Postcolonial theory is the force dismantling what Chimamanda Adichie termed the “single story” narrative

On 25 January, in her Night of Ideas interview in France, one of our favourites, renowned author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, made the following statement: “Postcolonial theory? I don’t know what it means. I think it’s something that professors made up because they needed to get jobs.” In addition to proving herself fallible, her words have sparked controversy.

The Night of Ideas event is a cross-continental initiative run by the French Institute, featuring public discussions on topical issues. Adichie’s exchange with French journalist Caroline Broue was themed “Power to the Imagination”.

Postcolonial studies is the academic study of the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the human consequences of the control and exploitation of colonised people and their lands. It examines the social and political power relationships that sustain colonialism and neocolonialism, including the social, political and cultural narratives surrounding the coloniser and the colonised.
Simply put, it seeks, through anthropological study, to build a better understanding of colonial life from the point of view of the colonised people, based on the assumption that the colonial rulers are unreliable narrators.

Read: Chimamanda’s latest book Dear Ijeawele, Or a Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions wins French Prize

With that overview it is easier to understand reactions like that of Kenyan poet Shailja Patel, the author of Migritude in her 14 tweets reiterating the importance of postcolonial theory. She demonstrates the irony of this statement by Adichie, a beneficiary of the space-clearing labour of generations of postcolonial theorists.

The tweets read as follows:

Here's why it's helpful to believe in post colonial theory. Because then your answer to "Does Nigeria have libraries?" might be, "Yes, but they lack books and journals because the World Bank and IMF forced Nigeria to de-fund public education." https://t.co/8hEuEWvgmP

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

I wonder what Chimamanda would answer if asked "Do they have thinkers and scholars in Nigeria?" given her relentlessly contemptous dismissal of generations of African thinking and scholarship.

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

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Cognitive dissonance is demanding that African countries and cultures be granted parity of complexity and modernity with Western countries and cultures, while simultaneously trashing African thinking, sexual diversity, and knowledge production.

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

When you're a global thought leader whose every eminently quotable clapback makes headlines, but you erase whole bodies of African knowledge and African feminism outside your field, what Africa are you defending? A market? A brand?

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

The agenda of Brand Africa on global stages is often antithetical to lived realities and struggles against structural oppression within African countries. That's why we need theory, history, data, and analysis. Generations before us fought and died in liberation wars for this.

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

I'm thinking of ongoing struggles in South Africa for Black children to access schooling that doesn't dehumanize them. Of #FeesMustFall. Of Kenyan police waging daily war on marginalized communities. Of Laikipia land wars. Of borders, resource plunder, slave markets. And this. pic.twitter.com/qqzAahmtOz

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

The irony is that Chimamanda's parents are both academics. Her mother was the University of Nigeria's first woman registrar – the 'academic feminism' she sneers at. Chimamanda grew up on a university campus. Are we to believe this had nothing to do with her access to books?

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

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That post colonial theory Chimamanda derides as 'made up'? Is what got books by African writers on the national curricula in African countries. So she can say, calmly, "my books are read in schools in Nigeria, and across Africa."

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

Who put Purple Hibiscus on college reading lists and syllabi, catapulting the first novel of an unknown Nigerian writer to critical and commercial success? Academic feminists, versed in post colonial theory.

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

Who fought to have women and Black people admitted at Princeton, Yale, Harvard, where Chimamanda enjoyed fellowships? Academic feminists and post colonial theorists.

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

Chimamanda the novelist is a genius. Her accomplishments are stellar, her fame merited. But the recognition and rewarding of her gifts wasn't a happy accident. The labours and struggles of many scholars, past and present, carved out the spaces where her voice could land.

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

And so Chimamanda's repeatedly expressed contempt for intellectual labour and knowledge production – African, feminist, queer – is both dangerous and painful.

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

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Dangerous because it erases the histories that made her success possible.

Painful because it smacks of knocking down the ladders that she climbed up on, so they're not available to others who come after her.

— Shailja Patel (@shailjapatel) January 27, 2018

Postcolonial artists and theorists alike face an intractable challenge: the burden of representation –or, as Chimamanda herself has expressed it, the “single story”.

“If we are to dismantle the inequalities that limit the possibilities of art and ideas from the postcolonial world, the lesson is clear: We should all embrace postcolonial thought,” Prof Grace Musila wrote on Aljazeera.com.