The Historicity of the Concept of "Emancipation"

Entered by Leong Yew, Research Fellow, University Scholars Programme, National University of Singapore

POLITICAL DISCOURSE: THEORIES OF COLONIALISM AND POSTCOLONIALISM

The concept of emancipation, like any other contested term, has gone through numerous transformations in time regarding its context, use, and political implications. For this reason, the concept cannot be historically understood because that would merely reaffirm one instance of its many meanings, projected and narrated backwards in time. Emancipation should therefore be historicized, each meaning and its associated history having some immediate relevance to the period in which it is used.

According to Nederveen Pieterse, emancipation

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Last Modified: 3 May, 2002