It is very common that in many academic texts, the author use some specific terms that they presuppose the reader already know. But, it is true that it would be impossible to write an essay explaining every term, it would suppose an enormous list of footnotes or derivations in other essays. Nevertheless, it is very interesting when a term is put over the table and there comes a discussion around it. This is the case of the term “post-colonialism”. In the essays “Situating Colonial and Poscolonial Studies, by Ania Loomba, and “The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term ‘Post-colonialism’”, by Anne McClintock, the term “post-colonialism” is somehow deconstructed.
In the case of Loomb, she concludes that “[T]he word ‘poscolonial’ is useful in indicating a general process with some shared features across the globe. But if is uprooted from specific locations, ‘poscoloniality’ cannot be meaningfully investigated, and instead, the term begin to obscure the very relations of domination that it seeks to uncover” (1110). In other words, the term “poscolonial” could be consider a generic term, a simplification, but if we want to be more precise, it has to be deeply investigated, it is, see how it could work in different contexts. If it is used only as a generic term, then, as she said, the effect is the contrary: their goal of its investigation is not accomplished or, at least, is not accurate (if this word could be used in the field of cultural, literary or social studies).
McClintock is fiercer in her critique. In a general sense, she says: “Historically voided, categories such as ‘the other’, ‘the signifier’, ‘the signified’, ‘the subject’, ‘the phalus’, ‘the poscolonial’, while having academic clout and professional marketability, run the risk of telescoping crucial geo-political distinctions into invisibility” (1187). Again, here is pointed out the idea that the use of generic terms has the risk of make invisible the presence of a diverse reality. In other words, it is very important to consider the reality or the context when we apply on of these terms. Of course, this is the case of ‘post-colonialism’: “As the organizing rubric of an emerging field of disciplinary studies and an archive of knowledge, the term ‘poscolonialism’ makes possible the marketing of a whole new generations of panels, articles, books and courses” (1192). I think the main idea of this critique here (and of the article in general) is that this term is very debatable since it is used to very different historic processes, some times indiscriminately. Beyond the academic field, the reality is much more effervescent, we might say.
So, what is “post-colonialism”? I would say, it depends. Depends of the context that we are talking about. But also depends of the interpretation of the term that the authors have of it. This is very important, because the context is not only given by the reality, the history, but also by the author and his or her ideas. The object of study (I don’t like the word “object”, because creates a distance and presuppose a scientific approach, which is not our field) and the author are mediated, in first place, by the pre-judgments of him or her. But, as Gadamer said, the pre-judgments are not wrong if they are used as points of departure of the investigation instead of create a distance or a distortion beforehand.
Finally, I think that this debate around the term “post-colonialism” could make us think about theoretical terms in general. We may say that they are only signifiers; they do not have an ultimate signified. They always depend on the context (reality and author, to synthetize), so they cannot constitute a “sign”. They are a differance, which trace is the context where they are applied. But, this only my interpretation.