Self-construal in Postcolonial Literature

Book excerpt: Opening with an analysis of the concept of self-construal from Renė Descartes and Immanuel Kant to the beginning of the new millennium, this collection of essays contributed by academics from India, Romania and Bosnia and Herzegovina removes self-construction from the field of anthropology, relocating the process within the wake of social and political psychology. The postcolonial condition is the catalyst of inquiries into collective traumas in the former colonies, in parallel with attempts at writing new narratives in the space left blank by metropolitan representations. Transnational space is a palimpsest of conflicting discourses, often revealing a double consciousness in writers living in the country of origin, as well as in migrants. A broader and more complex approach to the postcolonial condition than the reductive and politicized one-factor analysis has been attempted, benefiting from recent theoretical developments (trauma studies, identity studies, studies of the affect, political psychology, and others).