This post is part of our Research Initiation Scheme for 2024-2025
In the 21st century, postcolonial literature has progressively shifted from the cultural periphery to the mainstream. It offers a path to understanding the ever-present effect of colonialism within contemporary society, in particular by giving a voice to those who were historically silenced. On the 21st of March 2025, I discussed this topic with Erin McCombe, a Spanish and Portuguese PhD student whose thesis examines the topic of conviviality within literature by women of African descent in Spain and Portugal [1].
When did you first develop an interest in postcolonial literature?
I suppose as an undergraduate, on the Portuguese side [of my degree]. I remember reading [the short story] ‘O embondeiro que sonhava pássaros’ by [Mozambican author] Mia Couto and that still sticks out in my mind as my initial contact with postcolonial literature. I then went on to study Lusophone African cinema and that developed my interest even more. In final year I started looking into postcolonial Africa within a Spanish context and come across some research on authors from Equatorial Guinea.
How important would you say language studies are in the modern world?
I think they’re more important than ever. It’s disheartening to see language departments closing in universities in the UK and that there’s a decreased number of students who are taking on languages at GCSE and A-Level. There was an article that came out last month in Times Higher Education that claimed that language departments were imperial and irrelevant [2] and I think that couldn’t be any further from the truth. Language degrees provide students not just with language skills, but also critical thinking skills that allow them to see the world differently.
We know that colonialism and imperialism are intrinsically repressive, what do you think has been the most valuable aspect that has been recovered by illuminating previously silenced voices?
I think it’s the continual questioning and reframing of the past, particularly hegemonic narratives that surround Europe as being this wholly white space. For example, Professor Olivette Otele’s African Europeans: An Untold History traces African presence in Europe back to the Roman Empire. Professor Otele highlights the importance of uncovering the past, to understand the present.
Works by writers such as Paulina Chiziane and Grada Kilomba are quite notable within Lusophone literature. Are there any such writers that you’ve come across in your research that are worth studying to understand 21st century postcolonialism?
[In my PhD research] I look at Telma Tvon’s Um Preto Muito Português and Hija del Camino by Lucía Mbomío. I am looking at these novels as part of my thesis and how they fictionally portray real life events, such as the ‘Arrastão’ in 2005. The claim was that 500 African and Afrodescendant youths were stealing on a beach in Carcavelos (Lisbon) but it wasn’t true. There’s been a lot of research done by Portuguese academia into the portrayal of the ‘Arrastão’ and this shows the power the media has in portraying events. Tvon highlights the importance of questioning these events and how the voices of Africans and Afrodescendants are set aside.
How do you think we can continue to bring historically unheard voices from the cultural periphery to the fore?
I think that the more diverse we make our universities, not only in the context of race, but also allowing access to people from lower income backgrounds, will help build a better society within universities and promote more equality.
Would you recommend undergraduate languages students to get involved in the ongoing discussion of postcolonialism?
Definitely. I think postcolonial studies are integral to understanding the society we live in and the power structures that remain centuries after colonialism. Postcolonial studies should really be embedded into the school curriculum. I have worked as tutor with a charity called Brilliant Club that offers a course on Introduction to Literary Studies to Year 10 pupils who learn about topics such as postcolonialism that they would not have access to in the school curriculum. The earlier you understand your own privileges then the more you contribute to breaking down outdated power structures.
Interview by Ciarán Harte, final-year undergraduate in Spanish and Portuguese
[1] Editor’s note 1: Erin McCombe is an advanced-stage PhD student working under the supervision of Dr Maria Tavares and Professor Gabriel Sánchez Espinosa. Her thesis is provisionally entitled “Conviviality in contemporary Afrodescendant women’s writing in Spain and Portugal”. Her doctoral studies have been funded by a Northern Bridge Consortium studentship. Erin previously undertook a BA in Spanish and Portuguese at QUB, followed by an MRes in Arts and Humanities.
[2] Editor’s note 2: See the rebuttal here, also in Times Higher Education: Modern languages departments are neither colonial nor obsolete