What is Postcolonial Criticism?

Postcolonial criticism examines how colonialism and its legacies shape the production and reception of texts. It interrogates how literature has been used to justify imperial domination, how colonised peoples have been represented (or misrepresented), and how writers from formerly colonised nations reclaim voice, identity, and cultural authority through their work.

Key thinkers include Edward Said (Orientalism), who showed how Western texts constructed the "East" as exotic, irrational, and inferior; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, who asked "Can the Subaltern Speak?" to expose how marginalised voices are silenced even by those claiming to represent them; and Homi K. Bhabha, who theorised hybridity and the third space where colonial and colonised cultures intersect to produce new identities.

Australian Context

Australia's postcolonial context is unique: it is simultaneously a settler-colonial nation and a site of ongoing colonisation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Postcolonial readings of Australian texts must grapple with this duality — the dispossession of First Nations peoples, the migrant experience, and the continuing negotiation of national identity.

Othering and Colonial Discourse

Othering is the process by which colonial discourse constructs colonised peoples as fundamentally different from and inferior to the coloniser. This is achieved through binary oppositions: civilised/savage, rational/irrational, advanced/primitive, self/other. Said's concept of Orientalism demonstrates how this is not mere prejudice but a systematic discourse — a way of producing knowledge that serves imperial power.

In literary texts, othering manifests through characterisation, language, imagery, and narrative structure. Colonised characters may be denied speech, individuality, or interiority. They may be described through animalistic or infantilising imagery. The landscape of the colonised world may be depicted as both alluring and threatening — a terrain to be conquered and tamed.

Signs of Othering in Texts

✗Colonised characters presented as a homogeneous mass, not individuals
✗Exotic or primitivist descriptions of non-Western cultures
✗Western narrator positioned as the authority who "explains" other cultures
✗Non-Western landscapes described as empty, waiting for European "discovery"

Strategies of Resistance

✓Writing back: retelling colonial stories from marginalised perspectives
✓Reclaiming language and narrative form
✓Asserting cultural knowledge and worldviews
✓Exposing the constructed nature of colonial binaries

Hybridity and the Third Space

Homi Bhabha's concept of hybridity challenges the idea that colonial and colonised cultures remain separate and opposed. Instead, Bhabha argues that the encounter between cultures produces a third space — a site of negotiation, translation, and new identity formation that is neither purely coloniser nor purely colonised. Hybridity is not a simple blending but a dynamic, often disruptive process.

In Australian literature, hybridity is central to migrant and diasporic writing. Writers like Christos Tsiolkas, Alice Pung, and Nam Le explore characters who inhabit multiple cultural positions simultaneously. Their texts often resist resolution, reflecting the ongoing and unfinished nature of cross-cultural identity negotiation.

Analytical Prompt

When analysing hybridity in a text, ask: Does the text present cultural mixing as liberating or as a source of anxiety? How does the composer use language, form, or narrative structure to represent the experience of inhabiting multiple cultural worlds? Is hybridity celebrated, mourned, or treated with ambivalence?

Key Vocabulary

Orientalism

Edward Said's concept describing how the West has constructed the "East" as exotic, irrational, and inferior through systematic cultural discourse that serves imperial power.

Subaltern

Spivak's term for those who are marginalised to the point where they cannot speak or be heard within dominant power structures, even when they physically speak.

Hybridity

Bhabha's concept of new cultural forms emerging from the encounter between coloniser and colonised, creating a "third space" that disrupts colonial binaries.

Terra Nullius

The colonial legal fiction that Australia was "nobody's land," erasing Aboriginal sovereignty and used to justify dispossession. A key concept in Australian postcolonial analysis.

Worked Examples

Example 1: Othering in Heart of Darkness

Analysis: Conrad's novella exemplifies colonial discourse through its systematic othering of the Congolese. African characters are denied names, speech, and individuality — they are described as "black shadows of disease and starvation" and "bundles of acute angles." Marlow's journey "up the river" replicates the colonial narrative of penetrating "dark" territory, with Africa functioning as a mirror for European existential crisis rather than a place with its own reality. The text's focalisation through Marlow ensures the reader never accesses an African perspective, structurally reproducing the colonial silencing of the colonised.

Example 2: Writing Back in Things Fall Apart

Analysis: Chinua Achebe's novel directly responds to texts like Heart of Darkness by presenting Igbo society from within, granting African characters complexity, agency, and cultural depth. The title itself — from Yeats's "The Second Coming" — appropriates the coloniser's literary tradition to articulate the devastation of colonisation. By depicting Okonkwo's world as rich, structured, and meaningful before the arrival of missionaries, Achebe dismantles the colonial myth that Africa had no civilisation. The final chapter's shift to the colonial Commissioner's perspective, in which Okonkwo's entire life is reduced to a "paragraph," powerfully demonstrates how colonial discourse erases indigenous humanity.

Example 3: Settler-Colonial Critique in Australian Poetry

Analysis: Oodgeroo Noonuccal's poem "We Are Going" uses the collective first-person voice ("We are the old rites") to assert Aboriginal presence and continuity against the erasure of terra nullius. The poem's elegiac tone mourns what has been lost while simultaneously enacting survival through the very act of speaking. The juxtaposition of Aboriginal cultural practices with the "many white man" who have arrived creates a counter-narrative to settler-colonial stories of "progress," insisting that colonisation is not a completed event but an ongoing process of dispossession.

Knowledge Check

Test your understanding of postcolonial reading. Select the correct answer and click "Check Answer".

Question 1

Edward Said's concept of "Orientalism" describes:

A genuine appreciation for Eastern cultures and traditions The study of Asian languages at European universities A systematic discourse through which the West constructed the "East" as exotic and inferior to justify imperial power A literary movement based in the Middle East

Question 2

"Writing back" in postcolonial literature refers to:

Responding to letters from the colonial government Copying the style of colonial-era authors Writing sequels to canonical English novels Retelling colonial stories from the perspective of the colonised, challenging dominant narratives

Question 3

Bhabha's concept of the "third space" suggests that:

Cultural encounters produce new, hybrid identities that disrupt colonial binaries Coloniser and colonised cultures must remain completely separate Colonised peoples should adopt the coloniser's culture entirely There is a physical space between two countries where cultures mix

Question 4

In a postcolonial reading of Things Fall Apart, Achebe's decision to end the novel from the Commissioner's perspective serves to:

Show that the Commissioner is the real hero of the story Demonstrate how colonial discourse reduces rich, complex lives to mere footnotes Provide a balanced, neutral conclusion to the narrative Suggest that Western civilisation is superior to Igbo culture

Question 5

Terra nullius is significant in Australian postcolonial analysis because:

It accurately described the state of Australia before European settlement It is a Latin term for "new land" used to name territories It was a colonial legal fiction that erased Aboriginal sovereignty to justify dispossession It refers to land that was genuinely uninhabited and unclaimed

Postcolonial Reading of Texts