Page 172 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

POST-FEMINISM

between place and diaspora identities. Thus, postcolonial theory is concerned with
the representation of race, ethnicity and nationhood. This includes questions about
using the very language of English in forms of writing; namely, is English, the
language of a major colonial power, a suitable tool for postcolonial writers? On the 149
one hand, the English language can be said to carry within itself the very
assumptions and concepts of colonial power, but on the other hand English has a
variety of global forms. Depending on which side of the above equation is stressed,
a postcolonial writer might choose either to abrogate or appropriate English.
The theoretical critique of essentialism combined with the physical meeting and
mixing of peoples has thrown the categories of nation or ethnicity into doubt. That
is, it is no longer clear that ‘national’ or ‘ethnic’ concepts like Indian or English have
any kind of clear or stable meanings. Consequently, the hybridization and
creolization of language, literature and cultural identities is a common theme of
postcolonial literature and theory. The theme of hybridity or creolization points to
the fact that neither the colonial nor colonized cultures and languages can be
presented in ‘pure’ form but are inseparable from each other. For example, the idea
of the ‘Creole continuum’ highlights the overlapping language uses and code-
switching common to the Caribbean and involves the creation of new modes of
expression particular to itself. Here dialogue with the values and customs of the past
allows traditions to be transformed and bring forth the new so that the meanings
of old words are changed and new words brought into being.
In metropolitan cultures like the United States and Britain, postcolonial theory
has drawn attention to the hybrid cultures produced by, for example, Latino-
Americans and British Asians. This process of cultural hybridity challenges not only
the centrality of colonial culture and the marginalization of the colonized, but also
the very idea of centre and margin as being anything other than ‘representational
effects’. In Britain, the ‘place’ and cultures of Asians in relation to Anglo-Saxon and
Afro-Caribbean Britons has raised issues of purity and hybridity. In particular, the
emergence of British-born young ‘Asians’ gave rise to a generation that was much
more deeply involved in transactions across ethnic boundaries than were the
original migrants. British Asian young people have developed their own home-
grown syncretic or hybrid cultural forms, including increasingly popular forms of
modern dance bhangra music.
Links Diaspora, ethnicity, ethnocentrism, hybridity, national identity, Orientalism, Other

Post-feminism The fundamental argument of post-feminism is that the central tenets
of feminism have been absorbed into Western culture and surpassed. Since the
1960s, feminism has argued that women are oppressed and subjugated by men as
a consequence of being women so that all men oppress all women. Feminism
pointed to structural inequalities in the economy and in the institutions of social
and cultural power. Further, it was suggested that certain forms of male attitudes
and behaviour (contempt, violence, sexual harassment) could oppress women.
Finally, despite decades of feminist action it was said that even today little or
nothing has changed for women within Western culture.