Colonial Discourse Research Articles

Deconstructing the Narrative of Fascination in J. M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians and Foe

ABSTRACT In J. M. Coetzee’s two anti-colonial novels, Waiting for the Barbarians and Foe, the white colonizer narrators are fascinated with the inexplicable signs of torture on the subaltern bodies. Scholars have critiqued that, despite Coetzee’s narrative experimentation, the subaltern characters are still objectified under the colonizer’s gaze and remain silenced. Drawing on fascination studies, this essay argues that Coetzee’s novels aim to reflect and ultimately deconstruct the narrative of fascination operated in colonial storytelling. Symbolized by the medusa’s image, fascination indicates an unsettling engagement with something that elicits simultaneous attraction and repulsion in the beholder’s mind. This essay first examines how Coetzee’s novels reveal the fictionality of “the fascination with the primitive,” a pervasive element in colonial discourse used to construct otherness. Second, it explores how Coetzee’s narrators reach the aporia of the narrative of fascination, where the seductive power of storytelling collapses when confronted with the unknowable other’s silence. By framing the narrative of fascination within metanarrative terms, Coetzee challenges the narrative authority and sovereign subjectivity traditionally upheld in Western literature, while also prompting readers to reflect on their own roles as interpreters and consumers of such stories, particularly those involving the suffering of others.

The thorn in feminism’s side: black feminist reconceptualization and defence of #tradwives and the #tradwife movement

ABSTRACT Tradwives have been the thorn in feminism’s side ever since they exploded onto the social media landscape in 2013, attracting considerable media attention post-COVID. With their growing popularity in the online influencer space, the movement has been a critical focus of feminist academic discourse, given their promotion of ‘traditional’ values. Adopting a black feminist lens, this article traces the construction of the tradwife as anti-feminist populism and given the complexity of defining tradwives, offers a typology to better understand sub-types of content creators. Three clear sub-types of tradwives are identified: 1) the nostalgic tradwife, 2) the former feminist and finally 3) the Southern Belle. It also examines the unassuming hyperfeminine aesthetic within the tradwife persona that allows tradculture to perpetuate alt-right ideology to an everyday audience. This article argues that some tradwives bury their heads in the sand by failing to consider how nostalgic constructions of ‘traditional’ femininity reproduce colonialist discourses, as well as modes of oppression through gendered, ethnic and class lines.

Unveiling the Stylistic Features of Tayeb Salih's "Season of Migration to the North: A Postcolonial Analysis"

The book represents the fullest example of stylistic analysis within an important novel in the postcolonial canon-Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North. The research provides a deep linguistic, structural, and thematic insight into how Salih's stylistic options build a peculiar picture of postcolonial themes, cultural identity, and the difficulties and contrasts of cultural exchange. While situating the bilingual narrative, symbolic imagery, and satirical moments of intertextual dialogue and celebration of oral traditions in their historical and cultural context, it proves how such features set the tone and atmosphere of the novel and give further depth to its themes. By doing so, Salih's style refutes and rebukes colonialist discourses, while engaging readers in a critical consideration of postcolonial identity, power relationships, and cultural exchange. These findings underline the continuous popularity of the novel and its status as a strong work of postcolonial literature, with much to offer about the postcolonial condition and its representation in literature.

Degrees of Desirability

This paper investigates how colonial discourses in late 19th-century Cuba invoke discussion of racialized sexuality. I propose “degrees of desirability” as an analytical framework defined by culturally pervasive stereotypes and tropes regarding sexuality as a racialized unit of observation and operationalized through hierarchies against which Cuban women were measured. The term “degrees” signifies quantifiable differentiation or ‘Other-ness’ ascribed to non-White Cuban women, while “desirability” illustrates how colonial narratives objectified Cuban women sexually. Firstly, I analyze how these perspectives classified Cuban women along the axes of race and perceived exoticism, particularly in the contexts of colonial prostitution and conjugal relations. I will then present three distinct essays, each authored by a Spanish or American man contemporaneously, that converge in depicting the Mulatta as the most perplexing instance of established, rigid hierarchies. The Mulatta is characterized by her dual proximity to both Blackness and whiteness, navigating the sexual stereotypes associated with each. Thus, “degrees of desirability” is used to underscore colonial essentialisms regarding the race and sexual affect of Cuban women in this period.

Language, belief, and cultural resilience: Rastafarian discourse in Britain

This paper explores the intricate relationship between language, belief, and cultural resilience within the Rastafarian movement in Britain. Drawing upon interdisciplinary perspectives from linguistics, religious studies, cultural anthropology, and sociology, the paper delves into the unique linguistic practices, spiritual beliefs, and cultural expressions of Rastafarians in Britain.The paper examines the evolution of Rastafarian discourse, highlighting its distinctiveness and resilience within the context of Jamaican Patois and British multiculturalism. It analyses the role of language in shaping Rastafarian identity, resistance, and community cohesion, considering how linguistic practices reflect and reinforce Rastafarian beliefs and cultural norms.Furthermore, the paper explores the religious beliefs and practices that underpin Rastafarianism, particularly the reverence for Emperor Haile Selassie I and its implications for Rastafarian identity in Britain. It investigates how Rastafarian beliefs intersect with broader social and political issues, including race, colonialism, and social justice, shaping the movement’s engagement with British society.Finally, the paper examines the concept of cultural resilience within the Rastafarian community, analysing how Rastafarians in Britain have preserved and adapted their cultural traditions in the face of challenges such as racism, discrimination, and cultural assimilation. Overall, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the Rastafarian movement in Britain and its significance in the context of language, belief, and cultural resilience. It underscores the enduring impact of Rastafarian discourse and practices in shaping diverse cultural landscapes and fostering social change./ Keywords: Rastafarian colonial discourse, global dynamics, racial politics, Britain, societal integration, policy measures, fragmentation, Afrocentric interpretations, colonial resistance, prophetic salvation, cultural revitalization, London, African exploitation, white working-class culture

“We Pupils Had to Hear…” Marginalised Youths’ Experiences of Racialising Language and Symbolic Violence in Swedish Schools

Guided by Pierre Bourdieu’s theoretical approaches of symbolic capital and symbolic violence, this article examines the everyday mechanisms of ‘otherising’ language practices in schools that reinforce racism against marginalised youths in Sweden. The empirical material is based on focus group discussions and individual in-depth interviews with youths with migrant backgrounds in Sweden. The stories told by the participants in this study indicate how young people with immigrant backgrounds are discursively racialised and otherised as a group that does not belong to Swedish society, through the articulation of negative opinions, attitudes, and ideologies as part of established colonial discourses. It is argued that the marginalisation of migrants in Sweden, which is a consequence of social policy, has even resulted in utilisation of a marginalised language — one that deviates from the majority language in several different ways.

Britain and imperial rhetoric of reforms in late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century Morocco

ABSTRACT Although Morocco was not fully colonised until 1912, the second half of the nineteenth century saw significant changes in the country’s politics, culture, and economy as European colonial powers intensified competition for control of the southern shore of the western Mediterranean. This essay examines the British conceptualisation of social, economic, fiscal, and military reforms that precolonial Morocco tried and/or was wreaked to implement under the auspices of the British. The rhetoric of reform and rescue served as the British Empire’s civilising mission and was complementary to the discourse on supremacy and hegemony. This rhetoric fed into a larger colonial project of domination but also served a more surreptitious purpose of self-fashioning and self-legitimisation. British envoys, officials, and travel writers, the most prominent of whom are John Drummond Hay, Arthur Leared, Walter Burton Harris, Hugh Stutfield, and Budgett Meakin, treated the reform and rescue of Pre-protectorate Morocco as a peculiar and bounden duty of the white race. This essay revisits the representational strategies these writers deployed in their accounts and how they propagated the premise that the implementation of these reforms would enable Morocco to be transformed from a fragmented ‘Sharifian Dominion’ replete with bureaucratisation, embezzlement, and decay into a modern state. In this sense, this essay traces the reciprocal relationships between writing, policy making, capitalism, modernity and the broader European colonialist discourse and zeitgeist of this period.

Decolonising Australian Gold Rush Narratives with Critical Geopolitics

Abstract Settler-colonial futurity and colonial onto-epistemology are embedded across mainstream Australian public education institutions and schooling. While Country is central to Indigenous being, knowledges and pedagogy, Australian public and school education and curricula regularly fail to engage with Country and place in its historical, political, institutional, more-than-human, and relational dimensions. This paper investigates how colonial discourse and narratives permeate public and schooling education resources about mining and the Australian gold rush, including those presented in local Victorian gold rush museums. These support an influential story of Australia’s past/present that erases First Nations1 custodial relations with Country, strengthens settler-colonial futurity and celebrates and legitimises its colonising and extractive relations between people, Country, and ecologies. The paper presents an argument for attending to critical, relational geopolitics in education and environmental education to destabilise and shift these ways of understanding. It considers opportunities and challenges presented by Australian curricula in terms of their capacity to develop geopolitical understandings of past/present/future social and ecological in/justice, and to support new political understandings and sense of connection and belonging with Country.

Идеолог французского колониализма Алексис де Токвиль об алжирском вопросе (1830-1848)

The article analyzes a wide range of sources, the most valuable of which were the works of Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) written by him in the 1830s and 1840s, which allowed him to formulate and characterize his views on the colonization of Algeria and corresponds to the objectives of this work. The study of his ideas in the context of the colonial discourse of the July Monarchy (1830-1848) helped to determine their place in it. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time in Russian science, an overview is given of the attitude of modern Western historians to the role of Tocqueville in the development of the French colonial ideology and strategy in Algeria. As a result, it has been determined that Tocqueville’s works were woven into the general colonial discourse of the July Monarchy on the future of Algeria. Supporting the side of the European colonists, Tocqueville often turned to widespread colonial ideas and cliches, thereby accelerating the course of colonization.

Lidio Cipriani, Attilio Gatti, and the shooting of Siliva Zulu (1927)

This essay examines the 1927 documentary film Siliva Zulu, directed by Attilio Gatti with the support of anthropologist Lidio Cipriani, filmed in South Africa. While the existing academic research primarily focuses on the blurred boundaries between fiction and documentary genres within the film, this study introduces new sources concerning the film’s production. Through an analysis of archival documents, personal correspondence, and contemporary reviews, the essay reveals new aspects of Siliva Zulu. Furthermore, it traces the dissemination and reception of these materials from their inception to the present day, and how Siliva Zulu has been reinterpreted over time. This investigation not only enriches the understanding of early ethnographic filmmaking but also highlights the enduring impact of Siliva Zulu on cinematic, anthropological, and colonial discourses.

Colonial Traces in Contemporary Italian Literature: The Cases of Giulia Caminito’s La Grande A (2016) and Mario Tobino’s Il deserto della Libia (1952)

ABSTRACT This article examines Giulia Caminito’s novel La grande A (2016) to show how descriptions of colonial subjects and spaces rely on stereotypes and exoticisations derived from colonial discourse. By analysing formal aspects and the intertextual relationship with Mario Tobino’s Il deserto della Libia (1952), the article underscores a continuity in terms of modes of representation between La grande A and its main sourcetext, suggesting a lack of interactions or connections with the transnational African/Italian authors who have confronted the legacy of Italy’s colonial past. In a mainly white European figurative framework, the novel marginalises and forecloses Black/African subjects while, at the same time, providing readers with orientalist descriptions of the former colonies. Although the novel addresses a frequently overlooked topic in Italian literature, namely colonialism and women’s experiences in the overseas territories, it also problematically reproduces stereotypes about Africa/Africans rather than effectively exposing and debunking them.

Geographies of race in Poland and Central and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT This article is a discipline-defining agenda. It addresses the oversight of Geographies of race in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and explores geography’s potential contributions to the unfolding debates around race, decolonisation, and whiteness. Geographies of race remain unmarked and therefore unchallenged within the field of geography in CEE. Consequently, geographers typically consider CEE as peripheral to the global racial discourses and possibly post-racial. By drawing on sociological, migration, historical, and anthropological approaches, particularly in Poland, the article emphasises the importance of geography in discussions around race, decolonisation, and whiteness. It considers the appeal of geographies of race to this “peripheral location” to demonstrate a shift in racial and colonial discourses. By bridging interdisciplinary approaches and challenging prevailing discourses, the article aims to broaden the scope of the geographies of race and foster a more inclusive and global understanding of race and colonisation.

Knowledge Mobility and the Emergence of Contemporary Iraqi Architecture (1936–1958)

Planned by the British in the aftermath of World War I, the new state of Iraq—ruled by the Hashemite kingdom (1921–1958) under British mandate—emerged on the land of Mesopotamia and inherited its enormous cultural and architectural legacy. Colonial discourse was adopted by the British during the Hashemite reign to impose Western culture and hegemony. This paper reviews the impact of this colonial discourse in terms of Western architectural knowledge mobility on shaping Iraqi contemporary architecture in this epoch. The paper traces the education of nine notable early Iraqi architects with Western architectural academic backgrounds and studies 13 of their public buildings executed in 1936–1958, to reveal the stance of those architects toward this discourse and how their buildings connected to the legacy of Iraqi architecture. Findings rest on a style-coverage of the main local architectural legacy and Western architectural façade’s characteristics to detect and examine the nature and intensity of the transformations that the façades of these buildings exhibit compared to local traditions. Findings show that knowledge mobility helped develop certain types of architects’ responses toward local architectural traditions and colonial discourse that evolved through time during the study target epoch.

Immigration Crisis in Palestine (1933–1936) as Reflected in Periodical Press of United States

The image of Palestine during the years 1933 to 1936 was shaped in the periodical press of the United States under the influence of the “colonial discourse”. In the first half of the 1930s, the issue of Jewish immigrants became one of the central themes in the “Palestinian question”. The materials from the periodical press allow for an exploration of how perceptions regarding the causes of the crisis in the Middle East evolved within the informational discourse of the United States; how the representations of Arabs, Jews, and Great Britain underwent transformation. Publications from American newspapers provide insights into evaluations of British measures aimed at resolving the immigration crisis in Palestine during the 1930s. An analysis of U.S. newspapers reveals distinctive features in the construction of the images of the Jewish and Arab populations of Palestine. It identifies who was categorized as “the other”. The first half of the 1930s proved decisive for American public opinion in prioritizing positions within the context of the Middle Eastern conflict. The material presented in this article vividly illustrates the stages of evolving assessments of the situation in Palestine from 1933 to 1936. The study examines the manipulative techniques and strategies employed by American periodicals in the 1930s concerning Palestine, thereby providing a clearer understanding of how the issue of Jewish immigration was integrated into the broader narrative of Palestine within U.S. periodical literature.

Study on Space and Identity in Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea mainly tells the tragic fate of the white Creole woman Antoinette Cosway, dealing with problems of identity and inequality arising from French and British colonisation in the Caribbean. This novel serves not only as a narrative of personal tragedy but also as a spatially oriented exploration where the space is instrumental in shaping characters and reflecting colonial history. Based on the Space Theory and Homi K. Bhabha’s Postcolonial Theory, this paper endeavours to trace Antoinette’s journey across three significant spaces, explore how these spaces impact her identity and self-reconstruction under the patriarchal and racial oppression, and reveal the complex interactions between space and Antoinette’s identity in the novel, aiming to break down the binary oppositions in colonial discourse and understand the multiplicity and fluidity of identity.

Modernity of Women Subject in Eka Kurniawan’ Cantik Itu Luka (2002): A Study of Post-Colonial Feminist Literary Criticism

This study aims to dismantle the narrative of the female subject’s modernity which was built by the author as a representative of a social group or class. In order to achieve this objective, the researchers used qualitative approach, which prioritizes data quality to data size. The data in this study is the novel Cantik Itu Luka by Eka Kurniawan, and other information related to the research topic. Then, the data were analyzed using binary opposition deconstruction and postcolonial feminism theory. Data analysis focuses on the narrative structure of the text and its ideas regarding colonial discourse and the narrative construction of the modernity of female subjects, as well as the author's historical and sociological context in relation to the text. The results show that the construction of the female subject presented in the text Cantik Itu Luka (2002) is a woman who is resistant to the discourse of modernity. In the context of colonial discourse, the female subject is a woman who participates in the rebellion against patriarchal cultural oppression and globalization. The discourse of modernity built by Eka Kurniawan is that women are required to maintain their national identity amidst the commotion of global culture. The construction of the female subject in the text is an ideal formed by male critical intellectual groups to represent and advocate women who have difficulty getting space and position in the social order.

RETURNING TO SAID AND HIS «ORIENTALISM»

This article examines the impact of Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism on the contemporary geopolitical landscape. The authors argue that while the critique of Orientalism has significantly influenced academic discourse and domestic policies in Western countries, particularly the United States, it has not led to fundamental changes in global geopolitical strategy. The paper focuses on two key aspects: the natural connection between knowledge and power, which cannot be altered by anti-colonial declarations, and the shift of colonial discourse to new regions, specifically non-Western Europe. The authors posit that the strength of a modern state lies in its ability to dynamically bifurcate its image into internal and external faces, presenting different aspects to its society and foreign partners. Using the United States as a case study, the article demonstrates how internal anti-colonial discourse coexists with an unchanging foreign policy strategy of global dominance. The authors criticize the illusions about the possibility of changing the fundamental principles of US foreign policy, which has remained consistent since 1941. The paper emphasizes the continuation of a strategy aimed at fostering global dependence on the West, despite anti-colonial rhetoric. The article explores the complex interplay between domestic movements for social justice and decolonization, and the pragmatic realities of international relations. It argues that the deconstruction of Orientalism, while challenging the legitimacy of historical colonial practices, has not transformed the core geopolitical interests of Western states.The authors contend that the apparent dichotomy between internal anti-colonial discourse and external policy reflects both the complexity and strength of states like the US, where domestic and foreign policies can be shaped by different institutional and ideological forces. The paper also discusses the expansion of the concept of liberal democracy as an export product to regions deemed lacking in popular sovereignty.In conclusion, the article suggests that the critique of Orientalism, despite its academic and cultural impact, has been effectively neutralized in geopolitical practice. This is achieved through a shift in focus to regions not traditionally considered part of the «old» Western colonies, allowing for the implementation of economic partnership policies without the moral self-flagellation associated with charges of Orientalism. The paper ultimately argues that renaming reality does not change its underlying structure, and that the postmodern belief in the power of language to transform geopolitical realities is akin to magical thinking. It concludes that the critique of Orientalism has not fundamentally altered the eternal principles and interests guiding global geopolitical strategies.

Toward a complex socio‐environmental understanding of drought: The contribution of the social sciences and humanities

AbstractThis review shows that there is a fertile field of study on drought within the humanities and social sciences that produces a complex scientific understanding of droughts as socio‐natural disasters whose origins, unfolding and impacts are shaped by both social and biophysical processes. Five cases where this research stands out are reviewed: the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, the droughts in the Sahel in the last third of the 20th century, desiccation as a colonial discourse, ontologies of drought and climate history. The review shows that unfortunately this body of work is largely ignored in natural science drought research. It proposes to eschew the dichotomy between drought as a physical phenomenon and its socioeconomic impacts by framing droughts as disasters. It calls for dialogue and cooperation between the sciences of nature and the sciences of society (including the humanities) to create an integrated field of drought research, in the hope that this may bring to the public debate convincing interpretations of current droughts in a dramatically changing climate.This article is categorized under: Climate, History, Society, Culture > World Historical Perspectives

‘A rifle lying across her arm’: the suspicious death of 13-year-old ‘half-caste’ Cissy Brennan

This article explores the death of 13-year-old ‘half-caste’ Cissy Brennan in far north Queensland in 1910. The entangled accounts of police constables, the Government Medical Officer, family and community members, and news reports, reveal how these narratives are buried deep within the coronial structures and colonial discourses of the inquest file. The article argues that the witness testimonies in the magisterial inquiry, including the findings of the police constables, and Government Medical Officer, became the dominant narrative in writing about Aboriginal female bodies within coronial law, creating a flawed and fragmentary historical account.

Voicing Discursive Binaries: A Postcolonial Study of Gordimer’s Short Stories

Massive decolonization occurred in the 21st century. The natives and the diaspora attempted to portray the other side of the image structured by the colonial hegemonic discourse. Gordimer has written against apartheid and raised her voice to articulate the realistic picture of the marginalization faced by the suppressed South Africans in the form of racial and social inequality. She incorporates discourse to challenge the existing colonial discourse and the explicit binaries. This study attempts to investigate the challenges she has put against the existing discursive binaries in her short stories. The concepts of colonial discourse and counter-discourse given by Edward Said and Helen Tiffin serve as a framework to analyze the data collected from the selected text. The findings reveal that Gordimer has employed different techniques of narration and characterization to redress the negative image of the oppressed others in the colonial discourse through binaries. She employs various textual strategies to expose the stereotypical binaries through counter-discursive practices to dismantle the colonial assumptions from the perspective of the natives.