Questioning eurocentrism: Anti-colonialism, postcolonialism and colonial discourse theory

Abstract

The objective of this study is to make an intellectual contribution to the ongoing discourse surrounding the subjects of colonialism and Eurocentrism. These issues have resurfaced as a result of the continued significance the Palestinian question. The paper proposes that critical thought should follow three main lines and analyze their interrelations. The first is "anticolonialism theory", which emerged with the works of Aime Cesaire's Discourse on Colonialism and Frantz Fanon's The Damned of the Earth, two pioneering works in the field of anticolonialist thought that contributed to a global revolutionary wave in the 1950s; the second is "postcolonial theory", which began with the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism in 1978 and developed further with the works of Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha; the third is "colonial discourse theory", which draws inspiration from these schools, is often used interchangeably with postcolonial theory and analyzes colonialism from a discursive perspective. The present study to demonstrate both the commonalities and the discontinuities between these three strands. A central assertion of the the study is that the subject destruction theme of anticolonialism which draws upon Hegelian Marxist thought while analyzing colonialism, has undergone a gradual shift and a complet dissolution in the latest exponents of postcolonial theory. This transformation can be understood as a shift from a material or infrastructural analysis of colonialism towards a discourse-based approach. The study structured as follows: Firstly, it is demonstrated how Eurocentrism is an established problem in two masters of European thought and the necessity of questioning Eurocentrism is justified. Secondly, we distinguish the modernity of colonialism, demonstrating that it has been defined as a modern machine for nearly five centuries and should be seen as an integral part of the modern Leviathan. Finally, we address colonial discourses and analyze the theoretical divergence from anticolonialism's trajectory of subject destruction to the context of subjectivity and ambiguity in postcolonial theory. The study concludes that a critique of Eurocentrism should both draw on and go beyond postcolonial theory. A comprehensive and effective critique of Eurocentrism should be based on a framework of material analysis that transcends the culturalist framework of postcolonial theory.