Spivak reflecting on the subaltern throughout her work
Mbembe on Fanon and the Politics of Viscerality
VIDEOS
That'll
Change Your Life
“Britain’s broken up with me”, says Riz Ahmed, seemingly hurt. “We had our ups, but now it’s broken down, let me break down the whole fuckery.” The music starts. In the following three-and-a-half minutes, Ahmed tells the tumultuous story of the relationship between Britain (‘she’) and Pakistan (‘he’), his motherland.
The video clip addresses the complex emotions that surround colonialism and its aftermath, the relation between the coloniser and the colonised are presented in the form of a “toxic” relationship and a break-up. The video clip forces us to think about colonisation from the perspective of the colonised: a once powerful nation is left in shambles, after the exploitative and violent partner left. This perspective helps to understand the struggle which informs post-colonial theory. ‘She’ ended the relationship, which forces ‘him’ to conclude: “I’m heartbroken and I’m homeless, trying to work out who I was” after years of providing ‘her’ with money, labour: dedication. Even though ‘he’ realises that the relationship was toxic, ‘he’ still begs ‘her’ not to leave him. Even though ‘their kids’’’ multicultiarity is not accepted by ‘her’, ‘he’ still looks up to ‘her’ for recognition. The video clip takes you by the hand and lets you experience the conflicting feelings and thoughts of the break-up of ‘the metropole’ and ‘the colony’. Better watch it yourself.
- Group 2 (3 March 2020)
This video is a lecture by the artist Ruben Pater, who is unwilling to regularly tour overseas due to the outsized carbon footprint of global air travel, Pater originally proposed a pre-recorded talk, a format now more relevant than ever. Focusing on the ethics of design, referring to the role of international relations, trade and colonialism.
One such example was when he compares the Dutch military intervening in the Gulf of Aden to protect shipping vessels from pirates with the East and West India companies who stationed military personnel were placed on commercial ships. Bringing up the link between nationality, military and trade.
Ruben also talks about his book Politics of Design which he makes a handbook in which he addresses the western-centric side of design and how the world of design has fallen folly to cultural bias. His handbook serves to help designers be aware of and challenge the pitfalls of solely western design perspectives and standards.
Ruben addresses the effect of design on colonialism by the example of maps from the 1800s which are based on the Mercator projection. This design of the map is the most typically known design of the world map to date. The design was made in 1569 in Belgium, it showed Europe in the centre. Furthermore, since this map was typically used for compass navigation in colonial times, the proportions of the southern hemisphere were shrunk. This size distortion serves to show that the map is colonialist as it emphasizes the places where the colonizers came from being bigger and diminish the land that would be colonized.
- Group 1
The whole documentary is interesting, if you like food, but I wanted to highlight a particular section, from around 14:10 to 15:12.
The restaurant owner, now well into his 90s, exemplifies how nuanced (post-) colonialism can be, and (de-) colonisation can be experienced differently by other classes.
Sidenote: It's also interesting to look at how Rick Stein goes around India and how he interacts with the locals. I get the impression that he just can't get over how great the British Empire was...
"It is impossible to talk about the single story without talking about power. There is a word, an Igbo word, that I think about whenever I think about the power structures of the world, and it is "nkali." It's a noun that loosely translates to "to be greater than another." Like our economic and political worlds, stories too are defined by the principle of nkali: How they are told, who tells them, when they're told, how many stories are told, are really dependent on power. "
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie describes power as the ability of not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person. The Ted talk warns about the danger of a single story but also forces us to reflect upon the stereotypes we have without being aware of.
(Group 5)
Edward Said's evaluation and critique of the set of beliefs known as Orientalism forms an important background for postcolonial studies. His work highlights the inaccuracies of a wide variety of assumptions as it questions various paradigms of thought which are accepted on individual, academic, and political levels.
In this video, he talks about the context within which the book was conceived, its main themes and how its original thesis relates to the contemporary understanding of "the Orient."
Group 5 (8 March 2020)
INDIA'S THIRD SEX
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/digital-docs/video/indias-third-gender-469587523711
This video showcases the ways in which the third sex in India survived during colonial times and explains the hardships of those who belong to it.
:. You need a VPN installed (choose 'US' as the option) so you can watch it!)
Group 2 (April 10th)
For many, the underground music scene is one to experience escape and liberation. This short documentary, covering the span of a week, shows the Palestinian music collective Jazar crew and their connections with Palestinian artists in the West Bank as they tell their sonic story leading up to the first Boiler Room in Ramallah (which happened in June 2018).
As mentioned in Week 3 on Orientalism, Edward Said, an American Palestinian whose work contributed to founding the field of post-colonial studies, was very outspoken with regard to the Israeli-Palestine conflict in the Middle-East.
This film shows an additional dimension of this conflict, a snippet of the lives of young Palestinians living in the West Bank.
Group 2 (17 April 2020)
"In his work [T.E. Lawrence's] we can see most clearly the conflict between narrative history and vision... The great drama of Lawrence's work is that it symbolizes the struggle, first, to stimulate the Orient (lifeless, timeless, forceless) into movement; second, to impose upon that movement an essentially Western shape; third, to contain the new and aroused Orient in a personal vision whose retrospective mode includes a powerful sense of failure." Edward Said in Orientalism.
Lawrence of Arabia is a cinematic achievement by its own right. It talks about divided allegiances and confused identity but its very basis lies in its Orientalism. Even though the movie is made against the West's colonization, it represents the East as distant, mysterious, and sensual. As Said's way of putting: Lawrence invented the Arab's "primitive simplicity".
Group 5
"That is for those who do not know Edward Said. For those who know him, this documentary is a new window or an attempt of a new reading of Edward Said as a son, husband, and father and as an artist and man of letters. It is about his story of coming to the US, Palestine visit, unknown reaction to Orientalism, daily routine, relation with the Palestine Liberation Organization, from Mahmoud Darwish to Yasser arafat, and the “Edward Said: A Contrapuntal Reading” poem . It is about New York, Jerusalem, Nasserism, Cairo, music, British look, the Six-Day War, and the Oslo Accords.
This documentary is about the alive and deceased Edward Said in the eyes of his household; his wife Mariam C. Said and daughter Najla Said."
I personally really enjoyed this documentary, having seen it a while back what I remember is on the affective level, the intimacy in hearing about Said and his legacy from his wife and daughter. As well as relating to the diasporic experience of being somewhat alienated from a country you wish to call home.
(Group 3 21-04)
"I do not know how to write us ...
I want to write us, even if I do not know how to begin, because at least that way, we'll be a story for ourselves this time." - video 1
Whose Eyes Are These Anyway?
"what does it mean to be forced to be public and then found guilty for doing it wrong. ... What does it mean to spend your entire time trying to look right but knowing that it isn't self but in being seen that. your wrongness lays. What does it mean for wrongness to be essentialized into you"
- video 2
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a 25 year old Muslim woman and third-generation Pakistani in the UK. She was born in Bradford, raised and state-schooled in Leeds and has graduated from a history degree at Cambridge University and masters in Postcolonial Studies at SOAS.
She writes and speaks about politics, race, gender, feminism, Islam, being visibly Muslim, Eurocentric academia, decolonising minds/bodies and more. The aim of her blog is to create space. Space for her voice and space to be able to think.
Suhaiymah is an amazing muslim Pakistani British spoken word poet. In her work she constantly plays with the orientalizing gaze she is subjected to.
On the right are a few videos
(couldn't pick one)
(Group 3. 21-04)
Omar Souleyman has transformed traditional dekba (Arab dance) music. He created a techno-version. Souleyman has become famous with his 'fusion' of old and new (also in the West), but he does faces quite some criticism. The criticism primarily focusses on the belief that Souleyman 'distorts' his Syrian heritage.