Deepening the Postcolonial Theological Gaze: Frantz Fanon and the Psychopathology of Colonial Christianity

Abstract

Postcolonialism is not simply an optic, but also a particular practice, a way of reading texts and contexts that sees the interconnections of the psychological, cultural and theological nature of the traumatic legacies of colonialism and empire. In this article, I reflect on postcolonial theology suggesting that any postcolonial gaze pay particularly attention to the psychological dimension of coloniality that continues to operate within Christian discourses. I engage Franz Fanon, African Caribbean postcolonial or rather, anti-colonial, radical and revolutionary intellectual whose academic work and activist lifestyle have embodied this attention to the psychological.