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Rhetorics of coloniality rationalize and maintain relations of domination.
Rhetorics of coloniality rationalize and maintain relations of domination.
"After all, [it] is so often invisible and inaudible to the “eyes” and “ears” of those who have not learned to see and listen and rather just look and hear. And that is why Maldonado-Torres in part describes the decolonial turn as about “making visible the invisible,” analyzing “the mechanisms that produce such invisibility,” and intervening at the “level of power, knowledge, and being through varied actions” (2007, p. 262)." (Garcia, 2024, p. 29)
David Spurr (1993) identifies a dozen tropes that perpetuate a rhetoric of coloniality in writing about non-Western peoples in fiction and non-fiction writing through the 19th and 20th centuries.
"...There is nothing especially conscious or intentional in their use; they are part of the landscape in which relations of power manifest themselves" (Spurr, 1993, p. 3)
Learning to recognise, make visible, and refuse these narratives is an important first step toward countering them.
Activity: Let's read a WC internationalization narrative. Is the rhetoric of coloniality present?
Activity: Let's read a WC internationalization narrative. Is the rhetoric of coloniality present?
Surveillance: This involves the act of observing and documenting colonized spaces and peoples, asserting control through the power of the gaze and representation. It reflects the colonial power’s need to monitor and manage colonized subjects.
Look for academic research that participates in surveillance and extraction through publication on/about the "Other" as an object of study.
Look for descriptions and representations of the Other through the gaze of the colonizer.
Look for the absence of the colonized subject's voice/perspective.
Appropriation: This trope describes the process by which colonial powers lay claim to land, resources, cultural artifacts, and knowledges of the colonized, often framing these actions in terms of reciprocity or the legitimate inheritance of the colonizers.
Look for the donning of cultural symbols, the adoption of languages/ knowledges/experiences as things that have been earned.
Debasement: This trope depicts the colonized as dirty, corrupt, ignorant, illiterate, or morally deficient. The debased subject's voice does not matter. The debased subject is in need of help through civilizing acts of charity, education, and religious indoctrination. Such portrayals serve to justify the colonial mission as a civilizing force.
Look for references to rates of literacy and English language proficiency as measures of development, intelligence, and measures of need.
Look for research practices that obscure or even criticize/lambast/chastize the colonized's voice, point of view, experience...
Look for descriptions of the colonized and their culture as a challenge to be overcome.
Negation: Colonial rhetoric often negates the presence or significance of the colonized culture and history, depicting the land as empty or the people as lacking history and civilization before colonial intervention. Not seeing anything recognizable (including institutions, languages, histories), colonizers designate the Other as a blank slate in need of Western help.
This trope is often expressed through a journey (by land, sea, or air) into darkness/the unknown Other and arrival into a hostile and exotic landscape.
Look for discussions of establishing the "first" writing centre in the region and for references to a lack of Western-style writing, composition, or rhetoric programs. Where these don't exist, they are surely needed!
Look for descriptions of journeys abroad and experiences of an exotic landscape.
Look for statements of surprise at unanticipated encounters with difference and other culture shocks.
Journey is framed as a personal dream/aspiration
Aestheticization: Colonial discourse often romanticizes and beautifies the colonized landscape and culture, turning them into objects of aesthetic admiration while ignoring the realities of oppression and exploitation.
Eroticization: This involves the sexualization of the colonized and their lands, depicting them as exotic and sexually alluring. It serves to justify the colonial conquest as a form of erotic adventure and domination.
Look for admiration, romanticization, exoticization of the Other's culture, languages, ways of doing and making.
Look for missing context pertaining to the impact of colonial systems shaping the colonized culture, landscape, etc.
Journey is framed as a personal dream/aspiration/desire...
Idealization: This involves presenting an idealized vision of the colonial enterprise, often portraying the colonized territories as Eden-like paradises in need of the colonizer's guidance and stewardship.
This depiction rationalizes processes that destroy and erase non-Western cultures because they're seen as simplistic, primitive, and in need of development towards Westernization.
Look for paternalistic attitudes and the oversimplification or homogenization of culture.
Look for weak relationship building, which implies that relationships don't matter because the "developing" people are naïve and looking to "advance," "develop," or "improve"
Insubstantialization: This trope depicts the colonized as insubstantial or dreamlike, undermining their reality and agency. It portrays the colonized world as a fantasy, distancing it from the material and political consequences of colonialism. The colonized are also rendered insubstantial through treatments by colonized adventurers as a backdrop for colonizer journeys of inward discovery and personal growth. That voyage abroad and return is considered a prestigious accomplishment that improves one’s standing within the colonizing culture.
Look for reflections on personal growth on international writing centre initiatives and encouragements for others to engage in this type of work for personal gain.
Look for celebrations of the colonizer's own impact and successes, especially as justifications of the work.
Look for weak research into the colonized culture and landscape, which renders it illusory.
Classification: This involves categorizing and hierarchizing people and cultures in ways that reinforce colonial power structures. It draws from scientific and pseudo-scientific practices to justify the superiority of the colonizer over the colonized.
Look for classifications or typifications of types of learners or English language learners specifically (i.e., Kachru's (1992) 3 Concentric Circles including L1, ESL, EFL...)
Look for research that situates the colonized landscape against a Western standard with recommendations for improvement that involve adoption of Western practices. This often occurs within the framework of developing vs. developed...
Naturalization: This strategy involves presenting colonial rule and/or "development" as a natural and inevitable process, often by drawing analogies to natural processes or phenomena. It serves to legitimize colonial dominance as something preordained and unchangeable, even if colonized subjects resist it.
Look for appeals to globalization and the inevitable global melting pot (which will strengthen English and Western culture)
Look for taken-for-granted assumptions of movements towards democracy and literacy as positive developments for the colonized subjects.
Affirmation: This trope asserts the colonial mission as a noble and benevolent enterprise, often encapsulated in the idea of the "White Man's Burden" (Kipling). It affirms the supposed moral duty and social justice mission of the colonizers to civilize and uplift the colonized. Themes of solidarity, integrity and unity are often called upon as performative acts, which make themselves true by virtue of being uttered or written.
Look for appeals to the need for helping to create access.
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