How Nothing Will Ever Be the Same...Except What Stays the Same

Post-colonial theory has done some fantastic things for western historiography.  It, along with feminist theory in particular, has decentralized the traditional European narrative by focusing on the perspectives of indigenous people, women, religious and other minorities.  Essentially, post-colonial theory examines the realities of those who were subjugated or otherwise affected by the expansion of colonial powers around the globe, and it does so by paying particular attention to power structures, issues of dominance, marginalization, agency, oppression, and resistance.  

Post-colonial theory has problematized the very act of getting at and portraying the perspectives of indigenous people, women and so forth, i.e., the "subaltern".*  European colonialism discouraged, ignored and willfully destroyed many sources that were or would have been created by the people subject to colonial rule, which sources historians use to piece "history" together.**  It is, therefore, practically more difficult to study the sublatern than it is to study white Europeans of the period.  Moreover, there exists the old anthropological problem of studying an "Other" (or subaltern) when one comes from a culturally removed paradigm.  How can a 20th- or 21st-century historian - a product of the western European paradigm perpetuated by colonialism - accurately depict the experience of an individual or individuals who were marginalized and silenced by this same colonialism?  Isn't that very project predicated on the familiar old patriarchal attitude Europeans used to subjugate colonized peoples in the first place?  Post-colonial theory has helped historians deal with these sticky issues of intellectual honesty and cultural sensitivity, as well as the brutal, often horrifying and always upsetting realities crafted by colonialism.

Another consequence of the development of post-colonial thought is to divide much of western historiography into the pre-colonial and post-colonial eras.  I will not aver that this division is an illogical one, unduly constructed by historians or placing unwarranted emphasis on a single event or set of events.  European colonial expansion certainly changed the world forever and established power differentials of which we see the ramifications today.  

However, I do believe that naturalizing the pre-/post-colonial divide obscures continuities that are, perhaps, useful to note.  Additionally, it inhibits the adoption of post-colonial theory by historians of pre-colonial periods.  Historians love to annex historiographical theory from a variety of sources and employ them in novel circumstances, but the premises of post-colonial theory imply the uniqueness of the post-colonial world so much so that historians of pre-colonial time periods seldom venture to use the post-colonial methodological lens to examine their own subject matter.  I think this pre-/post-colonial divide, in emphasizing the exclusivity of each time period, might end up working to the detriment of both.  

In some senses, a narrative of continuity is the same bad old narrative of the oppressor with which post-colonial theory so handily dispensed.  I certainly do not argue for a return to this historical perspective.  Nevertheless, permitting post-colonial theory to speak only about the colonial and post-colonial world underestimates its utility for broader timeframes and topics.  

By the time Europe "discovered" the Americas in the 15th century, it had already established itself as a civilization that liked to insinuate its interests wherever it could, first in Africa, and then in Asia.  I do not propose that European military and commercial projects in Africa and Asia precisely mirror colonial expansion following 1492, but I do suggest that they bear enough resemblances to justify comparing them. 

Just a few thoughts.

A very early consolidation of broad-reaching power occurred in Europe at the hands of the Romans.  First as a republic, and later as an empire, Rome colonized what is now Europe as well as lands all around the Mediterranean and into central Asia.  Rome, like other colonial powers before and since, created an economy reliant on slave labor and the influx of non-human goods from Roman colonies or, administratively-speaking, provinces.  Rome encouraged the production of and multiplied the consumption of luxury goods, grain, animals and human labor all across its vast territory.  Read here for more specific information on Rome's material exploitation of Africa, here for information regarding the Roman (ab)use of animals in its provinces, and here for a summary of the Roman empire's reliance on slave labor imported from its provinces. 

Certainly Roman colonialism differed from early modern European colonialism in important ways.  Nevertheless, the material relationship between Rome and her provinces, as hinted at above, resembles 15th- and 16th-century colonialism in more than one way.  Additionally, the differences between European colonialism of the early modern period and that of every other period are precisely what have already been most explored by post-colonial historiography.  Surely a comparative study between ancient Roman empire and early modern European colonialism (breaching that pre-/post-colonial divide!) would yield interesting insight into both periods. 

Additionally, after Rome's fall its former territory, still tenuously sharing the Latin language and Christianity, soon became the collection of regions that would eventually identify itself as a cohesive "Europe" (once a healthy dose of Germanic tribal militarism was added to the mix). The nations of Europe, as diverse as they are, share this cultural heritage of the Roman, early medieval (i.e., tribal) and late medieval periods.  And from the medieval world, after all, developed the Europe that would exert itself via colonialism around the globe.

And now I have finally worked my way around to the medieval period, whose projects of expansion I really would like to talk about.  But that for another post.

* Like any good field of thought, post-colonial theory has built up its own vocabulary where each word has been loaded down with meaning, nuanced differentiation from other concepts, and the general fruit of academic hairsplitting.  I don't say that dismissively, but having been trained in historiographical theory more germane to pre-colonial time periods, I approach post-colonial vocabulary with some trepidation.  I understand that I may not, in every case, employ terms and concepts to the fullest extent of their epistemological baggage.  
** Not to mention the fact that most western historians are trained to look primarily at written sources.  This tendency creates a bias toward literate peoples and their cultural product.  In order to study oral cultures, historians require strategies that help them get, often obliquely, at the lived lives of people who did not leave a written record behind them.  At the very least, it requires historians to approach narratives generated by the dominant, literate powers with a healthy amount of distrust, especially when it comes to their depiction of those at the opposite end of the colonial power structure.