POTGIETER-MA-TR02-81.pdf

het. Vir hulle het Republiekwording in 1961 die begin van die post-koloniale era
aangedui, terwyl dit vir mense van kleur bloot ’n voortsetting van koloniale
oorheersing beteken het.
In hierdie verband is die terminologie ook problematies. Slemon (1996:178) beweer “… probably
no term within literary and critical studies is so hotly contested at present as is the term ‘post-
colonial’; probably no area of study is so thoroughly riven with disciplinary self-doubt and
mutual suspicion”. Oyegoke (1998:8) wys op die volgende:
The problematisation of postcolonial discourse has led some scholars to distinguish
between “postcoloniality” and “post-coloniality”, where the hyphenated word is
reserved for the demarcation of political history and the unhyphenated one
allocated to the principle or the theory. Even so, this particular signifier - postcoloniality
or postcoloniality - manages to retain a good deal of elasticity.
Daar is min of geen konsensus rondom die gebruik van die terme “post-kolonialisme” of
“postkolonialisme”. In hierdie ondersoek word die onderskeiding wat Oyegoke (1998:8) hier
waargeneem het, toegepas tensy dit anders gebruik word in aanhalings. Die gebrek aan konsensus
en helderheid is egter nie net beperk tot naamgewing nie en is vir heelwat kritici, soos die Marxis
Russel Jacoby, uiters problematies. In sy artikel, met die uitdagende titel ‘Marginal Returns’
(1995:37), sê Jacoby:
Post-colonial theory is all over the map. Of course, it is supposed to be. ... The field
is inchoate and can move in any number of directions. Nevertheless, the
preliminary report is not positive. While post-colonial studies claims to be
subversive and profound, the politics tends to be banal; the language jargonized; the
radical one-upmanship infantile; the self-obsession tiresome; and the theory
bloated.
Ander kritici, soos Homi K. Bhabha (1992:441), meen dat hierdie “... lack of obvious clarity in
post-colonial theory - the fluidity, the ambivalences, the theoretical anti-authoritarianism in the
writing - is what is genuinely enabling about the field” (Slemon, 1996:178).
Daar is nie slegs een postkoloniale teorie nie en geen kritikus kan as segspersoon optree of
verteenwoordigend wees van die studieveld nie. Vir die doel van hierdie studie word daar van
Ashcroft et al. (1989; 1995) se vertrekpunte gebruik gemaak as basis van die postkoloniale
projek, naamlik dat postkolonialisme gebaseer is op “… the ‘historical fact’ of European
colonialism, and the diverse material effects to which this phenomenon gave rise” (Ashcroft et
al., 1995:2). Dit rig sigself op “… all the culture affected by the imperial process from the
moment of colonization to the present day” (Ashcroft et al., 1989:2, my kursivering). André P.
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