CONCLUSION: THE FUTURE OF THE POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

 Thinking Activity

This blog is written as a part of the thinking activity assigned by Dilip Barad sir on postcolonial studies. In this blog I am going to reflect my understanding of Ania Loomba's article "Conclusion: The Future of Postcolonial Studies". Click here to visit my blog on

CONCLUSION: GLOBALISATION AND THE FUTURE OF THE POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

Conclusion: The Future of the Postcolonial Studies

This article begins with Gayatri Chakravari Spivak's idea that we no longer need postcolonial perspectives as she says they ‘no longer have a postcolonial perspective. I think postcolonial is the day before yesterday’. But for postcolonialists, both within and outside literary studies, there are challenges which are  posed  by environmental studies. 

Dipesh Chakrabarty finds that all his ‘readings in theories of globalization, Marxist analysis of capital, subaltern studies, and postcolonial criticism over the last twenty-five years’ have not prepared him for the task of analyzing the ‘planetary crisis of climate change’. So this article analyses the need of postcolonial studies in terms of environmental perspectives.

Vandana Shiva talks about the connection between colonialism and the destruction of environmental studies. The growth of capitalism and trans-national corporations has destroyed the sustainable local culture, which was more women friendly. However, feminist environmentalists are sceptical about this idea as it was highly patriarchal. Notwithstanding, they agreed on the question of ecology and human culture as they are linked with each other so intricately. When we are talking about environmental issues, it is essential to notice that in third world countries where basic human needs are not satisfied, they cannot talk about saving the environment while ignoring their basic needs.

Ramchandra Guha and Jaun Martinez-Alier point out that the disconnection of the first and third world countries is due to American environmentalism and its obsession with the wilderness. Rob Nixon talks about 'Spatial Amnesia' which denotes that the wilderness is celebrated in American literature as well as in natural histories, because Americans have forgotten the history of colonized people and their amnesia towards non-American geographies. 

The question of indigeneity and the environments were neglected by institutionalized postcolonial studies.  We can observe so many displacement of indigenous communities and the theft of their land that are also defining features of many spaces that have been privileged in postcolonial studies, such as South Asia and Africa, as is evident from environmental struggles there. Throughout the environmental discourse, there has been a great fight between Environmental activists and Multi-national companies. There are many movements that have been carried out throughout the world. Even cinema also has captured these environmental dangers. Let's look at some of the examples of it.

Ken Saro Wiwa, an environment activist led a MOSOP- The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People which was against Shell Petroleum Development company which has destroyed their environment, polluted their rivers and provided no benefits in return for their land. In most of the cases of such multinational companies, nothing in return is given to the local people for their land.

This too happens in the case of Narmada Dam Construction.

Narmada Bachao Andolan was led led widespread protests against a project, funded by multinational as well as indigenous capital, to build scores of large dams across central India, This protests highlighted not just the ecological damage but the displacement of thousands of tribal peoples all across the Narmada valley.

Arundhati Roy in one interview says that 'They fought against the destruction, not just of themselves and their communities, but of soil, water, forests, fish, and wildlife – a whole ecosystem, an entire riparian civilization'.  And what in return of losing everything they got, nothing.

The Tehri Dam construction has also led protests by environmental organizations and local people of the region. Environmental activist Sunderlal Bahuguna led the Anti-Tehri Dam movement from 1980s till 2004. The protest was against the displacement of town inhabitants and environmental consequences of the weak ecosystem.

The question of indigeneity and the environment- two issues were neglected by institutionalised postcolonial studies. The global and local capital is encroaching the areas of the world. As Ania Loomba says that the forced and continual encroachment of 'the commons'. Four issues- environment, indigeneity, colonial legacies and global capital- can help us to understand that global capitalism has retained and refined the dynamics of plunder and colonialism.

Karl Marx explained that the enclosure of the commons was crucial to the birth of capitalism.

"Along with slavery and colonialism, the takeover of the commons and the conversion of various forms of collective property rights into private property involved dispossessing large sections of the population, both in the colonising and colonised countries, so that wealth would be accumulated by a few. It also turned those dispossessed people into landless labourers and forced them into a cash economy; their work (as well as, in the case of slaves, their bodies) was thus ‘commodified’. Marx described this process of dispossession and proletarianization as ‘primitive accumulation’, remarking that the concept was as central to political economy as original sin was to theology"

Rosa Luxemburg in 'The Accumulation of Capital' suggested the need to amend the idea of Marx. Marx visualized capitalism as a closed system, but Luxemburg argued that for capitalism to thrive it constantly needs new markets for its goods which cannot be consumed entirely within the system.

Amitav Ghosh's book, 'The River of Smoke' is about the process by looking at the opium trade and war in China.

David Harvey talks about the 'primitive accumulation' as 'accumulation by dispossession'. Here his concern is about the nationalised industries which have been privatised. Family farming has been taken over by agribusinesses.

Swapna Bannerjee-Guha argues that the accumulation by dispossession is a neoliberal development, which not only involves the dispossession of land but also losing rights over nature, livelihood practices, related to knowledge and even to the culture.

Dipesh Chakrabarty writes that,

"Whereas historians had previously assumed that the environment changed so slowly as to be a negligible factor in human history, we have now reached ‘a tipping point’ where it is clear that human beings have become ‘geological agents’ in a much more drastic and immediately palpable way. They are now ‘the main determinant of the environment of the planet’, ushering in ‘a new geological age’ that can be called the Anthropocene."

The previous concepts of human rights or freedom say for instance- injustice, oppression, inequality, but now the concern is slightly changed due to environmental concerns. So it takes climate studies and concerns as well.

Baucom rightly suggests that 

"Concern with our planetary condition ‘must be less distanced, less empyrean and less stratospheric; … having caught that catastrophic glimpse from above’ we need not ask ‘postcolonial studies to abandon recorded history’ but to engage with key moments that help us understand ‘this unfolding of catastrophes’".

German Carl Schmitt connotes that like the historic or colonial order of the world divided in Europe and non-Europe, it is also divided by the Land and the Sea.

So in a way nature is dominated by the companies and other dominant powers nowadays. And for this the postcolonial studies is required- the question that was raised in the beginning of the article.

Ania Loomba concludes this article highlighting four areas of the future of postcolonial studies.

1. The Environment

2. The history and present of indigenous people and societies

3. Premodern histories and culture

4. The ongoing colonisation of territories, labour and people by global capitalism. 

Here I would like to add some of the examples of the movies that describes the environmental concerns in it.

Sherni:

This film deals with the wildlife conservation. 

Don't Look Up:

This film tells the story of two astronomers attempting to warn humanity about an approaching comet that will destroy human civilization. This is an allegory for climate change. The film is a satire pf government, political, celebrity and media indifference to the climate change.

RRR:

RRR is also about 'Jal(Water), Jamin(Land) and Jungle(Forrest). 

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CONCLUSION: GLOBALISATION AND THE FUTURE OF THE POSTCOLONIAL STUDIES

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