Postcolonial Critic of Anthropology †Free Samples to Students

Question: Discuss about the Postcolonial Critic of Anthropology. Answer: Introduction This essay addresses the key points in the post colonial critique of anthropology and what these have meant to the development management of the discipline into the 21st century. It focuses on post colonialism, post structuralism and the Whig history. Different scholars like Edward Said are also included in the excerpt to show their view on post colonialism and for a better understanding of post colonial critique of anthropology. Anthropology is an academic discipline that has received lots of criticism from different post colonial authors. Besides, it claims a deeper understanding of the most basic and marginal components of post colonialism. Although anthropology has reflected colonial as an ideology, academic modeling and governance has seen its disciplinary parameters reconstructed in the real politics of decolonization. Postcolonial Critic of Anthropology Post colonialism is a discipline that analyses and responds to the cultural legacy of imperialism and colonialism (Young 2012).Although it is the same as cultural anthropology, it takes a different twist on politics as well as literature that allows a different discussion. In detail, postcolonial critique is all about the literature by colonial powers and works by those who were under the colony. According to Loomba (2015), postcolonial model looks at the aspects of power, politics, religion, culture, and economic, as well as how these facets work in relation to the colonizers controlling the colonized. Postcolonial theory looks at society and literature from two perspectives; how a cultural workers and his context reflects the colonial past and second how they survive as well as carve out means of understanding the world (Huggan and Tiffin 2015). Edward Said, a university professor of English and comparative literature, began his teaching career at the university of Colombia. In his book Orientalism, Said developed new ways of theorizing the past centuries, when the imperialists established the colonies as strange political and cultural objects, requiring the civilization efforts of the master's races, now what is called the postcolonial theory(Madsen 2003). Being a public intellectual, Said spoke boldly against Israeli colonialism in the occupied Palestine, the post colonial intellectual practice. Another scholar, Frantz Fanon analyzed and described the nature of colonialism as destructive. He wrote the ideological management need of colonialism in a systematic denial of all attributes of human kind of the colonized nations. According to Fanon, such dehumanization can be achieved through mental and physical violence, through which colonialists implies inculcate servile mentality on the native. The scholar argues that natives should never allow colonial subjugation. Therefore describes refusal to colonialism being a mentally cathartic discipline that urges colonial servility from the native psyche, as well as restores a sense of respect to the subjugated, as Wallace (2002) puts it. Post structuralism is another critique that investigated how the impact of colonial powers transformed to the colonized cultures. The colonial powers whilst keeping the an important outward influence over the political and economic landscape of the nations they were in charge , transferred concepts about social customs which ranged food to class as well as social constructions (Msiska, 2010). However, post structuralism was concerned with how these powers impacted as well as characterized cultures hence looking at the power relations as multidimensional plus influential to every culture According to Wallace (2002) the Whig history presents past as a progression towards the greater liberty and enlightenment culminating in the form of constitutional monarchy and liberal democracy. It emphasizes on the emergence of scientific progress, personal freedom as well as constitutional government. Ideally, Whig historian is the type of liberalism that places its faith in the power of human reason so as to shape the society for the better, irrespective of the past as well as tradition. Post Colonial Critique of Anthropology in the 21st Century Structuralism changed our way of thinking and interpretation of literature completely. According to Loomba (2015), the change brought much attention to the link between politics and literature, particularly in regard to identity and civil rights. This result was due to the evolution of theoretical approaches to literature that put reinforcement on the aspect of literature in the political, contrary to the narrower humanistic perspective. Some of these approaches are feminism, queer theory, disability studies and post colonialism. As Msiska (2010) holds, the connection between these approaches and liberal humanism is the focus of an individual as a collective. Humanistic approaches to literature viewed literature as a paramount civilizing force that is; it taught people what humans means. Ideally, liberal humanism saw human as a general. Every person mourns the death of loved one and feels pain. On the other hand, literature looks at different possibilities of human reactions to death , love and suffering (Young 2012). These reactions help us understand the binding force between all of us as a human community. During post structuralism, theorists of literature found it hard to accept that literature had ways of protecting visions of woman hood that focused on the womans role at home plus her function as an adjunct to the man. The readers also pointed out that lot of work from women authors had vanished from literary history. According to Madsen (2003), the same attention began to be put on literature that focused on minority people as well as a similar historical archaeology prevailed among approaches to literature management that looked at history for evidence of liberal humanism. However, as post colonial studies surfaced, they came under scrutiny where some critics of post colonialism emerged which included the focus on western values even when the values were challenged, the dependence on American discourse, as well as the perception of binary thinking. Globalization is another challenge to post colonialism. While post colonialism appeared to articulate as well as champion difference, globalization appeared to operate in a different direction (Huggan and Tiffin 2015). However, forces in the business, academic studies and economics brought a collective influence Conclusion This essay has explored the key points in the post colonial critique of anthropology. As it is evident in the excerpt above, post colonialism focuses on the literature produced by people who were colonies of Britain imperial powers and literature of the decolonized nations that took part in the contemporary post colonial arrangements with their former mother nations. However, the post colonial criticism explores the literature written by the colonizers as well as the colonized, where the pivotal point is the portraits of the colonized individuals as well as their lives as imperial subjects. References List Ahluwalia, P., 2012. Politics and post-colonial theory: African inflections. Routledge. Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G. and Tiffin, H., 2013. Post-colonial studies: The key concepts. Routledge Childs, P. and Williams, P., 2014. Introduction to post-colonial theory. Routledge. Huggan, G. and Tiffin, H., 2015. Postcolonial ecocriticism: Literature, animals, environment. Routledge. Loomba, A., 2015. Colonialism/postcolonialism. Routledge. Madsen, D.L., 2003. Beyond the borders: American literature and post-colonial theory management. Msiska, M.H., 2010. Post-colonial theory. Wallace, J.A., 2002. The childin post-colonial theory. De-scribing empire: post-colonialism and textuality, p.171. Young, R.J., 2012. Postcolonial remains. New Literary History, 43(1), pp.19-42.