globalization structures persist, noted by Chittaroopa Palit, a leader of the NBA. Further, Palit talks about how the NBA created new ways to resist by learning from local people and their land knowledge. It was also influenced by the methods of the Gandhian anti-colonial struggle and gained significant support from women's groups, trade unions, left parties, and connected with other movements worldwide.

Here is a video available on YouTube on Explanation of Narmada Bachao Andolan in Maharashtra by Sadhana Dadhichi, a senior activist of NBA.

INDIGENEITY/TRIBLE

In Central India, there's a different kind of fight against mining companies hurting the forests. Maoist guerrillas lead this, controlling big areas and being chased by the police and army. Arundhati Roy says that the tribal people in Central India have been resisting this for centuries, even before Mao's time.

The Ho, the Oraon, the Kols, the Santhals, the Mundas and the Gonds have all rebelled several times, against the British, against zamindars and moneylenders. The rebellions were cruelly crushed, many thousands killed, but the people were never conquered. Even after Independence, tribal people were at the heart of the first uprising that could be described as Maoist, in Naxalbari village in West Bengal (where the word Naxalite—now used interchangeably with ‘Maoist’—originates).

Roy explains that the constitution of free India supported colonial policies, making the State the guardian of tribal lands. This quickly made the tribal population seem like trespassers on their own land, taking away their traditional rights to forest resources and even criminalizing their way of life. Roy, along with others, shows how the Indian State is favoring big companies in iron, steel, bauxite, and aluminum production, companies that operate both nationally and globally.

• Further in this article it is said that, The point being made is that issues like indigeneity and the environment, often overlooked by established postcolonial studies, reveal that internal colonialism exists in formally decolonized regions and previously settler colonial societies. These concerns also draw attention to the connections between historical colonialism and today's global capitalism, as mentioned in the introduction. In recent years, it's become clearer that global and local capital, usually working through the nation-state, is increasingly exploiting areas with natural and human resources. The continuous encroachment on 'the commons,' referring to shared land and resources worldwide, is ongoing. Focusing on these issues helps grasp that modern global capitalism still embodies the exploitative dynamics of its historical roots.
• Environment
• Indigeneity
• Colonial Legacies &
• Global Capital

CAPITALISM/GLOBAL CAPITAL 

Karl Marx explained that the enclosure of the commons was vital for the birth of capitalism. In England, from the late 15th century, communal property was forcefully taken through individual acts of violence and later by Parliamentary Acts for Enclosures of the Commons. This resembles the U.S. takeover of Native American or Mexican territories and Arundhati Roy's description of the Indian constitutional takeover of tribal lands. Similar to slavery and colonialism, seizing the commons and turning collective property into private property led to the dispossession of many in both colonizing and colonized nations, concentrating wealth in a few hands. This process transformed the dispossessed into landless laborers, pushing them into a cash economy, and their work became commodities. Marx called this process 'primitive accumulation,' comparing its significance in political economy to the role of original sin in theology. The term 'primitive accumulation' might be mislead by implying it happened only in early capitalism. In Rosa Luxemburg's view, expressed in "The Accumulation of Capital," she suggested revising Marx's idea that capitalism is a self-sufficient closed system. Instead, she argued that for capitalism to prosper, it always requires new markets for its goods that can't be entirely consumed within the system. That's why Capitalism needs to extend into new territories, labor, and resource beyond its existing boundaries as noted,

Capital, impelled to appropriate productive forces for purposes of exploitation, ransacks the whole world, it procures its means of production from all corners of the earth, seizing them, if necessary by force, from all levels of civilization and all forms of society.

Capitalism’s central dynamic, the constant search for markets, resources and labour, thus involves the ongoing need to draw in whatever still remains open of the non-capitalist environment.

Further, Luxemburg's ideas are relevant today because she highlights the deep links between trade, colonialism, and accumulation. Globalization is a continuation of these processes, and it showcases capital's energy moving worldwide to exploit new markets, resources, and labor. David Harvey suggests redefining "primitive accumulation" as "accumulation by dispossession" to reflect its ongoing nature. Luxemburg's ideas help us understand how capitalism has expanded and exploited the world, both historically and in the present day.

DISPOSSESSION - Accumulation has evolved through financial processes, including stock promotions and hedge fund activities. There are new methods of dispossession, like enforcing intellectual property rights and bio-piracy targeting vulnerable communities. Resources like water, land, and the environment are now contested globally. Welfare rights have eroded, and Swapna Bannerjee-Guha asserts that neoliberal development centers around accumulation by dispossession, involving the loss of rights over nature, livelihood, knowledge, and culture - all essential for capital expansion and profit. Dispossession is a global issue affecting regions such as Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, and North America. In North America, settler colonialism's historical exclusions endure as an ongoing process. Scholars, like Glen Coulthard, connect indigenous struggles to Marxist theory, seeing accumulation as an ongoing force shaping current social relations. Coulthard suggests a shift from the capital-centric view of primitive accumulation to understanding colonial relations. He cautions that legal recognition may weaken indigenous resistance, transforming them into "subjects of empire." Brown's central question explores whether settler colonialism and primitive accumulation together give rise to a distinct process termed "settler accumulation."

Looking at the subprime and debt crisis in the United States, Paula Chakravartty and Denise Ferreira da Silva uncover a history of race, empire, and dispossession within the new empire. They focus on identifying who is most at risk of being dispossessed and said that, 

The question (is one) that Harvey does not even consider, one that he also seems to see as already asked and answered by the subprime mortgages themselves and their securitization, which is: what is it about blackness and Latinidad that turns one’s house (roof, protection, and aspiration) and shelter into a death trap? … How could anyone expect to profit from unpayable loans without debtors who were already marked by their racial/cultural difference ensuring that at least some among them would not be able to pay? This is precisely what makes ‘high-risk’ securities profitable.

Further, Chakravartty and da Silva argue that black and Latino individuals face higher risks due to poverty and racial history. They aren't seen as full citizens capable of economic exchange in the capitalist empire. The subprime crisis, they say, should be viewed through both race and empire lenses, connecting it to crises in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Ananya Roy shows that microfinance and subprime lending both contribute to 'poverty capital,' serving as tools for financial inclusion but also as exploitative lending practices. 

RACE - Recent works by Graeber and Piketty highlight capitalism's inherent inequality. The 2012 Occupy Wall Street protests criticized bailouts, pointing to neglect of job loss and housing issues. Protestors connected this to the privatization of public resources, advocating for 'Commons not Capitalism.' Arrests during Occupy underscored increased control, echoing surveillance and eviction seen in minority communities. Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" explores racial segregation's extension. Critics noted Occupy's insufficient focus on racial discrimination noted by Rinku Sen, 

We need to interrogate not just the symptoms of inequality—the dis- proportionate loss of jobs, housing, healthcare and more - but, more fundamentally, the systems of inequality, considering how and why corporations create and exploit hierarchies of race, gender and national status to enrich themselves and consolidate their power.

Further this article focuses on another point of view that Recently, a different perspective emphasizes global connections, highlighting humanity's shared challenge in the face of environmental crises. Dipesh Chakrabarty suggests a significant shift, noting that humans are now major influencers in the planet's environment. This marks the Anthropocene, a new geological age, challenging the idea that environmental changes are slow and negligible in human history. Chakrabarty argues we must rethink human freedom as the climate crisis challenges our previous ideas. Traditional critiques of injustice and oppression may not fully capture human history in the face of climate change. He suggests that as this crisis persists longer than capitalism, we need to reconsider how we understand history on a non-human scale, breaking away from Eurocentric views.

In response, Ian Baucom notes the proposal of a 'new universalism: the universalism of species thinking.' While different from past European colonial ideas, it risks creating a divide between nature and culture, suggesting that human differences are overshadowed by our shared existence as a species. This perspective implies powerlessness in the face of nature's harsh realities. Baucom suggests a more grounded approach to understanding our planetary condition, advocating for engagement with key historical moments to comprehend the unfolding catastrophes rather than distancing from recorded history.

At this time, European nations, about to engage in colonialism, created what Carl Schmitt called the first order of the earth - a colonial order dividing Europe from non-Europe and Land from Sea. They established the jus publicum Europaeum, creating 'amity lines' distinguishing two types of,

‘open’ spaces in which the activity of European nations proceeded unrestrained: first, an immeasurable space of free land—the New World, America, the land of freedom i.e., land free for appropriation by Europeans—where the ‘old’ law was not in force; and second, the free sea—the newly discovered oceans conceived by the French, Dutch and English to be a realm of freedom.

As article go further, Schmitt explains how primitive accumulation globally influenced European law, marking a colonial division between land and sea. Despite this, the language portrayed these elements as open and free. 'Nature' is used to justify political or cultural actions, similar to ideologies of race and gender, where it justifies cultural distinctions. Postcolonial critique provides unique insights into capitalism and colonialism, focusing on cultural and ideological aspects often neglected by other disciplines. Scholars like Susie O'Brien and Imre Szeman call for deeper historical research to strengthen connections between cultural forms and geopolitics, reassess early forms of contact and conflict, and uncover overlooked aspects of pre-colonial, colonial, and racial histories. Postcolonial critique is essential for a comprehensive understanding of the past and present.

‘Extending the time-frame of our self-understanding’ as Baucom suggests, shouldn't lead to despair but rather a stronger commitment to preserving life on the planet. This aligns with social movements, part of the 'environmentalism of the poor,' as coined by Guha and Martínez-Alier. This environmentalism considers both the smaller ecological impact of many poorer communities and their struggles to protect biodiversity and livelihoods. These diverse movements, philosophically and politically innovative, contribute to challenging and broadening the agendas of postcolonial studies.

CONCLUSION

To conclude this article she wrote, Postcolonial studies explores the challenges of the environment, indigenous histories, premodern cultures, and global capitalism. These challenges shed new light on colonial history, freedom, racial hierarchies, gender dynamics, and community. Postcolonial studies is often viewed as a separate field, but it can also be seen as an interdisciplinary approach. This has led to criticism, particularly in literary studies, for not being materialist or political enough. However, postcolonial studies has broadened the perspective of a Eurocentric literary academy by emphasizing the importance of cultural analysis in understanding colonialism and its ongoing impact. In other words, postcolonial studies is a diverse and evolving field that challenges us to think critically about the legacies of colonialism and how they continue to shape the world today.

WORDS:- 2930

NOTE:- I took help from the Chat GPT for certain points and mostly to make my blog Grammar error free and If you have any questions or doubts comment it down or contact me on my Social Media.