Theories of post colonialism and video games

Theories of Postcolonialism in videogames

     Post colonial theory addresses the matter of post colonial identity (gender, race, racism) and their interactions in the development of a post colonial society and of a post colonial national identity, it looks into how the colonised's people cultural knowledge was used against them in service of the coloniser's interestes and it looks at how knowledge about the world is generated under specific socio-economic relations between the powerful and powerless.

Post colonialism is studying the effects the empires have left behind after colonising certain areas. the colonised people's cultures have been massively influenced by the colonisers and even their history was rewritten to a certain degree after the colonisation took place. Here's a map of the "Colonial possessions of World Powers in 1914".

http://hist106-2009spring.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/towards-europe-of-nations-and.html

This is just a simple but matter of fact example of how the world functioned at that time, when "colonising" meant bringing culture to the uncultured, and not invading a foreign territory.

Post colonial theory mainly began in relation to literature. From the point of view of colonised peoples, Western traditions of thought, art and literature have dominated world culture, marginalising or even excluding non-Western traditions and forms of cultural life and expression.

The founding theorist of Post colonialism was Edward Said, an israeli by birth, but who moved to the USA later in life. He wrote the book "Orientalism" where he talks in detail about the colonised Orient and the colonising west. 

When it comes to colonising nations, it creates a separation between the colonised and the colonisers, hence creating in turn the effect of "The Others". The colonisers become "The Others"for the colonised and in return, the colonised become "The Others" for the colonisers. All the Middle Eastern nation that have been colonised have been seen as"exotic", "different", being lovely places to go for a short period of time, while trying as much as possible to change them and make them more like "Us" in the process. This process is still happening today, whether admitted openly or not, there is always a certain degree of "colonisation" in the world from the part of world powers towards the least powerful (economically or socially).