Introduction to Postcolonialism

 Create a new blog post called 'Advertising: Postcolonialism blog tasks'. Read ‘The Theory Drop: Postcolonialism and Paul Gilroy’ in MM75  (p28). You'll find our Media Magazine archive here - remember you'll need your Greenford Google login to access.

Answer the following questions on your blog:

1) Look at the first page. What is colonialism - also known as cultural imperialism? 

First of all, let’s make sure we know what colonialism is. From the 16th century onwards, European countries effectively got into a race to see how many undiscovered lands they could conquer first, and by ‘undiscovered’ I mean, ‘countries where the indigenous population didn’t have good enough weapons to fight back’.

2) Now look at the second page. What is postcolonialism? 

Postcolonialism, like postmodernism, refers less to a time period and more to a critiquing of a school of thought that came before it. Postcolonialism exists to question white patriarchal views with a particular reference to how they relate to race.

3) How does Paul Gilroy suggest postcolonialism influences British culture?

Paul Gilroy in his 2005 book Postcolonial Melancholia suggested that Britain had not quite faced up to its colonial past, that the national psyche had not quite come to terms with no longer being a global superpower, and this had resulted in the desire to still subjugate those from different races, particularly immigrants. As Gilroy puts it, Britain’s ...criminalisation of immigrants and their descendants especially those from the Caribbean and South Asia signifies a melancholic response to these social and political groups that are essential to late modern British life. This decriminalisation and demonising of immigrants is done through a number of means, one of the key ones being othering.

4) What is 'othering'?

Othering is the phenomenon whereby we identify something as being different from, or alien to our social identity. If something is ‘other’ it is different to ‘us’; it doesn’t fit well within the confines of our society. The practice of othering persons means to exclude and displace them from the dominant social group to the margins of society.

5) What examples of 'othering' are provided by the article?

Othering based on race has existed in mainstream media for as long as there has been mainstream media, but not always in the same form. Things have come a long way since Love Thy Neighbour, the seventies sitcom about a Black family living next door to a white family with a bigot for a man of the house. In today’s TV landscape, shows such as Man Like Mobeen, Top Boy and I May Destroy You offer a much more nuanced depiction of ethnic minorities due to a broadly left leaning culture within TV production. The process of othering has been the domain of tabloid newspapers such as the Daily Express, who printed 179 anti-migrant stories between 2011 and 2016, that’s roughly one anti-immigrant headline every ten days.

6) What is 'double consciousness'? 

This othering can sometimes manifest in a confusion over identity, particularly for people from ethnic minorities living in the Western world. This confusion is referred to as a ‘double consciousness’ whereby people struggle to reconcile two nationalities or identities.

7) What are 'racial hierarchies'?

Another hold over from colonialism is the idea of racial hierarchies: the idea that some races are superior to other ones. In Western culture, people who promote these ideas are usually advocating for white supremacy.

8) What examples from recent media products challenge the idea of racial hierarchies? 

There are numerous media texts that challenge these ideas of racial hierarchies by putting people in minority groups in positions of authority. Some choose to examine the implications of being BAME.