Feminsim and Postcolonisalism

The texts I have chosen and which I am going to interpret in this paper ar

The second paper that I am going to analyse was written by Chandra Talpade Mohanty, its title is Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses. In her study, Mohanty analyses how in recent Western feminist texts, Third World Woman started to appear as a homogeneous subject and how its heterogeneity is suppressed in certain texts.

She claims that this monolithic representation is an effect resulting from assuming that only Western feminism is reliable and its the primary referent in theory and praxis. Mohanty questions this approach and her aim is to “limit the possibility of coalitions among (usually White) Western feminists and working class and feminists of color around the world” (259).

Katrak examines several trends in recent postcolonial theory which she finds worrying. First of all, theoretical works about postcolonial writers do not get the amount of attention they deserve and the reason why these texts are dismissed is that they are “not theoretical enough by Western standards” (256). Another disquieting trend is that postcolonial texts are used as “raw materials” by Western theorists and not as texts valid and viable on their own. Maybe the most disconcerting trend is that new theoretical works are written with the help of and out of already existing theoretical works in a language which is so obscure that it cannot be understood and which only a privileged class uses – those who write these theories. Another characteristics of the contemporary theory is that it freely ignores and excludes certain postcolonial writers’ texts at will while it endlessly continues the discussion of concepts like ‘Other’ or ‘difference’. The main lack of these theories is that these are derived solely from their own (Western) world and history and value systems (256). Katrak also finds it alarming that certain theoretical models aims to prove the value of postcolonial literature with the help of European models and by imposing European modes while other models blame the difficulty of Western theory for not being able to interpret postcolonial texts. Katrak lists other traps and threats as well, e. g. the questioning of the canon, the approriation of postcolonial texts, the false interpretations of the texts as ‘acts of language’. These all result in asserting unconsciously an intellectual and political domination and in this power structure – though theorists oppose the very idea – the Western culture is the dominant one.

Mohanty’s next argument is that “sisterhood cannot be assumed on the basis of gender; it must be formed in concrete, historical and political practice and analysis” (262). Grouping should not be done according to dependency relationships between men and women. Mohanty claims that the origin of oppression lies in “the privileged positioning and explanatory potential of gender difference” and not in the gender difference itself. This leads to the analytical strategy of taking of women as a powerless group prior to the analysis. She argues that analysis of any kind can only take place after realizing this and its effects should be further examined.

e all concerned with the impact of Western feminism on post-colonialism and the problems which it has arisen. These texts are the following: Decolonizing Culture: Toward a Theory for Post-colonial Women’s Texts written by Ketu H. Katrak; Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses written by Chandra Talpade Mohanty and First Thing First: Problems of a Feminist Approach to African Literature by Kirsten Holst Petersen.

The first text that I am going to analyse is titled Decolonizing Culture: Toward a Theory for Post-colonia

Some topics in this essay:
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