Lauren Bayne CAPS Blog #2

Postcolonialism

Lauren Bayne

Postcolonialism is a perspective of the critical approach to studying intercultural communication. It is an intellectual, political, and cultural movement that calls for the independence of colonized states and liberation from colonist ways of thinking (Martin & Nakayama, 2009, p. 69). But postcolonialism is also the study of how a state and its people are affected by their colonial past and what they do in the aftermath (Martin & Nakayama, 2009).

Many students will have heard of “the Scramble for Africa” in at least one of their history courses. If not, here is a refresher. The Scramble for Africa was the result of European powers competing over Africa and its rich resources. The powers, including Belgium, Great Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, partitioned (or rather scrambled) the continent and colonized it. The native rulers and subjects tried to fight this European colonialism, but were subdued, and the colonizers implemented their language, religion, and other cultural aspects. In postcolonial Africa, many countries still speak their colonizer’s language and even practice its religion. One such example can be found in South Africa, which the Dutch had colonized two hundred years before Great Britain overthrew them in the Scramble. In postcolonial South Africa, the legacy of these two colonizers lives on in the form of language and religion. For example, the unique language of Afrikaans, one of South Africa’s eleven official languages, morphed from Dutch. Great Britain also implemented English, which is another official language. The Dutch Reformed Protestant religion has also continued on in South Africa’s postcolonial era.

Learning about the perspective of postcolonialism gave me insight into why some people among a state resent certain aspects, such as language or religion, that are legacies of the colonizer. Many people of the former colony may not want to preserve anything left over from such an oppressive past. This might mean that some individuals refuse to communicate in English, which would affect intercultural communication between them and most Americans. Knowing the prevailing postcolonial attitudes of a former colony will give a person insight into how most of its people will interact in intercultural communication.

References:

Martin, J. N., & Nakayama T. K. (2009). Intercultural communication in contexts (5^th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Higher Education.

South Africa. (n.d.). In The World Factbook. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sf.html