Med '''postkolonialism''' åsyftas vanligen det intellektuella fält som öppnades med Frantz Fanons bok ''Jordens fördömda'' och Edward Saids ''Orientalism.'' Den postkoloniala teorin undersöker bl a hur bilden av västerlandet som upplyst och modernt skapas genom att beskriva österlandet (vars placering har skiftat genom historien) som föråldrat, mystiskt och traditionellt. När väst utmålar Den Andre - en främmande kontinent eller ett folk - som starkt annorlunda genom en dikotomi (motsatspar) förknippas väst med den mer positivt laddade delen av dikotomin. Väst kan t ex stå för kultur medan öst står för natur; väst stå för det rationella medan öst står för det (påstått) irrationella.

Idéhistorikern Ronny Ambjörnsson visar i sin bok "Öst och väst" hur bilden av Europa vuxit fram genom att utmåla Asien som föråldrat och USA som alltför modernt, ytligt och historielöst. Mellan dessa poler står sålunda Europa som en syntes av det gamla och det nya. Ur ett postkolonialt perspektiv går det att hävda att vi inte kan förstå eller tala om Europa utan att visa på bilder av vad vi anser att Europa inte är.

En mer kontroversiell postkolonialism är förknippad med underströmmen runt begreppet kulturell 'hybridity' (Homi Bhabha) och 'postkolonial liberalism' (Duncan Ivison). Men postkolonialism är framförallt en variant av det som, historiskt sett, gick under beteckningen 'identitetspolitik'--och som var i grunden en 'postkolonial kommunitarianism'.

==Se även==
*Kolonialism
*Nykolonialism
*Tredje världen

'''Postcolonialism''' ('''postcolonial theory''', '''post-colonial theory''') is an intellectual discourse that holds together a set of theories found among the texts and sub-texts of literature. These theories are reactions to the cultural legacy of colonialism.

As a critical approach), it deals with literature produced in countries that once were Orientalism'' has been described as a seminal work in the field.<ref></ref>

==Subject matters==

Postcolonialism deals with cultural identity in colonised societies: the dilemmas of developing a national identity after colonial rule; the ways in which writers articulate and celebrate that identity (often reclaiming it from and maintaining strong connections with the coloniser); the ways in which the knowledge of the colonised (subordinated) people has been generated and used to serve the coloniser's interests; and the ways in which the coloniser's literature has justified colonialism via images of the colonised as a perpetually inferior people, society and culture. These inward struggles of identity, history, and future possibilities often occur in the metropolis and, ironically, with the aid of postcolonial structures of power, such as universities. Not surprisingly, many contemporary postcolonial writers reside in London, Paris, New York and Madrid.    

The creation of binary opposition structures the way we view others. In the case of colonialism, the Westerner were distinguished as different from each other (i.e. the emotional, decadent Orient vs. the principled, progressive Occident). This opposition justified the "white man's burden," the coloniser's self-perceived "destiny to rule" subordinate peoples. In contrast, post-colonialism seeks out areas of hybridity and transculturalization. This aspect is particularly relevant during processes of globalization.  

In ''Post-Colonial Drama: theory, practice, politics,'' Helen Gilbert and Joanne Tompkins write:  "the term postcolonialism — according to a too-rigid etymology — is frequently misunderstood as a temporal concept, meaning the time after colonialism has ceased, or the time following the politically determined Independence Day on which a country breaks away from its governance by another state, Not a naïve teleological sequence which supersedes colonialism, postcolonialism is, rather, an engagement with and contestation of colonialism's discourses, power structures, and social hierarchies ... A theory of postcolonialism must, then, respond to more than the merely chronological construction of post-independence, and to more than just the discursive experience of imperialism."<ref>Helen Gilbert, Joanne Tompkins, Post-Colonial Drama: theory, practice, politics, Routledge 1996, ISBN 0415090237</ref>

Colonized peoples reply to the colonial legacy by ''writing back to the center'', when the indigenous peoples write their own histories and legacies using the coloniser's language (e.g. English, French, Dutch) for their own purposes.<ref>Bill Ashcroft, ''The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literature'' (1990)</ref> "Indigenous decolonization" is the intellectual impact of postcolonialist theory upon communities of indigenous peoples, thereby, their generating postcolonial literature.

A single, definitive definition of postcolonial theory is controversial; writers have strongly criticised it as a concept embedded in identity politics. Ann Laura Stoler, in ''Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power,'' argues that the simplistic oppositional binary concept of ''Coloniser and Colonised'' is more complicated than it seems, since these categories are fluid and shifting; postcolonial works emphasise the re-analysis of categories assumed to be natural and immutable.

Postcolonial Theory - as metaphysics, ethics, and politics - addresses matters of identity, gender, race, racism and ethnicity with the challenges of developing a post-colonial national identity, of how a colonised people's knowledge was used against them in service of the coloniser's interests, and of how knowledge about the world is generated under specific relations between the powerful and the powerless, circulated repetitively and finally legitimated in service to certain imperial interests. At the same time, postcolonial theory encourages thought about the colonised's creative resistance to the coloniser and how that resistance complicates and gives texture to European imperial colonial projects, which utilised a range of strategies, including anti-conquest narratives, to legitimise their dominance.

Postcolonial writers object to the colonised's depiction as hollow "mimics" of Europeans or as passive recipients of power. Consequent to  Foucauldian argument, postcolonial scholars, i.e. the Subaltern Studies collective, argue that anti-colonial resistance accompanies every deployment of power.

==The Middle East and national identity ==

In the last decade, Middle Eastern studies and research  produced works focusing upon the colonial past's effects on the internal and external political, social, cultural, and economic circumstances of contemporary Middle Eastern countries; cf. Raphael Israeli's "Is Jordan Palestine?"<ref>in: ''Israel, Hashemites and the Palestinians: The Fateful Triangle'', Efraim Karsh and P.R. Kumaraswamy (eds.)(London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp.49-66 and also Nazih Ayubi's ''Overstating the Arab State'' (Bodmin: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2001) pp.86-123</ref>A particular focus of study is the matter of Western discourses about the Middle East, and the existence or the lack of national identity formation:<ref> Sadiki, L. (2004) ''The Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses'' India: C. Hurst & Co. Ltd </ref>

<blockquote>

“... [M]ost countries of the Middle East, suffered from the fundamental problems over their national identity. More than three-quarters of a century after the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, from which most of them emerged, these states have been unable to define, project, and maintain a national identity that is both inclusive and representative”.<ref> Kumaraswamy, P, R (March 2006) “Who am I?: The Identity Crisis in the Middle East” The Middle East Review of International Affairs Volume 10,  No. 1, Article 5, p 1</ref>

</blockquote>

Independence and the end of colonialism have not ended social fragmentation and war in the Middle East. Larbi Sadiki wrote in ''The Search for Arab Democracy: Discourses and Counter-Discourses'' (2004), because European colonial powers drew borders discounting peoples, ancient tribal boundaries and local history, the Middle East’s contemporary national identity problem can be traced back to imperialism and colonialism.

Kumaraswamy writes that "in places like Iraq and Jordan, leaders of the new state were brought in from the outside, [and] tailored to suit colonial interests and commitments. Likewise, most states in the Persian Gulf were handed over to those who could protect and safeguard imperial interests in the post-withdrawal phase",<ref> Kumaraswamy, P.R. (March 2006) “Who am I?: The Identity Crisis in the Middle East” The Middle East Review of International Affairs Volume 10,  No. 1, Article 5, p.1</ref>