Self-Representation and Counter-Discourse
Colonized and formerly colonized peoples have answered imperial representations through self-representation and counter-discourse, rewriting the stories told about them.
Definition
The study of how colonized and postcolonial subjects represent themselves and produce counter-discourses that contest and rewrite dominant colonial representations.
Scope
This topic examines how the represented contest dominant images through counter-discourse: rewriting canonical texts, asserting indigenous perspectives, and producing self-representations that challenge Orientalist and colonial framings. It draws on the 'writing back' paradigm and on anticolonial polemic such as Cesaire's.
Core questions
- How do the colonized contest representations imposed on them?
- What does it mean to 'write back' to the canon?
- How does self-representation differ from being represented?
Key theories
- Counter-discourse
- Helen Tiffin theorized postcolonial counter-discourse as a strategy of reading and rewriting that exposes and contests the assumptions of canonical colonial texts.
- Writing back to the centre
- Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin described how postcolonial literatures appropriate and subvert the colonizer's forms to assert their own realities.
History
Anticolonial writers such as Cesaire produced powerful counter-discourse in the mid-twentieth century. The 'writing back' paradigm was theorized in the late 1980s, especially in The Empire Writes Back, and remains central to the study of postcolonial literatures.
Debates
- Dependence on the canon
- Critics ask whether writing back remains bound to the colonial texts it rewrites, or whether it achieves genuine autonomy.
Key figures
- Helen Tiffin
- Bill Ashcroft
- Gareth Griffiths
- Aime Cesaire
Related topics
Seminal works
- ashcroftetal1989
- cesaire1955
- tiffin1987
Frequently asked questions
- What is counter-discourse?
- It is a strategy by which colonized or postcolonial writers contest dominant colonial representations, often by rewriting or talking back to canonical Western texts.