Culture and Imperialism

This is the rhetoric underpinning the imperial project: Imperialism and colonization are necessary endeavors, so that the enlightened European master may impart civilization onto the ignorant, innocent, and barbaric natives. Once the ideology of imperialism becomes embedded within a culture, the “experience in the dominant society comes to depend uncritically on natives and their territories perceived as in need of la mission civilisatrice,” as Said renders it in French (xix). Essentially, the “civilizing mission” functions as a justification for the exercise of power over the colonized natives. Colonizers refer to this as “‘a duty’ to the natives, the requirement in Africa and elsewhere to establish colonies for the ‘benefit’ of the natives” (108), rather than acknowledging the use of force and control. As Said argues, “Power makes this convergence possible, of course; with it goes the ability to learn about other people, to codify and disseminate knowledge, to characterize, transport, install, and display instances of other cultures” (108). The “civilizing mission” grants one cultural group the power of representation over another.

This is the practice, endorsed by Said, of reading a text against its dominant themes and principal representations. Said defines contrapuntal reading using an example from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park:

In practical terms, contrapuntal reading as I have called it means reading a text with an understanding of what is involved when an author shows, for instance, that a colonial sugar plantation is seen as important to the process of maintaining a particular style of life in England (66).

Contrapuntal reading nudges the marginalized ideas, plots, and characters toward the center. It acknowledges the historical realities from which the fictional ideas are mined. Said writes, “Contrapuntal reading must take account of both processes, that of imperialism and that of resistance to it, which can be done by extending our reading of the texts to include what was once forcibly excluded” (66-67).

Colonialism is the process by which imperial forces, typically from European centers (London, Paris, Berlin, and so on), establish settlements within other societies, usually outside of Europe (Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and so on). It is distinct from imperialism which, in Said’s words “means the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center ruling a distant territory” (9). Colonialism, on the other hand, “is almost always a consequence of imperialism [...], the implanting of settlements on distant territory” (9). While the geographical facts of colonialism are largely relegated to the past—national independence has been gained by virtually every former colony of Great Britain, France, and other European powers—the ideology of imperialism continues, both in essentializing nationalist rhetoric emanating from former colonies and in the aggressive patriotism that dominates American discourse. For more on imperialism, see the following section on “Themes.”

In contrast to the rhetoric of imperialism or the essentializing narratives of nationalism, liberation allows for an idea of hybridized and multi-layered identities. It features an interconnectedness of cultures, versus a hierarchy of cultural authority. In addition, “liberation is a process” that can “bind the European as well as the native together in a new non-adversarial community of awareness and anti-imperialism” (274). Liberation emancipates both the colonizer and the colonized from orthodox and authoritarian ideologies and identities.

Liminality refers to the “in-between” quality of an object, idea, or person in a state of transition. A liminal or “mediating” character is one who can occupy both sides, moving between boundaries and borders with ease like Kipling’s Kim (140). A liminal space occupies the territory between destinations, like borders between nation-states. A liminal time indicates the moments when one marked period transitions to the next, like twilight, midnight, or adolescence. Liminal areas are important to post-colonial studies and to Said because they represent the space in which two very different cultures, ideologies, or communities can come together; liminal characters and spaces represent possibility and transformation.