What Does Postcolonial Theory Lack in Relation to Historical Anthropology According to Thomas - Research Paper Example

What does postcolonial theory lack in relation to historical anthropology, according to Thomas?   Postcolonial theory includes the literature and work done by the people of the countries who were either colonized or were colonizers. This literature and other work such as art enjoy a significant value and are thus very important to understand the mindset as well as vision of two nations. It is difficult from the simple literature and work, because it describes the rule of another country on the whole country and its impact on people and their lives. Anthropology is the science of humans and it studies the origin of humans and the differences among them. Humans are divided into different races and geographical locations and thus are different from one another. During the colonial era, it was witnessed that anthropologists of developed countries or the colonizers enjoyed the privilege to do their experiments on people and this includes torture, capturing people illegally and putting them in cages and exhibition of human zoos. People from colonized territories were treated like non-humans and were not given any rights. The anthropologists in United States did not give the right to vote to black people and Chief Justice decided their fate by saying that they are inferior to white people and thus cannot become the citizens of United States. This started a long debate and thus ended on civil war in 1800’s. Post colonialism Theory The post colonialism theory is in particular post-modern intellectual discourse that holds together a number of theories. These theories include the texts and sub-texts of literature, political science, philosophy etc. The content of the theories describes the reactions and affects of the legacy and heritage of colonialism. The literary theory of the post colonialism is the theory of literature. It tells about the literature of the countries, which were once the colonies. It is mainly refers to the colonies of European countries. Britain, Spain, France and Portugal colonized different parts of the world. This also includes the countries, which are still the colonies and are under foreign rule. The theories works with the literature, written by the people who live in the colonial rules and thus a difference can be seen in the literature. The nations surviving under foreign rule think differently as compare to the independent nations. Their concerns, interests, problems and issues are quite different from the other nations1. Thus this shows their passions and emotions as being ruled by others. It also deals with the literature of the people and citizens of the countries, who colonized other countries. A clear difference can be seen in the literature of both sides. Though both sides communicate with each other and visits other are countries and adopt the culture to some extent, still the difference is mindset and outlook is evident. The British Empire colonized the territories around the world and the colonized people took advantage from the British Resources by attending their universities and visited their country. The students attending their educational institutes have a different mindset than the other students. No matter how intelligent and brilliant they were, they were thought to be the ones from colonized territories and thus thought themselves to be slaves who were in the country of their masters. This mindset and different approach can be witnessed in their literature and especially the novels and fiction pieces describe it best. This kind of situation was seen in the newly born states of Middle Asia, after the break up of Soviet Union. Colonialism was never appreciated by the human rights activists in the world. It creates identity crisis in the society and especially in the young generations of the colonized nation. The era after the colonial rule is very important as well as very critical. The nation wants to come back to their identity and the enthusiasm can be seen clearly among the whole nation2. Literature plays an important role in that era and it shows the ways in which writers express and celebrates that identity, which is discovered after the long foreign rule. They somehow safely kept it with them during the colonization. The literature exposes the stories where the occupier took advantage of their people and exploited their resources and they tell the people that how their resources and money was used for development in the occupier’s countries. The literature of the ruling country shows that how they felt the people of the colonized state and they tells their people that how inferior were they from them. The most of their literature justifies the colonized rule and thus claims that they are superior to others and this is the reason they control the resources of the other parts of the world. They not only criticize the people but also their culture, society and traditions and usually blame the culture and traditions for their failure. The Post colonialism literature can be found mainly in the metropolitan cities of the colonized territory, because people there are more educated and have more exposure than the ones living in towns. They deal with the ruling class and know what is going on in the governments. These people usually enjoy the privilege to study in the foreign universities and to work with the foreigners. It is witnessed that most of the postcolonial writers lives in metropolitan cities like London, New York etc. Apart from literature, Post Colonial Drama is also very famous and remarkable. Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins once wrote, "the term post colonialism – according to a too-rigid etymology – is frequently misunderstood as a temporal concept, meaning the time after colonialism has ceased, or the time following the politically determined Independence Day on which a country breaks away from its governance by another state, Not a naïve teleological sequence which supersedes colonialism, post colonialism is, rather, an engagement with and contestation of colonialism's discourses, power structures, and social hierarchies ... A theory of post colonialism must, then, respond to more than the merely chronological construction of post-independence, and to more than just the discursive experience of imperialism”.3 The binary opposition structure is the famous concept in the post colonial theories. The colonialism brings the image of westerners in the minds of many people around the world. The west part of the world, Europe, occupied many territories and thus colonized them for a long period of time4. This made the division of Oriental and Westerner. Both are different from each other. Oriental is supposed to be emotional and decadent and westerners are thought to be discipline and progressive, who were smart enough to defeat former. This is the reason why the natives adopted the culture and traditions of occupiers. Literature and art are the ways to express their feelings and emotions. This is the reason why the postcolonial literature is considered to be so important and valued, though most of the literature is in the language of the colonizers5. Therefore the identity crisis is one of the most visible issues in the post colonialism era. The binary concept is not as simple as it seems, because it contains more in itself than the concept of Oriental and Westerner. It is the whole mindset and approach of a colonized nation, who are living under the rule of some other nation and they know that their occupier are using their resources and are still treating them as slaves. Post colonial theory says that developing a post colonial national identity is a main problem faced by the nations. It includes gender, race, racism and ethnicity. They are aware that their rulers used their resources against them and to oppress them. Their resources and their own people were used in every work that can be beneficial for the colonizers. The relation they shared with their colonizer was of powerful and powerless, and this is one of the most painful relations in the world. Post colonial theory also tells that how the colonized citizens stood up against colonizer and how they resisted against them. Their resistance is remarkable and it shows the spark in people and this spark and their hatred towards the colonizer develops a unity among them and thus makes it easier for them to have independence. Post colonial literature shows this situation and time in a good manner. Not just literature, but also the drama and art depict it. Post colonial writers rarely narrate something good about the colonizers and this shows their hatred towards them and how they want their nation to stand up against them. This hatred continues for generations and this is because of the literature, which is widely read by people. The continent Africa was fully colonized until the end of nineteenth century. People in Africa accepted the colonial rule quite easily and Europeans did some constructive work in the Africa. British Empire was the largest one in the continent and they built railway track from Egypt to South Africa and this covered the whole African continent. Some of the African Kings managed to survive in the colonial era too and a large volume of postcolonial literature can be seen in the continent, which helped in the postcolonial identity building. One of them is ‘Things Fall Apart’ and Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong’o‘s ‘Weep No, Child’. Another important piece of literature is ‘The River Between’. This book deals with the postcolonial religious issues, which took place in the continent and the religious conversions. History of anthropology Anthropology is a type of social science, which studies the origins and social relationships of humans. Anthropology is considered to be the most scientific subject among humanities and the most humanistic of the social sciences6. This definition was given by Eric Wolf. Anthropology is considered to be a part of jurisprudence, history, philosophy and sociology. Today, world is like a global village and it becoming smaller and integrated. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote: All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal interdependence of nations.7 This progressive era made people thinking more ethnically and even racist. World would be a better place if they had lived with unity and have shown solidarity. This is due to the difference in poor and rich and this is a big problem every where and is dividing the human societies in different social classes. These social classes have created a difference between humans and distance between people. These are the conditions of life with which people today must compete. But this is not the case. People have their own objectives and are more concerned about individual needs than the collective. Buffon says that anthropology emerged from Natural History. It was first started as a study of people in society and mainly in colonized societies. It is considered to be an extension to the colonial rule. It is thought to be related with imperialism8. European countries colonized different territories around the world and they studied the culture and physiology of these countries. But it is now different and anthropology is used in much wider sense these days. European museums contain different artifacts from Africa, India and North America. Going down the history pages, we came across some really weird and disgusting things. There used to be different museums and zoos in the colonizer’s countries. British Museum is not the only place to display the mysterious things; there were many zoos and laboratories in the country. Some were known to be ethnological exhibitions and Negro villages around. These Negro villages display the nude humans to the people of city. The zoos were present till the mid of 1900’s. Congolese pygmy Ota Benga was put in zoo for display by the anthropologist Madison Grant. He was put in a cage and the caption given to him was, ‘the missing link’ between an orangutan and the white race. These exhibitions are the examples of scientific racism. Arthur de Gobineau has written an essay, ‘An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races’ in 1953 and he described the scientific racism. ‘Indigenous Villages’ were also put on exhibition in different parts of Europe. This shows the attitude of colonizers towards the colonized nations and people, this is humiliating. This tells that colonized people were rarely thought to be humans by westerners. Though twentieth century witnessed the decline in anthropology and by the end of the century, the discipline was changed into a modern form9. The dark era of anthropology is considered to be a time when society was passing through an evolutionary process. What does postcolonial theory lack in relation to historical anthropology, according to Thomas? Nicholas Thomas, in his book, Colonialism's Culture: Anthropology, Travel, and Government, describes the development of ideas about sociology and tests the existing theories. He discusses the theories related to colonialism, in context of monolithic characters and purposes. He discusses the colonialism as a project rather than a dialogue. According to him, it was a project and he describes the interaction between the colonized and colonizing people as variables. He analyzed their characteristics and their attitude towards each other10. He emphasized on the ideas which he gathered after analyzing post colonial literature, including novels, photographs and ethnographic films. He gave examples of the recent Hollywood films and this shows that how deep and persistent is colonialism’s culture and its memories for the people. And this is important and significant for both colonizers and colonized. Colonizers take it as their memory of power and victory and colonized hates that time, because it was a time of oppression and humility, when they were slaves in their own country and their resources were used by the people who rule them and came from some other part of the world. According to him, the colonizers explored and exploited the resources and took advantage of people by forcefully slaving them and reserving their services for their empire. He says that historicized and ethnographic explorations of the colonial rule can be most productive approach to understand the affects of colonialism. He states that the Europeans colonized the territories by their travelling to new and different places and by exploring new lands11. Their governance is another important factor in this regard, which led them to success. He count anthropology as a tool in the process and all this helped Europeans to go and conquer the land. All the above mentioned factors helped them to colonized a large part of the world and this helped them a lot in making their economy stronger and generating a lot of revenue for their governments. According to Thomas, colonization is an ongoing process and he considered it to be cultural rather than social. He thinks that the nations which deserve to be at the top conquer the weaker ones and like this the process of colonization goes on. It creates different racial and cultural differences between colonized and colonizer12. These differences generates hatred among the colonized population and thus results in something like a revolution. These cultural and racial differences are legitimized in the colonies and are expected. The author challenged the theories and also the theorists on the concept of colonization and colonialism. As the world has seen the trend of decolonization and this is the reason of the term postcolonial theories. But these theories describe a lot about the state of mind of people who live in colonized states and also of the colonizers, who thought themselves to be superior to others. Nicholas Thomas discussed the homogeneous ideology supporting military conquest and the economic benefits of colonizers, which they get by exploiting the resources of the colony. He discussed that how the Europeans ruled over the colonies for more than a century and in some cases it was two or three centuries. He quoted the writers of post colonialism and described the conflicts which arouse among the colonized. He considered that the post colonialism literature and art played a great role on the psychology of people on both sides. It has a significant role in the lives of nation, and they considered this as an asset13. The post colonialism inspired people and put a great influence on their attitude towards one another. He gave a good knowledge about the post colonialism and anthropology in the book and thus describes the social sciences and humanities. Postcolonial theory does not include the original and shameful parts of anthropology. Anthropology is much wider than the science of humans and there were some humiliating and shameful acts took place in the colonial era. Postcolonial theory mainly deals with the soft side of colonialism and ignores the bitter side. People were kept in cages and were exhibited in human zoos and this was done by the nations who today consider themselves as the champion of human rights. Homan wrote about Anthropology, “When a man describes a society which is not his own, he often leaves out those features which the society has in common with his own society. He takes them for granted and so his description is distorted” (Homans, p.382). These words describes the Anthropology best because it tells that when some one is analyzing another society or people in the society, he does not care what is he doing, and whether it is moral or immoral to do this. This tells when the colonizers practiced their Anthropology on the people of colonies and thus does not feel any respect for them. There were few limitations in the Anthropology, so the small scale non-literate and non-industrial societies were chosen for this. There were few American ghettos, Irish Farming Community, London suburb and Indian peasant village were selected. This idea was found better than the other one and the results were more significant for the Anthropologists. They found some remote sites for their studies and they were natural and non-influenced. But there are no societies left by now and it is not possible to have something like this on this scale. Another example of the colonial era and anthropology can be found in United States when President Andrew Jackson (1892-1837) appointed Roger B. Taney as Chief Justice and he decided that “Negros were beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect”14. This decision came when President Andrew Jackson gave no right to vote to black people. According to him, only white men were privileged to vote and no black man was allowed to vote. This decision of the Chief Justice made all black people in the country, whether free or the ones who were living as a slave, disappointed. It was clear that they could never become the citizens of United States and only white people have the choice to have this privilege. The American School of Anthropology, who worked on polygenic had a debate with the religious groups. Religious groups believed that all humans are equal and color and race does not differentiate any person from any one.15 The other group of scientists believes in the standpoint for the plurality of origins. They think that world is full of people from distinct origins and race and it is obvious from the color of their skin. This idea was promoted by many people around and most of them supported it for their own needs. A group of people who supported this idea was the ones who advocated this theory of science to gain benefits from slavery. This was the time of increasing sectional strife and thus the debate goes on. This theory of science justifies slavery for black people and their rights were ignored in an easy way. Thus Negros remained inferior and their slavery continued for these opportunists. The writers like Josiah Nott and Gliddon wrote tome in 1854 and expressed their views that people with black skin cannot be equal to the white men16. Their work was racist and hateful towards Negros. And their work was a success, because it was a best seller of that time. Nine editions were printed and sold by the end of the century and this shows the popularity of the work, named, ‘Types of Mankind’. This shows that people supported slavery all the times and some found the justification in Bible and others found it in science17. This situation gave rise to the factors which resulted in Civil War in the country. Frederick Douglass gave his arguments against the American School of Anthropology and said, "by making the enslaved a character fit only for slavery, [slaveowners] excuse themselves for refusing to make the slave a freeman.... For let it be once granted that the human race are of multitudinous origin, naturally different in their moral, physical, and intellectual capacities... a chance is left for slavery, as a necessary institution.... There is no doubt that Messrs. Nott, Glidden, Morton, Smith and Agassiz were duly consulted by our slavery propagating statesmen." (p. 287). Anthropology was first described in 1593 and Immanuel Kant wrote ‘Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View in twenty five years18. The write lived in Germany for his whole life and did not go anywhere else. He started teaching Anthropology in 1772 in his area. It was an effort by him to enlighten people about the subject and it was a good effort indeed. Marvin Harris is considered to be a historian in the subject. He gave two main topics in the subject. These topics catch the attention of people and the topics were, ‘Interest in Comparisons of people over space’ and ‘Interest in long term human processes or humans as viewed through time’. The subject became popular due to these interesting topics. Anthropology became popular in colonialism and they started their research on different cultures and races. Some of the anthropologists made a point that all cultures should be viewed as relative to each other. There should be no notion in Anthropology for any culture and thus all cultures should be considered equal in this regard, but it was not the case in the colonial era. There were some serious issues in Anthropology which came up during post colonialism and they were regarding genocide, infanticide, racism and mutilation19. Torture is another issue which was discovered and this shows that the population in colonies suffered a lot due to Anthropology. Racism, human sacrifice and slavery are the worst dealt issues in Anthropology and thus is hard to imagine that how can scientists go to such level only to prove their wrong scientific theories right. This is an example of an inhuman behavior of people towards other humans. Anthropologists divided the people around in the world according to the geographical locations. They divided them according to different time periods and another division is according to the cultural regions. These are the methods of dealing with the differences among humans. Their brutal and inhuman ways of research were obvious in the colonial time and that even shows their attitude towards humans. Conclusion Thomas described the post colonialism theories and the history of anthropology in the colonial era. According to him, Europeans moved to other parts of the world and colonized the countries due to their abilities and these abilities and qualities include their passion for travelling and to discover new things and also their government, which supported them to discover new lands and this was the key to their prosperity. He gave examples in his book and these examples include the anthropologists from eighteenth century and their inhuman behavior and also the nineteenth century missionaries, who converted the people in the colonies and the colonial administrators20. He discussed about their corruption and their attitude towards the colonized. He exposed the conflicts and differences among the colonizers and their maltreatment towards the slaves. He tells about the human difference and otherness, which was difficult for anthropologists to accept. He discusses the emotions of people towards the colonizers and the post colonialism theory, and literature which tell what people think about the foreign rule. He says that history of anthropology is not fully described in the post colonial theory. He discussed the work of post colonial writers such as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak. He described colonialism as a project. The main characters of the project were the colonizers and colonized people. One is master and other is slave and he provided the photographs, novels and even Hollywood films to support his ideas and he gave a chance to his readers to read the truth and judge it themselves. He provided ethnographic films and his purpose to provide all this is to tell the readers that the memories of colonialism are deep for people on both sides and they cannot forget this time so easily. So it is important for people to understand the deepness of the memories, and these memories are not good at both sides. The colonized nation feels the sense of helplessness and cannot take any action against the colonizers, though they feel that they are being oppressed and their resources are being used by the other people. Not just resources, their people are made slaves and thus face inhuman behavior which is described above. One of the main things in the post colonialism is to maintain the identity of the nation and the writers and artists of post colonialism era try to develop a sense of self-respect among people and to develop their morale so that they can start a new life and build their nation with a good spirit21. Anthropology is known to be a natural science and new techniques are being developed now. The new methods are being selected and it is believed that the new methods are more civilized and polite. Anthropologists are more concentrating on difference of culture than on race. Their behavior and method were racist in colonial era and that can never be seen as a civilized work. They need to develop more social learning, thinking and respect towards humans of all races and cultures. There could be difference in culture among people living in different regions of earth but they are all humans and deserve respect by others of their kind. Culture plays an important role on someone’s nature as well as nurture. There are different rules in different parts of the world and different people follow different religions. Anthropologists should concentrate more on cultural, political and economical differences among people than the racial. There is an example of Anthropology where American anthropologists started to study their own history and discovered few good things in it. The differences can be resolved in this way and people can live peacefully in the world. References 1. Appadurai, Arjun (1990) ‘Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy’. Public Culture 2 (2): 1- 24. Retrieved on 24-04-09 2. Appiah, Kwame (1991): "Is the Post in Postmodernism the Post in Postcolonial?" Critical Inquiry 17:2, 336-357. 3. Asad, Talal, ed. (1973) Anthropology & the Colonial Encounter. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press. 4. Barth, Fredrik, Andre Gingrich, Robert Parkin, and Sydel Silverman. 2005. One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French, and American anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 5. Bill Ashcroft. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature (1990) 6. Cerroni-Long, E. L., ed. (1999) Anthropological Theory in North America. Westport: Berin & Garvey. 7. Darnell, Regna. (2001) Invisible Genealogies: A History of Americanist Anthropology. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. 8. "Introduction to Postcolonial Studies". Emory University 2006-02-02 http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Intro.html. Retrieved on 2009-04-21. 9. Gaurav Gajanan Desai, Supriya Nair (2005). Postcolonialisms: An Anthology of Cultural Theory and Criticism. Rutgers University Press. 10. Geertz, Clifford (1995) After the fact: two countries, four decades, one anthropologist. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 11. Helen Gilbert, Joanne Tompkins, Post-Colonial Drama: theory, practice, politics, Routledge 1996 12. Harris, Marvin. (2001[1968]) The Rise of Anthropological Theory: a history of theories of culture. AltaMira Press. Walnut Creek, CA. 13. Karp, Ivan and Stephen Lavine (eds) (1991) Exhibiting cultures: the poetics and politics of museum display. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. 14. Kehoe, Alice B. (1998) The Land of Prehistory: A Critical History of American Archaeology. 15. Kumaraswamy (March 2006) “Who am I?: The Identity Crisis in the Middle East” in The Middle East Review of International Affairs Volume 10, No.1, Article 5, p.1 16. Malinowski, Bronislaw (1967) A diary in the strict sense of the term. Translated by Norbert Guterman. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World. 17. Pels, Peter & Oscar Salemink, eds. (2000) Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology. 18. Rabinow, Paul. (1977) Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. 19. Stocking, George, Jr. (1968) Race, Culture and Evolution. New York: Free Press. 20. Taussig, Michael (1987) Shamanism, colonialism and the wild man: a study in terror and healing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Read More