Understanding Postcolonialism (review)

Concise and accessible, Understanding Postcolonialism examines ideas underpinning the thought of key postcolonial theorists. This book offers a valuable introduction to postcolonial philosophy and its poststructuralist philosophical foundations, a clear overview of important debates, and succinct, precise definitions of essential terminology related to the field. Its main target audience, therefore, appears to be students or non-experts, although this is never made explicit in the text or paratext. Features of the book that will appeal to this particular audience include, for each chapter, concise summaries of key points, guides to further reading, and questions for discussion and revision. This lucid introduction resembles a long lecture, as there are also no foot- or endnotes. One possible advantage of this format could be that it helps inexperienced readers new to postcolonial studies by making the book more approachable. Nevertheless, the lack of referencing — possibly a feature of the house style of the series — does present a distinct disadvantage to those wanting to read further in specific detail on the important debates mentioned throughout the volume. Understanding Postcolonialism will also be essential reading for scholars already working in the postcolonial field, because philosophy per se has tended to be overlooked or hazily defined in anticolonial and postcolonial contexts. It represents, too, a significant intervention because of the innovative comparisons drawn between Francophone, Anglophone, and, often, Latin American postcolonial thought, and between pairs and groups of writers not usually considered together. Biographical information is provided at the beginning of each chapter, which might appear an old-fashioned approach but which is perhaps necessary in order to showcase as clearly as possible such a wide spectrum of postcolonial thinkers of very different origins. In terms of organization, the Introduction identifies Marxist politics and Levinasian ethics as the roots of postcolonial philosophy. Subsequent chapters then show that postcolonial figureheads — Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Abdelkébir Khatibi, Édouard Glissant, among others — make postcolonial uses of Western or European thinkers, not all of whom address the question of colonialism and empire in their own work. Hiddleston thereby presents the reader with an incisive overview of ways in which the two strands of postcolonial thought — materialist and textualist — tend to choose between militant, activist postcolonial politics and more intractable postcolonial ethics, adding nuances and multiple layers of anticolonial and/or postcolonial critique as they rethink and further elaborate the methodologies of Karl Marx, Emmanuel Levinas, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Paul Sartre. This clear structure notwithstanding, readers might find it odd that discussion of Gayatri Spivak (in Chapter 7) is set so far apart from analysis of the work of the Subaltern Studies Collective, despite the fact that Spivak was a member of this group and her thought has been intricately connected with theirs. Hiddleston does, however, make a convincing case that Spivak’s work goes beyond that of the Collective in a number of new directions. Overall, Understanding Postcolonialism will be a ‘must’ for newcomers and more experienced readers of postcolonial philosophy alike.