Law, Social Justice & Global Development
(An Electronic Law Journal)
‘A Proleptic Approach to Postcolonial Legal Studies ? A Brief Look
at the Relationship Between Legal Theory and Intellectual History’
Vidya S A Kumar
PhD Candidate,
Merton College, University of Oxford
vidya.kumar@merton.oxford.ac.uk
This is a refereed article published on: 20 January 2004
Citation: Kumar, V, ‘A Proleptic Approach to Postcolonial Legal Studies ? A Brief Look at the
Relationship Between Legal Theory and Intellectual History’, 2003 (2) Law, Social Justice & Global
Development Journal <http://elj.warwick.ac.uk/global/issue/2003-2/kumar.html>
Abstract
This paper tackles some troublesome issues and questions lurking behind the relatively innocuous
moniker ‘postcolonial legal theory’, or if one prefers, ‘postcolonial legal studies’. Its general aim is to
situate both the legal theorist and legal theory within context of earlier debates about (Western)
postcolonial theory and the subject of ‘postcolonialism’. Specifically, it attempts to execute a shift that
displaces the subject of “postcolonialism” and subjectivises the objects of both theory and the theorist.
In order to carry out this shift, this paper develops in two movements. The first movement, after
providing a short introduction to the history of postcolonial theory, identifies and delineates two
proverbial postcolonial concerns - nomenclature and complicity - each of which raise questions about
the role, purpose and possibilities of Occidental postcolonial theory. The second movement examines
the implications these issues beget for the study and production of ‘postcolonial legal studies’.
Following the second movement’s examination of the nature of postcolonial legal theory and its
relationship to intellectual history, it is argued that postcolonial legal theory needs to adopt “proleptic
approach” to its object of study.
Keywords: Colonialism, Complicity, Edward Said, Empire, Law, Legal, Legal History,
Legal Theory, Postcolonialism, Occident, Postcolonial Legal Studies, Postcolonial
Studies, Social Change
Author’s Note
This paper is a version of a paper delivered at the ‘Postcolonial Legal Studies Conference’ held in
Manning Park, British Columbia, Canada on 5 June 2002. I would like to thank Wes Pue for
encouraging me to develop my talk into this paper.
1. Introduction
This paper will only very briefly tackle some troublesome issues and questions lurking behind the
relatively innocuous moniker ‘postcolonial legal theory’, or if one prefers, ‘postcolonial legal studies’.
Its general aim is to situate both the legal theorist and legal theory within context of earlier debates
about (Western) postcolonial theory and the subject of ‘postcolonialism’ Specifically, it attempts to
execute a shift that displaces the subject of ‘postcolonialism’ and subjectivises the objects of both
theory and the theorist. In order to carry out this shift, this paper develops in two movements. The
first movement, after providing a short introduction to the history of postcolonial theory, identifies
and delineates two proverbial postcolonial concerns - nomenclature and complicity - each of which
raise questions about the role, purpose and possibilities of Occidental postcolonial theory. The second
movement examines the implications these issues beget for the study and production of ‘postcolonial
legal studies.’ Following the second movement’s examination of the nature of postcolonial legal
theory and its relationship to intellectual history, it is argued that postcolonial legal theory needs to
adopt ‘proleptic approach’ to its object of study.
2. First Movement
2.1. An Exceptionally Brief History of Postcolonial Theory
It is widely believed that, for better or worse, Edward Said’s Orientalism set in motion, in a way not
previously done before in the Western academy, a debate in the about the relationship between
colonialism and the production of Occidental knowledge, especially knowledge of ‘the Orient’. That
said, it would certainly be an exaggeration to claim that Said began postcolonial discourse in light of
his numerous (relatively less-prominent) precursors, which include, among others, Franz Fanon,
C.L.R. James, Chinua Achebe, Anta Diop, W E B Du Bois, Romila Thapar, Aime Cesaire, not to
mention the spate of ‘Commonwealth literature’ authors writing in the 1960s and 1970s. Avoiding the
daunting task of identifying the exact temporal pinpoint of postcolonial theory’s ultimate beginning(s)
in the Western academy (and assuming one such point can indeed be identified), this paper instead
makes the less contentious observation that postcolonial theory and/or criticism as a accepted field or
method arrived late in the Western academy and was consolidated there only in the 1980s and early
1990s.
Postcolonial theory and literature during the 1980s and 1990s was said to be ground-breaking for
Western scholarship in a number of ways, including inter alia: its bringing to the forefront the
interconnection of issues of race, nation, empire, migration, ethnicity and culture; its investigation,
comprehensively and methodically, of the links between modernism and imperialism; and its
insistence upon, in the study of colonial discourse, an interdisciplinary approach to literature and
knowledge such that history, politics and sociology, even art, ought to be read together as a part of a
larger interwoven narrative on nation and power. These and other contributions of postcolonial theory
in the West, although important, have been to a certain extent destabilised by powerful critiques
targeting the production, methodology and focus of Occidental postcolonial theory. This paper will not
survey the plethora of criticisms levied against the production of postcolonial theory, but rather will
narrow in on two issues, namely those of nomenclature and complicity, which feature prominently in
critiques of postcolonial theory and which, as will be become clear shortly, are relevant to the
production of postcolonial legal theory.
2.1.1
The Nomenclature Question: Post-colonialism, Neocolonialism or
Colonialism?
Of the debates surrounding postcolonial studies, the’[m]ost contentious of all has been [that about] the
term ‘post-colonial’ itself.. This ‘nomenclature question’ concerned how the postcolonial theorist
ought to classify the state of modern social relations both inter- and intra-nationally vis-à-vis
colonialism. Consequently, it had the effect of interrogating the political-historical significance of the
term ‘postcolonialism’ As was raised in numerous critiques of postcolonial studies, it asked whether
‘postcolonialism’ (along with its attendant modes of the ‘postcolonial’, ‘postcoloniality’, ‘postcolony’)
is or was meant to signify the end of a specific, temporally-demarcated era i.e. colonialism. One
implication flowing from this question was its politicisation of both the postcolonial critic or
theorist’s usage of hypens (or dashes) and her choice of prefixes. It queried, ‘does ‘post-dashcolonialism’ imply a bright-line distinction between colonial and post-colonial eras, one which belies
the continuities of imperial power?’ If so, was this distinction real or reified? It further queried
whether the ‘better’ moniker of this new theoretical field was the seemingly seamless
‘postcolonialism’ (one word, no dash), which implied that the theorist perceived a contiguous and
continuous process to colonialism was taking place.
At the risk of over-simplification, the nomenclature debate can be reduced to a debate about acceptance
and denial. The ‘post-dash’ debate thrust the vital question of periodisation to the fore, asking
theorists to indicate whether they accept that colonialism is, in some sense at least, over. Accepting
that there may be different senses of the meaning of ‘post’, determining in what sense colonialism is
over - temporally, ideologically epistemologically - continues to be both a live and politicised
question. What is clear from this debate however is that the prefix ‘post’ is fundamentally about a type
of denial: ‘postcolonialism’ or ‘post-colonialism’ denies - at some level or in some important way that colonialism persists.
In contrast, role of the prefix ‘neo’ in neocolonialism, although also raising the similar questions about
periodisation and temporal boundaries (eg when the old ends and new begins), is fundamentally about
acceptance. The concept of ‘neocolonialism’ not only suggests that its focus is upon the new and
qualitatively different variant(s) of colonialism, it ostensibly accepts prima facie that colonialism, in
some admittedly novel form, continues. Neocolonialism then escapes the polemic raised by the
assumption of a clear ‘after’. Finally, postcolonial theorists who decide that the nakedly un-prefixed
‘colonialism’ is really the right and proper term to describe their object of study assume a similar type
of acceptance. By continuing to use ‘colonialism’ to describe contemporary social relations between
groups or among nations, one had then accepted the continuance of colonialism as an unbroken,
temporally intact episode or event.
2.1.2
The Complicity Question: Nation, Theorists, and Social Change
The second far-reaching aspect of the critique of postcolonial studies involved the question of the
extent to which both postcolonial theorists and postcolonial theory collude with the reproduction of
‘relations of domination’. Unquestionably, the most damning account of such complicity was made by
Aijaz Ahmad in his much-cited work In Theory. This paper will revisit only one aspect of his critique:
the claim that postcolonial theorists (and postcolonial theory generally) reproduce both cultural and
material inequities between the west and non-west. This reproduction is done in several ways, three of
which will be mentioned.
First, postcolonial theory by privileging the analytical unit of ‘nation’ in its analysis, overlooked and
marginalised other salient analytical units of social relations, specifically that of class but also that of
gender. This privileging obfuscated tensions and fissures plaguing the notion of nation, which are
often brought to light by the application of such other analytical units, and which challenge the
completeness of ‘nation’s’ explanatory potential. One consequence of the inability of ‘nation’ to be an
all-encompassing explanatory tool is that postcolonial objects of study, eg the ‘Orient’, will inevitably
be misrepresented, reinforcing the Occident’s existing cultural upper hand. Postcolonial theory then
contributes to a flawed understanding of the non-West. Second, as Ahmad’s passage below asserts,
postcolonial theorists benefit from the fetishisation of ‘nation’:
To the extent that both ‘Third World Literature’ and ‘Colonial Discourse
Analysis’ privilege coloniality as the framing term of epochal experience,
national identity is logically privileged as the main locus of meaning, analysis
and (self-) representation, which is, in turn, particularly attractive to the
growing number of ‘Third World intellectuals’ who are based in the
metropolitan university. They can now materially represent the undifferentiated
colonized Other - more recently and more fashionably, the post-colonial Other without much examining of their own presence in that intuition, except perhaps
in the characteristically postmodernist mode of ironic pleasure in observing the
duplicities and multiplicities of one’s own persona. The East, reborn and
greatly expanded now as a Third World, seems to have become, yet again, a
career - even for the ‘Oriental’ this time and within the ‘Occident’ too.
Others have echoed this idea that postcolonial intellectuals obscure not only their complicity but also
their stake in it. Finally the complicity argument questions postcolonial theorists’ role as potential
agents for social change - and accordingly, postcolonial theory’s political valence - whether it is
because their views have tended to be conservative or reactionary, or because they often do not speak
from positions in solidarity with activists/social movements.
3. Second Movement
How and why are these preoccupations of postcolonial studies of the past relevant to postcolonial legal
theorising? The second movement answers this question by investigating three corollary questions:
first, what is the nature of ‘postcolonial legal theory’ and what approach does it offer to issues of
nomenclature and complicity discussed above?; second does intellectual history matter to legal theory?;
and finally, what approach to postcolonialism, if any, should legal theory take?
3.1.
The Nature of Postcolonial Legal Theory
3.1.1. Postcolonial Legal Theory (PLT)
What is Postcolonial Legal Theory (hereinafter ‘PLT’)? Is it the same as or different from postcolonial
theory, and if it is different, how and why is it different? Answers to these sorts of questions are far
from clear, with the very transferability of the term ‘post-colonial’ across disciplines in question.
Nevertheless, (implicit and explicit) accounts of ‘postcolonial legal studies’ exist. One description of
postcolonial legal theory put forward is that it is the exploration, by legal scholars, of neglected
questions about ‘law’s relation to the postcolonial’. This approach to PLT not only aims to fill a
particular lacuna in legal literature but also challenges certain manifestations of legal orthodoxy:
Engagements between law and postcolonialism have been infrequent if
stunning. The lack of engagement is both astonishing and understandable.
‘Astonishing’ because postcolonialism is now the main mode in which the
West’s relation to its ‘other’ is critically explored, and law has been to the
forefront of this relation. Yet the lack is understandable because the
engagement between law and postcolonialism would drastically disrupt legal
academic renditions of the relation - disrupt not the persistent orthodoxy of law
and development, but also the newly settled consensus around two….
concerns…. - legal globalization and international human rights discourse..
In addition to both explicating the law’s role in the West’s relation to its ‘other’ and disrupting legal
renditions of (and consensus around) international human rights discourse and globalisation,
‘postcolonial legal studies’ has been described as an undertaking which focuses upon law as a
(sometimes the) ‘tool of colonialism’ operating on both international and domestic levels. PLT may
also involve descriptions law’s justificatory role vis-à-vis imperial (state) violence. In contrast, other
accounts of PLT focus less upon how law advances colonialism, and more upon how colonial politics
‘affect legal rights’ or how colonisation ‘can alter the [putatively independent] concept of law itself’.
Admittedly, this paper’s attempt to identify the ‘essence’ of PLT is limited. The first of several
limitations has to do with the dearth of PLT texts and material generally upon which this attempt
relies (in contrast to the numerous postcolonial studies texts available). The paucity of writing in this
area - specifically on the topic of what PLT is - prevents a comprehensive exposition of ‘postcolonial
legal studies’ from emerging, here or elsewhere. The second limitation, one related to the first, has to
do with the fact that as a theory both PLT’s manifesto and the identity of its chief inaugural authors
are unclear. In the absence of either a seminal or canonic text, or a single or collective prime-mover,
delineating an PLT with imprimatur becomes at best speculative. Finally, if we can refer to it as body
of scholarship, PLT appears to be comprised of disparate heterogeneous subject matters, advancing
diverse programmes of interpretive action.
Apropos this latter point, if postcolonial legal studies is characterised by such diversity and
heterogeneity - with respect to its disciplinary ambit and prescriptive ambition(s) - need postcolonial
legal studies engage with postcoloniality at all? Are there limits to the reach of PLT? Perhaps,
scholarship which simply engages with ‘law’ (or the ‘juridical’) suffice. Put another way, if
postcolonialism - or even colonialism or neo-colonialism for that matter - aptly characterises the global
backdrop against which law operates (or, if one prefers, is superimposed upon modern legal relations),
will not any discussion of law necessarily invoke postcoloniality, coloniality, or neocoloniality? If
this is so, simply summoning law in scholarship may constitute a postcolonial undertaking. All this
leads to the question ‘what, if anything, does ‘postcoloniality’ add to law (or to legal theory)?’ Put
another way, does the ‘postcolonial’ in PLT bind legal theory in any important or desirable way? At
least one account of PLT argues that it ought to remain ‘unbounded’:
The spirit of the intellectual encounter between law and colonialism is of
necessity interdisciplinary, diverse in perspective, and unbounded. Scholarship
in the field does not - and should not - fit into overly-neat disciplinary or
perspective-bound categories. Individuals drawn to postcolonial legal studies
come to the enquiry with variety of motivations and an array of interests. Some
seek primarily theoretical understanding, others encounter the postcolonial as a
part of sustained historical research, and others still feel a compelling sense of
urgency to develop practical strategies by which to confront the legacies of
colonialism ‘on the ground’. Many pursue a more or less mixed method of
enquiry and do so from multiple motivations.
To say that PLT should have an expansive disciplinary scope is less contentious than to argue its
perspective should be circumscribed. Mindful of the desire to allow the very inchoate PLT every
opportunity to flourish within the legal academe (and elsewhere), there may be good reasons for setting
(normative) parameters around the PLT scholarly project. For example, should PLT be a critical
theory, one with transformative aspirations, one which evinces scepticism towards the justness of
status quo social relations, and/or one which eschews reactionary neoliberal politics? More generally,
should one have any normative expectations of, guidelines for, or approaches to theory (legal or
otherwise) and its performance and production?
These questions will be investigated shortly in the section on legal theory and intellectual history.
What need only be noted here is the following observation: to raise the question of what PLT is, is to
request clarification of its goals, aims, assumptions and directions. Until such clarification is provided,
assessments of the value of PLT will be both premature and groundless. PLT scholars need both to
clearly advance their particular conceptions of PLT, and also to answer both whether PLT is or ought
to be ‘normatively bounded,’ and whether ‘the postcolonial’ adds anything new, different or desirable
to legal studies simpliciter. There should be some attempt made to discern whether PLT has a raison
d’etre and, if so, to sketch its theoretical contours.
3.1.2. PLT’s Relationship to the Issues of Nomenclature and Complicity
Opposite to the question of PLT’s content is PLT’s postionality with respect to the issues of
nomenclature and complicity. Does PLT offer a response or approach to salient albeit antecedent
postcolonial studies issues? On the issue of nomenclature, PLT appears to be repeating some of the
questions and concerns raised by the criticisms of postcolonial theory discussed earlier. Conceding that
the term ‘postcolonialism’ lends itself to multiple definitions, PLT theorists, like their postcolonial
critic counterparts, question the wisdom of employing the term ‘postcolonialism’ to describe
contemporary social relations:
Although the conceptual movement from the colonial to the postcolonial has
been widely accepted in academic circles, it has not proved equally persuasive
to others. In particular those who are the most marginalized because of their
race/ethnicity and economic position seem most recalcitrant in the face of
claims that we now occupy a postcolonial world.
Evidently, the prickly question challenging postcolonial studies - ‘for whom is colonialism a thing of
the past?’ - re-emerges uncomfortably in PLT discourse. Syntax - as much a political quagmire for
PLT as for general postcolonial theory - compels the theorist to decide (with a ‘post’ or non-’post’) her
positionality regarding the persistence, reinvention, and/or erasure of colonialism. Although some of
the dangers associated with ‘post’-ing colonialism are reiterated, how PLT would respond to specific
suggestions to navigate the concept ‘postcolonial’ remains uncertain, leaving substantial scope for
disagreement on ostensibly ‘first principle’ matters. Notwithstanding the absence of a coherent
approach to postcolonial first principles, it is clear that the nomenclature debate lives on in PLT. As
the features of this debate appear unchanged, it may also outlive PLT.
With respect to complicity, very little discussion in PLT appears, raising the prospect that this issue
will be eclipsed altogether or raised after PLT reaches some unknown point of epistemic maturation.
Alternately, its tabula rasa on the matter may bode well if Postcolonial Legal Theorists attempt to
take seriously the indisputable relationship between theory, theorising, and power. Although PLT
questions concerning complicity would likely resemble those raised by criticisms of postcolonial
theory mentioned earlier, whether PLT can proffer different answers has yet to be decided. Will
Postcolonial Legal Theory avoid the pitfalls of privileging the concept of nation, eg disguising the
dynamics and operation of ‘class’ (or gender, sexuality, etc…)? Do postcolonial legal theorists have
personal stake in the conceptualisation of PLT they advance, or a responsibility to investigate the
possibility that they do? Finally, is PLT disconnected from contemporary anti-colonial struggles
(ought it to be connected?), and does it offer, even attempt to offer, anything at all in support of such
struggles (eg pledges of political solidarity, subversive (re)interpretative instruments, legal roadmaps to
further de-colonialisational and anti-colonisational projects, and so on)? On this last point, if nothing
is on offer, does PLT, like its predecessor of postcolonial studies, run the risk of ignoring ‘the
emancipatory desires of our epoch’? In sum, the nomenclature and complicity debates compel PLT to
distinguish itself from ‘mere’ postcolonial theory, or risk theoretical duplication and irrelevance.
3.2.
Legal Theory and Intellectual History
On one level, this paper queries the nature of the Postcolonial Legal Theory, advocating that its
parameters, content, history and raison d’etre be both interrogated and disambiguated. As PLT is still
very much up for grabs - its tenets, methodology, scope and politics perceptibly underdeveloped - this
interrogation may seem somewhat premature. Notwithstanding this conclusion, it is argued here that it
is not too hasty to inquire into whether and how intellectual history matters to legal theory. That is
to say, notwithstanding PLT’s infancy, it is important to situate the legal theorist and legal theory visà-vis earlier debates about Occidental postcolonial theory and ‘postcolonialism’. That is, this paper
takes the position that it is indeed worthwhile for PLT to examine and ingest its theoretical and
intellectual avatars, its tacit development and borrowing of the works, tools and thoughts of
postcolonial theorists, their standpoints, their assumptions. The project and production of postcolonial
legal theory - not just its object of study (postcolonialism) - needs to be historicized As
postcolonalism invokes history, so too does postcolonial legal theorizing.
There are two reasons buttressing the need to historicise postcolonial legal theory. The first emanates
from the relationship between history, theory and the intellectual. The second, from the need to derail
legal theory’s colonising tendencies. Why does the relationship between theory, history, and the
intellectual require historicisation of PLT? The simple answer is because intellectuals are a part of
history, historical struggles, and the creation of historical meaning of these struggles. Intellectuals
represent historical struggles, create meaning, and are not neutral:
[History involves] contradictory, plural, and heterogeneous struggles whose
outcomes are never predictable, even retrospectively, in accordance with
schemas that seek to naturalize and domesticate this heterogeneneity. These
struggles include coercion,…physical, institutional and symbolic violence,
often dispensed with dreamy-eyed idealism - and it is this violence that
displays a decisive role in the establishment of meaning, in the creation of truth
regimes, in deciding, as it were, whose and which ‘universal’ wins. As
intellectuals operating in academia, we are not neutral to these struggles and
cannot pretend to situate ourselves outside of the knowledge procedures of our
institutions.
As intellectuals cannot be situated either outside of the historical struggles which are their subject
matter or the processes of representing such struggles (i.e. the creation of historical meaning), they are
required to explain how they view their role vis-à-vis intellectual history - to historicise their
theoretical project - and thus expose their perspective on the purposes and practices of theorizing. Such
examinations of intellectual history uncover theoretical prescriptions, how theorists view social change,
and how they demarcate the possible and the impossible.
It is true that Postcolonial Legal Theorists have already begun making such demarcations, and are
therefore already ‘binding’ the normative character of PLT Even the ‘unbounded’ approach to PLT
described above concedes it is desirable for PLT to adopt specific normative goals (i.e. to pursue social
transformation), arguing it is ‘a fitting aspiration for postcolonial legal studies everywhere’ for it ‘to
move beyond postcolonial theory as forms of fatalism and impossibility to theory as success and the
possibility of transformation’. Another account, answers the question of what is the intellectual’s role
when confronted with ‘empire’s lawlessness’. In addition to overturning the Law’s liberal values, the
intellectual must re-think (in contrast to re-make) law, and to recognise that its claim to universality is
grounded in force (and even violence). Finally, the intellectual must interrogate his/her own political
commitments, and not allow their perspective to be embedded in ‘relations of domination’. A third
view which attempts to assess the ‘lessons for those engaged in struggles for social justice’ in various
postcolonial compositions, concludes that ‘theoreticians will never provide the nuts and bolts of
struggle or even detailed explanations of the links and relationships which make up our universe’.
Despite such a focus upon the limitations of postcolonial legal theorising, the intellectual may
nevertheless articulate a historicized legal theory attentive to its deficiencies, collusive tendencies, and
interest in prospects of human solidarity.
Although, as evinced above, PLT theorists are (albeit in a piecemeal way) articulating their theoretical
prescriptions for PLT, if PLT is historicized, PLT theorists will have to contend more directly and in a
more sustained manner with the complicity issue raised by postcolonial studies. Thus the
historicisation of PLT will force legal theory to answer whether the issue of complicity takes on a
different hue in the context of legal theorising, and if not, then what. Moreover, it forces PLT to
confront one of the possible pitfalls of postcolonial theorising ‘ahead of time’.
A second reason why one should require the historicisiation of PLT has to do with the need to derail
legal theory’s colonising tendencies. Is there any harm in PLT’s resurrection of issues that previously
preoccupied postcolonial theory? The answer to this question depends upon whether this resurrection
offers something qualitatively more, or different than that offered in the previous debates. Arguably,
the issues of nomenclature and complicity may have a degree of intractability to them, which makes
their reappearance in PLT forgivable. However the question remains, does the ‘legal’ in the
‘postcolonial legal studies’ moniker make any theoretical difference to the manner and outcome of the
reinvestigating these issues? Put another way, in the performance and production of postcolonial
legal theory, does ‘law’ or ‘legal theory’ lay claim to an authentic discursive or material terrain, or
is legal theory merely re-colonizing terrain tread once before, without more? By requiring legal
theory to historicise its project, it is more likely to broach this question.
3.3.
What approach should PLT take?
Is there any particular way for Postcolonial Legal Theory to address and account for its historical
underpinnings, to historicise its object of inquiry? One answer - one of no doubt many possible
answers - is that PLT adopt a ‘proleptic’ approach to postcolonial legal theorising. Prolepsis was used
by the Greeks as a rhetorical tool in speech that involved the anticipation and answering of possible
objections to one’s argument. A ‘proleptic’ approach to PLT then involves the anticipation and
answering of possible objections not simply in rhetorical speech, but in theoretical speech.
Applied to postcolonial legal theory, a proleptic approach is an exercise in both foresight and
hindsight: on the one hand, it attempts to foresee possible objections to and the dilemmas facing (and
likely to face) postcolonial legal theorising; on the other, it addresses important objections to
postcolonial theorising which spring from antecedent debates and which could be easily be applied to
contemporary postcolonial legal theorising. A proleptic approach to postcolonial legal theorizing
involves, inter alia, the following features or attributes: the demonstration of a general awareness of
historical debates surrounding postcolonial theory; a deliberate positioning with respect to the
controversies around pertinent issues confronting theory (and minimally, those of nomenclature and
complicity); and finally, a discussion of whether ‘legal theorising’ is inimitable (and if so, how so)
and/or of whether ‘postcolonial legal theory’ is at all distinctive - substantively or methodologically as a typology of theory, postcolonial or otherwise. Such an janus-faced approach, both forward and
backward looking is needed to rebalance what appears to be a forward looking bent of PLT.
Intellectual history, or ‘the history of theory’ cannot be neglected if theory is expected move beyond
repetition, and away from recolonisation.
4. Conclusion
It is important to ask whether Postcolonial Legal Theory (PLT) functions to replicate or re-colonise
postcolonial theory? If not, what questions would one put to a green and underdeveloped PLT? What,
if anything, should legal scholars ask of or demand from ‘postcolonial legal studies’? These questions
are intended elicit answers by whetting the appetite and provoking the imagination of PLT theorists,
and by inviting them (although not requiring them) to practice prolepsis when performing PLT. It is
hoped that by displacing the object of ‘postcolonialism’ and focusing instead on the aims and ambit of
‘postcolonial theorising,’ postcolonial legal theorists will be better situated to articulate a theory which
is not simply historicised, but exceptional.