This blog is part of Thinking Activity assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad sir to rethink about postcolonial study throut the lenses of Bollywood, Hollywood, Literally text etc.
Based on the article, analyze how globalization reshapes postcolonial identities. How does global capitalism influence the cultural and economic dimensions of postcolonial societies? Can you relate this discussion to films or literature that depict the challenges of postcolonial identities in a globalized world?
The article Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies (Barad, 2022) shows how globalization complicates postcolonial identities by reshaping cultural, political, and economic landscapes. Let’s unpack this step by step and then connect it with literature and films.
1. Globalization and Postcolonial Identities
Globalization blurs the old binaries of “center” and “margin” central to postcolonial studies. Instead of fixed colonial hierarchies, identities are now shaped by transnational networks, cultural flows, and deterritorialization. For formerly colonized societies, this means:
Hybrid Identities: People embody both local traditions and global influences, often struggling between cultural preservation and assimilation.
Domination in New Forms: Instead of direct colonial rule, global powers now exert influence through soft power (media, technology, education) and hard power (wars, economic sanctions).
2. Global Capitalism’s Influence
Global capitalism operates as a continuation of colonial exploitation, but under the guise of free markets:
Economic Inequalities: Scholars like Joseph Stiglitz and P. Sainath argue that “market fundamentalism” entrenches poverty in developing nations while enriching global elites.
Cultural Homogenization: Hollywood, fast fashion, and global brands impose Western lifestyles, often erasing indigenous or local cultural practices.
Neoliberal Pressures: Institutions like the IMF and World Bank impose structural reforms that weaken sovereignty, mirroring old imperial dependencies.
Thus, globalization doesn’t erase colonial dynamics—it repackages them under neoliberal capitalism.
3. Cultural & Economic Dimensions
Cultural: Globalization produces what Homi Bhabha calls the “third space,” where hybrid identities form, but also where cultural loss occurs.
Economic: Integration into global supply chains (e.g., Friedman’s Dell Theory) fosters dependence. Developing nations may grow economically, but remain vulnerable to global shocks.
4. Connections to Literature & Film
Many texts and films capture these postcolonial-global tensions:
Literature
The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga): Shows how global capitalism creates both aspiration and exploitation in postcolonial India.
An Artist of the Floating World (Kazuo Ishiguro): Explores identity in Japan after imperial collapse and Western influence.
Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe): Though colonial-era, its themes echo today’s cultural displacements under globalization.
Films
Slumdog Millionaire: Highlights how globalized media intersects with poverty and postcolonial urban realities.
Lagaan: Shows colonial exploitation tied to economics, which resonates with how global capitalism still structures inequality.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist: Directly engages globalization, 9/11, and hybrid identity crises in a postcolonial subject.
5. Conclusion
Globalization reshapes postcolonial identities by producing new hybrid, fragmented selves that negotiate between cultural heritage and capitalist pressures. Economically, it perpetuates inequalities reminiscent of colonialism, while culturally it risks homogenization under Western influence. Yet, it also provides opportunities for resistance, creativity, and new solidarities.
Drawing from it, explore how contemporary fiction offers a critique of globalization from a postcolonial lens. How do authors from postcolonial backgrounds navigate themes of resistance, hybridity, or identity crisis in their works? Consider analyzing a film that addresses similar issues.
Contemporary Fiction as Postcolonial Critique of Globalization
Postcolonial authors often depict globalization as a double-edged force: it offers new opportunities but also reproduces older hierarchies of power in new economic, cultural, and political forms. The article highlights works such as Don DeLillo’s Cosmopolis, Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, and Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger, which reveal globalization’s contradictions.
1. Resistance:
Cosmopolis (DeLillo) portrays anti-globalization protests in Manhattan, dramatizing resistance to capitalist excess.
The Fountain at the Center of the World (Newman) depicts WTO protests in Seattle, foregrounding collective dissent against neoliberal structures.
2. Hybridity:
Postcolonial fiction often presents hybrid identities negotiating global and local pressures. Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness highlights how marginalized voices (Kashmiri separatists, transgender communities, displaced villagers) resist homogenizing global capital while creating hybrid spaces of solidarity.
3. Identity Crisis:
The White Tiger (Adiga) critiques how neoliberal India promises upward mobility but deepens inequality. Balram Halwai’s rise from chauffeur to entrepreneur satirizes the fractured self navigating between feudal remnants and global capitalism.
Ian McEwan’s Saturday illustrates how global conflict intrudes into personal lives, showing individuals torn between privilege and the ethical responsibilities of a global citizen.
Together, these novels dramatize globalization’s “Empire” (Hardt & Negri) as a deterritorialized power managing identities and hierarchies. Fiction becomes a site where the voices of the subaltern articulate both suffering and resistance.
A Film Parallel: Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
Like these novels, Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire can be read through a postcolonial lens:
Resistance: The film critiques how global consumer culture exploits poverty for spectacle, while the protagonist Jamal resists systemic oppression through knowledge and survival.
Hybridity: English-language narration and Bollywood-style spectacle merge Western cinematic techniques with Indian storytelling, itself a hybrid cultural product of globalization.
Identity Crisis: Jamal navigates Mumbai’s transformation into a neoliberal hub where slums exist beside global call centers, reflecting fractured identities caught between local roots and global flows.
Conclusion
Contemporary fiction and film critique globalization not as a monolith but as a contested space. Postcolonial writers and filmmakers foreground resistance movements, explore hybrid cultural negotiations, and dramatize the identity crises of individuals caught between global capitalism and local traditions. By doing so, they reclaim narrative agency, reminding us that globalization is not only about interconnected markets but also about contested identities, unequal power, and the ongoing legacy of colonialism.
Using postcolonial studies, discuss how they intersect with environmental concerns in the Anthropocene. How are colonized peoples disproportionately affected by climate change and ecological degradation? Reflect on this issue through a film that depicts ecological or environmental destruction, particularly in formerly colonized nations.
Postcolonial Studies and Environmental Concerns in the Anthropocene
Postcolonial studies, traditionally focused on legacies of empire, culture, and identity, now intersect with ecological debates in the Anthropocene — the age where humans have become “geological agents” (Chakrabarty). Environmental degradation is not simply a global issue; it is deeply entangled with histories of colonialism and capitalism:
Colonialism and ecological destruction: As Vandana Shiva argues, colonial expansion destroyed biodiversity and displaced sustainable indigenous practices, replacing them with monocultures that served empire and later global capital.
Spatial amnesia (Rob Nixon): Western “green” narratives often erase indigenous histories, treating lands as empty wilderness while ignoring how colonized peoples were dispossessed.
Internal colonialism: Even after independence, governments in the Global South reproduce extractive logics — e.g., India’s Narmada Dam displacing adivasi communities.
Accumulation by dispossession (David Harvey): Climate-related exploitation today (privatization of water, mining, agribusiness) mirrors colonial plunder, hitting marginalized groups hardest.
How Colonized Peoples are Disproportionately Affected
1. Ecological vulnerability: Many postcolonial nations lie in the Global South, where rising sea levels, droughts, and floods are most devastating. Yet these nations contributed least to historical carbon emissions.
2. Economic exploitation: Multinational corporations extract resources from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, leaving behind pollution and dispossession (e.g., Niger Delta oil spills that Ken Saro-Wiwa resisted).
3. Cultural erasure: Climate adaptation policies often override indigenous knowledge systems, reproducing colonial hierarchies of knowledge.
4. Social displacement: Environmental disasters disproportionately displace indigenous and marginalized communities, echoing colonial histories of forced migration.
Film Reflection: Avatar (2009) or Okja (2017)
While Avatar is allegorical, it powerfully mirrors postcolonial ecological struggles:
The Na’vi’s sacred forest is destroyed for “unobtanium,” echoing resource extraction in colonized lands.
Indigenous resistance parallels real-world movements like Nigeria’s Ogoni struggle or India’s Narmada Bachao Andolan.
The film critiques corporate-military alliances in environmental exploitation, showing how colonized peoples’ survival is tied to ecological preservation.
Alternatively, Bong Joon-ho’s Okja (2017) critiques global agribusiness and dispossession, highlighting how corporations exploit both animals and marginalized communities under neoliberal globalization.
Conclusion
Postcolonial critique in the Anthropocene reveals that climate change is not just environmental but also historical and political. Colonized peoples disproportionately bear its burden because the Anthropocene itself is rooted in imperial extraction. Films like Avatar visualize these struggles, bridging ecological catastrophe with the continuing legacies of colonial exploitation. Thus, postcolonial environmentalism insists that a sustainable future demands ecological justice that acknowledges — and repairs — colonial histories.
From examining how Hollywood shapes global perceptions of U.S. hegemony. How do these films project American dominance, and what postcolonial critiques can be applied to these narratives? Consider selecting other films or TV series that perpetuate similar hegemonic ideals.
How Films Project American Dominance
1. Rewriting History:
Rambo: First Blood Part II reframes the Vietnam War as a story of American redemption, depicting the U.S. soldier as betrayed but morally superior, thereby masking the complexities of American defeat.
Rambo III aligns with U.S. support for Afghan Mujahideen, recasting Cold War conflicts into simplified battles of freedom vs. communism.
2. Constructing America as the Global Liberator:
Bond and Rambo are portrayed as defenders of freedom, implicitly casting America (and allies) as moral arbiters. Even though Bond is British, the franchise often advances Western—and by extension, U.S.—interests.
3. Soft Power and Cultural Hegemony:
Through global circulation, these films spread American values of individual heroism, technological superiority, and military might, positioning them as universal ideals.
The economic success of such franchises also reinforces the U.S.’s dominance in global cultural markets.
Postcolonial Critiques
1. Hegemonic Storytelling: Postcolonial theory critiques how these films silence or distort the voices of the colonized/“Others.” The Vietnamese, Afghans, or Soviets often appear as faceless villains or cultural stereotypes, denied complexity.
2. Orientalism: Echoing Edward Said, these films exoticize and demonize the East—Afghanistan becomes a rugged, primitive backdrop awaiting Western salvation, while Asian and Middle Eastern characters are reduced to threats.
3. Erasure of Local Agency: Postcolonial critics highlight how such films erase indigenous resistance or nuance, reducing global struggles to backdrops for American heroism.
4. Globalization as Neo-Imperialism: In the post–Cold War era, Hollywood’s reach extends U.S. cultural imperialism under the guise of entertainment, blurring fun with ideological indoctrination.
Other Films and Series with Similar Hegemonic Ideals
Top Gun (1986, 2022): Celebrates American military aviation and valor, projecting U.S. air dominance as thrilling spectacle.
Zero Dark Thirty (2012): Frames the War on Terror through American moral righteousness, sidelining debates about sovereignty, torture, or civilian casualties.
24 (TV series, 2001–2010): Justifies extraordinary violence and surveillance as necessary for American security, echoing post-9/11 anxieties.
Captain America franchise: While couched in superhero fantasy, it replays the trope of America as savior of the free world.
Toward Counter-Narratives
In light of this, reflect on how the film appropriates and reimagines tribal resistance against colonial powers. How can such narratives contribute to or undermine postcolonial struggles? You could relate this to other films that portray resistance or appropriation of indigenous or subaltern heroes.
Contribution to Postcolonial Struggles
Empowering narrative of unity: By reframing Raju and Bheem as larger-than-life heroes battling colonial oppression, RRR offers a sense of pride and resistance against imperial domination. This strengthens nationalist discourse and provides a cultural counterpoint to Western cinematic dominance.
Global visibility: The film has introduced audiences worldwide to Indian resistance, albeit in a mythologized form. In doing so, it contributes to the postcolonial project of reclaiming agency and retelling history from a non-Western perspective.
Undermining Postcolonial Struggles
Erasure of indigenous specificity: By subsuming tribal struggles into the nationalist framework, the film dilutes the memory of real grievances against internal exploiters (like the Nizam or the state’s forest policies). It risks erasing the unique identity and struggles of subaltern communities.
Missed chance for environmental justice: As the paper argues, the film bypasses urgent issues like displacement, ecological degradation, and corporate exploitation of resources—problems still central to tribal life. This weakens the film’s relevance to present postcolonial concerns.
Comparative Frames
Other films and cultural texts show similar patterns of reimagining subaltern or indigenous heroes:
Lagaan (2001) frames villagers’ struggle against British tax oppression as a metaphor for collective resistance, but it too sidelines caste and tribal divisions in favor of a homogenized nationalist unity.
Avatar (2009, 2022) presents an allegory of indigenous resistance to colonial-capitalist exploitation of land and resources. Unlike RRR, it explicitly foregrounds ecological concerns and the spiritual connection to land.
Kantara (2022) focuses on Bhoota Kola rituals and land rights in Karnataka, keeping the indigenous context intact while blending folklore with resistance against internal exploitation.
In sum, RRR’s myth-making contributes to postcolonial identity formation on a symbolic, nationalist level but simultaneously undermines subaltern struggles by appropriating them into a homogenized national narrative. The tension between nationalist storytelling and indigenous specificity is at the heart of how such films shape postcolonial memory.
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