Globalisation through a post-colonialist lens

 Name: Panchasara Jignesh k.​

Roll no: 8​

Enrollment No: 3069206420200013​

 Paper No: 203 Post colonial studies 

Batch: 2020-2022​

Email: jigneshpanchasara5758@gmail.com

Submitted To: S.B. Gardi Department of English MKBU​

 Globalisation through a post-colonialist lens: understanding our past is key to our present

What exactly is globalisation and how does it work? Globalisation is best understood as a process by which people and societies become increasingly integrated or interconnected. Technology is at the heart of this process but so are imaginaries, the unexamined ways through which people make sense of their changing world, establish their values and tell their stories. As a result, globalisation is characterised by both frictions and flows, new sensitivities to risks, and changing understandings of home. The development of the internet, portable communication devices (phones and tablets) and the twentieth century development of air travel have enabled significant changes to the ways we connect. A vital part of this relates to speed. Applications such as Skype have the potential to transform the experiences of immigrants: a loved one living thousands of miles away can be contacted as easily as someone living in the same town. It is as participants of such processes that we find Professor Diana Brydon’s contributions so illuminating; throughout her academic career she has challenged the notion that globalisation is solely a homogenising and economic force. Her research goals are to evaluate and advance the study of globalisation and cultural practices in order to broaden trans-cultural understanding, challenging all the time the Eurocentrism and methodological nationalism of many disciplinary practices which have until this point excluded and marginalised women, cultural and ethnic minorities and Indigenous Peoples.

 

The role of the imagination in contemporary life

Professor Brydon’s belief that the history and continuing impact of colonialism show us the many ways in which the research imagination has shaped the daily lives of people throughout the world is at the root of her work. She looks to literature, in particular, for insights into the ways individuals and communities negotiate belonging during times of change. Since her early research on the nature of Australian expatriate fiction, Brydon’s work has studied the mobilities of people and ideas across borders of various kinds. Research into Canadian settler colonialism is involving her in a very current dialogue about Canadian culture, history, and possible futures. Her country is rethinking its colonial past and her city is the home of a new national centre of learning, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, established in Winnipeg in 2014, with its mission statement to ‘build […] a new era of global human rights leadership’ and take visitors ‘on a journey to erase barriers and create meaningful, lasting change.’

This suggests a sea change in thought and a desire to not just bring people together now, but to make sense of how existing cultural rifts came to be, and how they might be healed.

“ Indigenous voices have been silenced in the historical record [and] Indigenous groups are woefully under-represented by scholars in academic institutions”

Much of Brydon’s research which has aimed to penetrate the entanglement of Canada’s colonialist history within global systems has been done through collaboration with scholars, creators and students, highlighting the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to post-colonial studies. By shining a light on the literature of colonised peoples, she presents the world with a new resource by which to better understand – and learn to respect – the perspectives of others. In placing Canadian literature in settler colonial, post-colonial and international contexts, Brydon has also advocated for the study of Canadian literature with postcolonial reading strategies and decolonising imperatives. Her current research examines how speculative fictions from around the world enable readers to imagine a future beyond the limits of the present.

 

Colonialism and research practices

The forces that led to globalisation may be reaching their limits. By its act of ‘shrinking’ the world, colonialism has since the fifteenth century oppressed and eradicated minority cultural practices and groups while also preserving records that may be consulted with new sets of questions posed from the perspectives of the previously colonised. The legacies of such globalising processes in the twenty-first century include institutionalised misogyny and racism, a dearth of opportunities for young people and a widespread societal ignorance of Indigenous culture. There has been positive action more recently; active resistance to such oppression led to the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, which not only affirms that any doctrine advocating the superiority of any peoples based on culture or ethnicity is socially unjust but acknowledges that the suffering of Indigenous Peoples historically has prevented themselves and their cultures from developing in accordance with their own needs and interests. It is time to listen to their stories and attend to their visions of the future.

 

Following the Bowman ceremony, Dr Brydon delivered a lecture: “Canada in the World Today: Insights from the Humanities”.

Indigenous voices have been silenced in the historical record. In addition, Indigenous groups are woefully under-represented by scholars in academic institutions. As Brydon’s research has pointed out though, it is these voices that are critical to coming to terms with what it means to be, for example ‘Canadian’, today. Indigenous story-telling is changing the literary landscape and shifting understandings of land. Brydon’s research has consistently advocated for increased transnational and trans-cultural engagement in cultural studies, arguing that Indigenous resurgence, multiculturalism and globalisation can best be understood through contextualisation of their entanglements at local, national and global scales.

 Her work is highly relevant in a world that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with its past and anxious about its future 

Imagining otherwise

Professor Diana Brydon has been a force in post-colonial studies of globalisation and Canadian and international culture, grappling throughout her career with the idea that our understanding of history and the world today can only be improved by acknowledging and considering previously (and often still) marginalised perspectives. Her work is highly relevant in a world that is becoming increasingly uncomfortable with its past and anxious about its future. Our best chance at co-existing in our progressively integrated society is tied up with our willingness to reflect on our past and listen to the stories we have been previously unable to hear.

                                                  Thanks

Works cited 

Core.ac.uk. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/16468414.pdf>

Digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu. 2021. [online] Available at: <https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1046&context=jgi>

Research Outreach. 2021. Globalisation through a post-colonialist lens: understanding our past is key to our present. [online] Available at: <https://researchoutreach.org/articles/globalisation-through-post-colonialist-lens/>