Managing Postcolonialism

How can we manage postcolonialism now? The question resonates in various ways depending on your view of the postcolonial project. If you are one of the people still committed, as Robert Young writes, "to reconstruct Western knowledge formations, reorient ethical norms, turn the power structures of the world upside down, refashion the world from below" (20), how do you manage to keep it going? If you are one of those who think that the intellectual fuel of postcolonialism has been spent, there is nothing left to manage – it is time to shut the operation down. Young's trajectory suggests that there remains political work that could, and should, still animate postcolonial studies, including the ongoing lack of connection with struggles around indigeneity across the world and the persistence of "unreadable Islam" (Young 2012, 27-31). Nevertheless, the task of managing postcolonialism conveys the affect of tired and disheartened people still struggling to keep a project going, alive, some recognizing that there is so much still left undone, others having moved on into new areas of scholarly life that promise more liveliness.