Postcolonial Narratives in the Digital Age: Re-examining Identity and Voice

Abstract

Digital revolution has brought about greater opportunities than ever before in the aspect of narrating stories where marginalized groups residing within the regions that colonialists can infiltrate and disseminate their voices across there geographical and political boundaries. In this paper, the restructuring of postcolonial narratives has been addressed during the digital age with reference to the mediation of identity, voice, and technology. Online literary and social media platforms, podcasts, etc., have become crucial spaces in which individuals negotiate cultural memory, subvert hegemonic discourses and re-perform hybrid identities. The paper is able to demonstrate the re-constellations of the classical postcolonial displacement, hybridity and resistance themes in cyberspace through the analysis of different digital narratives of today. Regarding the methodology, the paper uses a textual and discourse analysis of digital narratives to demonstrate the usage of digital affordances such as interactivity, hypertextuality, and multimedia expression by authors and content producers. Based on the discussion, digital spaces popularize the process of telling stories by reducing entry barriers and enabling participation on a global scale, but also reproduce inequalities in the form of algorithmic bias, platform hierarchies and digital divides. These ironical statements make it more difficult to conceive of voice and authenticity in postcolonial discourse. The findings show the greater the ability of the digital technologies to afford the individual the chance of selfrepresenting the more the subjectivity is at risk of being subjected to the commodity and surveillance. This twin points out the necessity to offer a serious critique of the applicability of technology in the constitution of contemporary postcolonial subjectivities. The paper concludes by noting that it is not possible to simply expect digital storieselling to be a simple extension of postcolonial expression, but a radical form of practice in which the formulation of current conceptions of identity is disrupted even as new forms of agency are already imagined. It is now the era of the digital that offers a quite uncomfortable and powerful medium in which the voices of the postcolonial are lifted and demanded plurality as well as reclaiming their place in the world systems of cultural networks.