Postcolonialism in South Africa: Unraveling Historical Legacies and Contemporary Impacts

Abstract Critically observing and analyzing South Africa calls for the mentions of colonialism and postcolonialism. The African country was highly influenced throughout its history by western powers, those times having an important impact in today’s day and age. Frantz Fanon and Edward Said will be the main inspiration points of the study, their viewpoints helping us to understand the implications of colonialism and postcolonialism. Narrative building, stereotyping and power games will be added to the problematics of racial subjugation, psychological traumatization and the need for self-realization in order to frame the image of South Africa. These ideas will be complemented by the addition of critical theory, which will complement the paper by looking into the economic dimension of the colonial and postcolonial periods. This mash-up of ideas will try to serve as a framework that will better explain the situation in South Africa and how the discovered problems could or should be settled.