In this blog post, we will examine the multifaceted meanings of the colonial experience that nationalism has failed to capture through the lens of postcolonial theory.
One of the key concepts that has sparked heated debate and discussion in recent decolonial literary studies is “ambivalence.” Originally a term from psychology, ambivalence refers to a dual psychological state in which a person simultaneously holds conflicting feelings or attitudes toward a single object or situation.
For example, ambivalence is used to describe the complex and contradictory emotional structure within humans, such as feeling love and hate toward the same person, or respecting a certain custom while also wanting to reject it. However, postcolonial theorists have expanded the concept of ambivalence beyond the realm of individual psychology, interpreting it as a structural phenomenon that exists within the historical and political context of colonialism.
They emphasize that aspects such as identity, language, and culture that appear in the relationship between colonizers and colonized are never single or consistent, but rather have ambivalent characteristics that conflict and divide each other. In other words, the colonized have a desire to admire and imitate the culture of the colonizers, but at the same time, they have an impulse to reject and resist it, and these two attitudes appear in a contradictory way that is always in conflict but coexists.
One example that clearly illustrates this concept of ambivalence is the expression “divided stereotype.” Generally, “stereotype” refers to imposing a fixed image or framework on a group or object. It is a device that simplifies and views a particular race, class, or ethnicity in a consistent manner, and is often seen in the way colonizers represent the colonized. However, from a decolonial perspective, these stereotypical images are by no means fixed or consistent, but rather constantly shifting and revealing contradictions. For example, colonized people are depicted as loyal and obedient on the one hand, but also as cunning and untrustworthy on the other, with stereotypes constantly shifting between two extremes.
Such fluid and contradictory depictions of the colonized do not only affect the formation of images of them. Furthermore, they also affect the colonizers themselves, who seek to construct their identity through such representations, rendering even the colonizers’ identity unstable and fluid. Colonizers seek to establish their own identity and superiority by defining and dominating the colonized, but when such definitions and representations themselves become contradictory and divisive, the very foundation of the colonizers’ identity is shaken.
This unstable relationship is even more evident in the imitation of culture and language. The colonizers try to educate the colonized to conform to the ideals of their home country, and the colonized also show a willingness to voluntarily accept the culture and language of the colonizers, which they consider to be a superior civilization. However, no matter how hard the colonized try to imitate the culture of the colonizers, their imitation can never be completely identical to the original. There are several reasons for this. First, the colonizers feared the complete assimilation of the colonized and therefore only transmitted their culture and language in an incomplete and limited manner. Second, the historical background, traditions, and social conditions of the colonized and colonizers are fundamentally different, so even the same culture or language is inevitably accepted and interpreted in different ways.
As a result, the imitation of the colonized may appear very similar to the original, but at the decisive moment, it remains a kind of “mimicry” that reveals its “otherness.” This mimicry is not simply cultural acceptance, but sometimes becomes a strategy to create intentional differences. The colonized do not simply imitate the culture of the colonizers, but create differences by deliberately reproducing it in different ways to mock and distort it. This strategic imitation is called “appropriation,” which is not simply the result of assimilation, but rather a form of resistance that challenges and dismantles the authority of the colonizers.
What is particularly noteworthy is that the culture and discourse of the colonizers, which were considered authoritative and sacred, are gradually contaminated and damaged through imitation and appropriation by the colonized. This suggests that while the colonized appear to conform to the colonizers’ order on the surface, they are resisting by distorting and subverting the colonizers’ culture. Decolonization theory expands the concept of resistance at this point. Whereas resistance was previously considered to be only overt rebellion or political movements, now even “unconscious resistance” that arises from cultural differences and imitation is recognized as an important form of resistance.
For example, when the colonized create new literature by following the literary form of the colonizers but subverting the content, this is not merely a reproduction of colonial literature, but functions as a critical response to the discourse of the colonizers. Writers who imitated Western literature while adding their own voices and identities, whether consciously or unconsciously, played a role in creating cracks in colonial power. Therefore, the literature they created is not merely an imitation of postcolonial literature, but a product of cultural resistance.
The cultural, linguistic, and identity mixing that results from this imitation and appropriation is called “hybridity.” Hybridity is not a change that only occurs in the colonized. The colonizers also gradually lose their pure culture and identity through interaction with the colonized, and they too become contaminated and transformed. Culture is an organic system in which cultures influence each other, so it is impossible for one side to influence the other unilaterally. As a result, both colonizers and colonized people become hybrid beings, and fixed identities are revealed to be a fiction.
Hybridity inevitably becomes a threatening concept to colonizers. They have based their superiority and legitimacy of domination on absolute differences and hierarchical logic, but hybridity dismantles such distinctions and undermines their very foundation. If both colonizers and colonized have fluid and mixed identities, there is no basis for justifying colonial rule.
By introducing these concepts of decolonization, especially ambivalence, hybridity, and appropriation, modern Korean literary studies have been able to reexamine colonial-era literature, which had long been explained through nationalistic dichotomies, from a new perspective. Traditional nationalist discourse assumed that the identity of the colonized was a single, pure ethnic identity and focused on strengthening that ethnic identity as the best way to overcome colonial rule.
This perspective, based on a dichotomous framework of “pro-Japanese” and “anti-Japanese,” led to a tendency to categorize and interpret colonial-era literature schematically. However, the reality of the colonial experience was not so simple or straightforward.
The cultural clashes, assimilation, conflicts, resistance, and numerous hybrid aspects experienced in everyday colonial life have complex meanings that cannot be captured within a nationalistic framework. Decolonized literary studies transcend the limitations of existing research at this point, viewing colonial reality from a more multifaceted and flexible perspective and enabling us to capture the possibilities of various forms of literary resistance and expression.
