This blog was prepared as part of the Thinking Activity given by Dr. And professor Dilip Barad Sir. As part of the activity, I studied two of his articles focusing on globalization and postcolonial studies. The discussion helped me examine the relationship between globalization, capitalism, identity, resistance, hybridity, and cultural representation. I applied these concepts to Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger and Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist to understand how globalization shapes individuals and societies in different ways. Through this activity, I was able to look beyond the surface of globalization and develop my own critical perspective on its influence from a postcolonial point of view.
Article 1
Globalization has become one of the defining forces of the twenty-first century, connecting societies through international relations, economics, culture, technology, and communication. However, globalization is not a simple or one-dimensional process. It creates new opportunities for interaction and development, while also raising questions about inequality, domination, cultural representation, and power. From a postcolonial perspective, these questions are especially important because the end of formal colonial rule did not necessarily eliminate unequal relationships between powerful and less powerful societies.
Dilip Barad’s article “Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies,” published in the Journal of Higher Education and Research Society in 2022, examines the complex relationship between globalization and postcolonial studies. The article particularly considers the impact of 9/11, the New American Empire, the Global War on Terror, Orientalism, different perspectives on globalization, and Globalization .
The article suggests that postcolonial studies continues to be significant because contemporary global relations still involve questions of domination, resistance, representation, and unequal power. This blog examines how globalization reshapes postcolonial identities and how economic and cultural forms of globalization can create both opportunities and new forms of inequality. These ideas can be further understood through Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012), particularly through the experience of its protagonist, Changez.
2. Understanding the Article
Dilip Barad’s article examines globalization as a complex process that cannot be understood only through economic development or increasing international connectivity. The article emphasizes that globalization is intertwined with international relations, economics, culture, politics, and power, creating both opportunities and challenges. It therefore asks postcolonial studies to reconsider how power operates in the contemporary world.
A major concern of the article is the 9/11 phenomenon and its consequences for global politics. Barad connects 9/11 with the emergence of the New American Empire and the subsequent Global War on Terror. These developments, according to the article, reshaped global political relations and made questions of domination, violence, and resistance especially important for postcolonial studies.
The article also presents different perspectives on globalization. It discusses thinkers such as Thomas Friedman, Hardt and Negri, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and P. Sainath, showing that globalization can be understood from different economic and political positions. It further considers Klaus Schwab’s idea of Globalization 4.0 and its relationship with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, while bringing in Noam Chomsky’s critical perspective to provide a counterargument to more optimistic understandings of globalization.
From a postcolonial perspective, this makes globalization a question of power as well as connection. The important issue is not simply whether the world has become more interconnected, but how that interconnectedness is shaped by unequal political, economic, and cultural relationships. The article consequently argues for the continuing relevance of postcolonial studies in understanding these changing global structures.
3. Globalization and the Transformation of Postcolonial Identity
One of the major concerns of Barad’s article is the way globalization changes the meaning of postcolonial identity. In the colonial period, identity was often shaped through the unequal relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Colonial rule created divisions between the “West” and the “East” and influenced how colonized people understood themselves and their cultures.
Globalization has made these identities more complex. Increased migration, international education, technology, media, and economic mobility allow people to move between different cultural spaces. A person may belong to one nation, study or work in another, communicate through a global language such as English, and simultaneously remain connected to their local culture.
Therefore, postcolonial identity in a globalized world is often hybrid, mobile, and transnational.
However, globalization does not completely remove the inequalities created by colonial history. Cultural stereotypes, racial prejudice, economic differences, and unequal political power can continue to influence how individuals are perceived. Thus, globalization creates greater cultural interaction, but it does not necessarily create equality.
This tension can be understood through Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of hybridity, in which identities develop in an “in-between” cultural space. Globalization creates many such spaces, but being culturally hybrid does not automatically mean that a person is accepted equally by different societies.
4. Globalization and Postcolonial Identity
Globalization has significantly transformed the way postcolonial identities are formed and understood. In the colonial period, identity was often shaped through the unequal relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. In the contemporary globalized world, however, identities have become more complex because people increasingly move across national, cultural, economic, and technological boundaries.
Barad’s article shows that globalization is closely connected with international relations, economics, culture, and politics. It therefore creates both opportunities and challenges for postcolonial societies.
Globalization allows individuals to experience different cultures through education, migration, media, technology, and employment. A person may belong to one nation while studying or working in another and simultaneously participate in global cultural practices. This produces identities that are not completely limited to one geographical or cultural location.
Such identities can be understood through the idea of hybridity. A postcolonial subject may negotiate between local traditions and global influences, creating an identity that exists between cultures.
However, globalization does not necessarily produce equality. Cultural differences can still become sources of stereotyping and exclusion. Therefore, globalization may increase cultural interaction while leaving older structures of power intact.
This becomes particularly significant in the context of 9/11, which Barad identifies as a major turning point in contemporary global politics. The article connects 9/11 with the emergence of the New American Empire and the Global War on Terror.
Thus, postcolonial identity in the globalized world is not simply about cultural mixing. It is also about negotiating power, representation, belonging, and difference.
Connecting this with The Reluctant Fundamentalist
This issue can be clearly seen in Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2012). Changez moves from Pakistan to the United States for education and professional success. His experience initially represents the opportunities created by globalization. However, after 9/11, his position changes dramatically.
His identity as a Pakistani becomes increasingly significant in the American political and social environment. The film therefore demonstrates that becoming part of a global system does not necessarily mean becoming equally accepted within that system.
Changez's experience shows the contradiction at the centre of globalization: global mobility can bring people closer economically and culturally, while political events and cultural stereotypes can simultaneously create new forms of distance and exclusion.
This makes The Reluctant Fundamentalist an important example for understanding Barad’s argument that postcolonial studies must continue to examine changing forms of power in the globalized world.
5. Global Capitalism and Postcolonial Societies
Another important aspect of Barad’s discussion is the relationship between globalization and economic power. Globalization connects societies through international markets, trade, investment, technology, and multinational corporations. However, the benefits of this interconnected economy are not necessarily distributed equally. Barad’s article presents globalization as a complex process involving both opportunities and challenges rather than as simple economic progress.
From a postcolonial perspective, this raises the question of who controls the global economy. Formerly colonized societies may participate in global markets, but powerful nations and institutions can still possess greater economic and political influence. In this sense, colonial patterns of inequality may continue in transformed ways even after formal colonial rule has ended.
Global capitalism can provide opportunities such as employment, technological development, international trade, and access to global markets. At the same time, it can create economic dependency and unequal relationships. Therefore, postcolonial societies may become more connected to the global economy without necessarily gaining equal control over it.
This contradiction is important because globalization changes the economic dimension of postcolonial identity. Individuals may become global professionals and participate in international capitalism, yet their cultural or national identities may still place them in unequal positions.
Barad’s discussion also includes different perspectives on globalization, including those of Thomas Friedman, Hardt and Negri, Joseph E. Stiglitz, P. Sainath, Klaus Schwab, and Noam Chomsky. This range of perspectives shows that globalization needs to be examined critically rather than understood through a single viewpoint.
Thus, from a postcolonial perspective, the central question is not simply whether globalization creates economic growth, but who benefits from that growth and who remains marginalized within the global economic system.
6. 9/11, Orientalism and the New Forms of Power
A major part of Barad’s article is the discussion of 9/11 and its impact on globalization and postcolonial studies. The article presents 9/11 as a significant turning point that reshaped global politics and contributed to the emergence of what it calls the New American Empire and the Global War on Terror. Barad argues that these developments make it necessary to reconsider traditional postcolonial questions of domination, resistance, violence, and representation.
This discussion is important for understanding Orientalism, a concept associated with Edward Said. Orientalism explains how the East has historically been represented through simplified images and stereotypes created from a Western perspective. In the post-9/11 world, questions of representation became especially significant because people and cultures associated with the East could increasingly be viewed through political narratives surrounding terrorism and security.
The issue, therefore, is not only military or political power. It is also representational power—the power to decide how particular cultures, nations, and people are described and understood.
Barad’s article suggests that the events following 9/11 have made the boundaries of postcolonial studies more complex. The article specifically connects 9/11, the Global War on Terror, the New American Empire, and the continuing relevance of postcolonial questions.
Connection with The Reluctant Fundamentalist
This theoretical discussion can be applied to Mira Nair’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Changez’s experience after 9/11 demonstrates how a person's identity can become associated with larger political and cultural assumptions.
Before 9/11, Changez is able to participate successfully in American education and corporate life. After the event, however, his experience of belonging changes. His Pakistani identity becomes increasingly significant in the political atmosphere surrounding him.
The film therefore illustrates how global political events can reshape individual identity. Changez is no longer seen simply as an individual professional; his identity becomes connected to wider assumptions about Pakistan, Islam, terrorism, and the East.
From a postcolonial perspective, this demonstrates that globalization involves not only the movement of capital, people, and technology but also the circulation of representations and cultural meanings.
Thus, The Reluctant Fundamentalist gives a human dimension to Barad’s theoretical discussion: it shows how global political power can influence the way a postcolonial subject understands both himself and his relationship with the West.
7. Hybridity and the Postcolonial Subject
Another important concept for understanding globalization is hybridity. In a globalized world, individuals increasingly encounter different languages, cultures, values, and social systems. As a result, postcolonial identities cannot always be understood through a simple division between “colonizer” and “colonized.”
Barad’s article emphasizes that globalization is interconnected with international relations, economics, and culture. It also argues that contemporary developments have made the boundaries of postcolonial studies increasingly complex.
Hybridity can therefore be understood as a condition in which a person negotiates between different cultural influences. Such an identity may contain both local and global elements. However, hybridity should not be understood as complete cultural equality. A person may participate in global culture while still experiencing unequal power relations.
This idea is particularly relevant to Changez in The Reluctant Fundamentalist. He is a Pakistani who studies and works in the United States, participates in American corporate culture, and experiences life between Pakistan and America. His identity therefore develops through movement between different cultural spaces.
However, his experience also reveals the limits of hybridity. Although Changez becomes successful within the American corporate system, his sense of belonging changes after 9/11. The global environment that initially appeared open to him becomes increasingly marked by suspicion and political tension.
Changez therefore represents the postcolonial subject caught between cultures. His experience suggests that being culturally connected to more than one world does not automatically mean being fully accepted by those worlds.
From this perspective, globalization creates new spaces for cultural interaction, but it also creates new questions about belonging, identity, power, and exclusion. This makes hybridity an important concept for contemporary postcolonial studies.
8. Globalization 4.0 and the Future of Postcolonial Studies
Barad’s article also discusses Klaus Schwab’s concept of “Globalization 4.0” and its connection with the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This stage of globalization is associated with rapid technological and economic changes. Barad presents this development as an important challenge for postcolonial studies because new forms of technology and global connectivity can reshape how power operates.
The article does not present globalization simply as technological progress. It emphasizes that globalization is a complex process involving opportunities as well as challenges. The increasing importance of technology therefore raises questions about who has access to technological resources and who has the power to control global networks.
From a postcolonial perspective, this is significant because older inequalities may take new forms in a technologically connected world. Access to education, digital technology, economic resources, and global communication is not necessarily equal for all societies. Consequently, technological globalization can create new possibilities while also reproducing existing inequalities.
This makes the future of postcolonial studies particularly important. The discipline cannot focus only on historical colonialism; it must also examine contemporary forms of power produced through globalization, technology, economics, politics, and cultural representation.
Barad’s discussion ultimately suggests that postcolonial studies must continue to adapt to changing global conditions. The questions of domination, resistance, inequality, identity, and power remain relevant even when the mechanisms through which power operates have changed.
9. Personal Interpretation: Rethinking Globalization through a Postcolonial Lens
After examining Barad’s discussion, I understand globalization as a complex and contradictory process rather than simply the creation of a connected world. The article itself describes globalization as interconnected with international relations, economics, and culture, producing both opportunities and challenges.
From a postcolonial perspective, the important question is not only whether the world has become more connected, but also how power operates within this connection. Globalization can provide opportunities for education, communication, technology, and economic participation. At the same time, unequal political and economic structures can continue to influence postcolonial societies.
The discussion of 9/11 and the Global War on Terror further demonstrates that contemporary globalization cannot be separated from questions of power, domination, violence, and resistance. Barad connects these developments with the emergence of the New American Empire and argues for reconsidering the analytical frameworks of postcolonial studies.
The article’s discussion of different thinkers also makes globalization appear as a contested phenomenon. Rather than accepting one universal understanding of globalization, it encourages us to consider its different economic, political, and cultural consequences. The inclusion of Noam Chomsky’s counterarguments, alongside discussions of Friedman, Hardt and Negri, Stiglitz, Sainath, and Schwab, reinforces this complexity.
For me, The Reluctant Fundamentalist provides a useful visual representation of this contradiction. Changez initially experiences globalization through education and professional opportunity, but his experience changes after 9/11. His journey demonstrates that participation in a global system does not necessarily remove questions of identity, cultural difference, and political power.
Therefore, globalization should not be understood simply as “the world becoming one.” A postcolonial reading asks: Who controls this interconnected world? Who benefits from it? Whose identity is represented positively, and whose is misunderstood or marginalized?
These questions demonstrate why postcolonial studies remains relevant to the contemporary globalized world.
10. Conclusion
Barad’s “Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies” demonstrates that globalization cannot be understood only as economic or technological development. It is also connected with culture, international relations, political power, empire, violence, and representation. The article particularly highlights the significance of 9/11, the New American Empire, the Global War on Terror, Orientalism, and Globalization 4.0.
A postcolonial reading therefore asks us to look beyond the surface of global interconnectedness. Globalization may create opportunities for mobility, education, communication, and economic participation, but unequal structures of power can continue in new forms.
The connection with The Reluctant Fundamentalist makes these theoretical ideas more visible. Changez’s movement between Pakistan and the United States represents the opportunities of globalization, while his changing experience after 9/11 reveals the continuing importance of identity, cultural representation, and political power.
Ultimately, globalization has not made postcolonial questions irrelevant. Instead, it has transformed the forms in which those questions appear. The central concern of postcolonial studies today is therefore not only whether colonialism has ended, but how questions of power, inequality, identity, domination, and resistance continue within the contemporary global world.
In this sense, globalization should not simply be understood as “the world becoming one.” We must also ask: Whose world is being created, who has the power to shape it, and who is left at its margins?
Article:2
Introduction
The contemporary globalized landscape is frequently celebrated for its borderless economic integration, rapid technological advancement, and seamless cross-cultural communication. However, beneath this rhetoric of universal progress lies an asymmetrical distribution of power that perpetuates older forms of imperial dominance. From a postcolonial perspective, globalization often operates as neocolonialism—a system in which multinational capital, Western political hegemony, and cultural imperialism continue to subjugate the Global South. Contemporary literature and visual media serve as essential diagnostic arenas to critique these dynamics, providing a voice to subaltern populations who inhabit the fractures of global capitalism.
Brief Introduction to the Article
In his research article, "Globalization and Fiction: Exploring Postcolonial Critique and Literary Representations,"Prof. Dilip Barad examines how postcolonial literature interrogates the socio-political transformations driven by global capital. Drawing upon theoretical insights from scholars like Homi K. Bhabha, Joseph Stiglitz, and Noam Chomsky, Barad argues that contemporary writers do not merely depict globalization; they actively dismantle its ideological premises. Through analyses of works like Aravind Adiga’s *The White Tiger and Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, the article highlights how creative narratives map the intersections of class, identity, and resistance against the backdrop of a changing world order.
Understanding Globalization through Fiction
Fiction functions as a crucial counter-narrative to the polished statistics and optimistic promises of economic globalization. While corporate and state discourses emphasize GDP growth and technological connectivity, imaginative literature delves into the lived, localized experiences of individuals navigating these macro-level shifts. Storytelling captures the nuances of displacement, precarious labor, and cultural erasure that quantitative metrics overlook. By embedding global economic forces within personal and community lives, fiction makes visible the human costs of unregulated market expansion.
Fiction as a Postcolonial Critique
Central to Barad’s inquiry is Homi K. Bhabha’s formulation in Nation and Narration, which posits that national and cultural identity is never static, but continuously negotiated and contested through narrative practices. Postcolonial fiction leverages this malleability to destabilize dominant Western narratives. By giving narrative authority to marginalized figures, postcolonial authors expose how global structures mirror historic colonial power hierarchies. Fiction becomes a site of ideological warfare where subaltern voices challenge the universalizing claims of Western modernity and assert alternative ways of knowing and being.
Global Capitalism and Inequality
Barad highlights how global capitalism exacerbates internal socio-economic fractures within postcolonial nations. The influx of transnational capital often creates hyper-wealthy urban enclaves while plunging agrarian and working-class peripheries deeper into poverty. Rather than lifting all strata equally, the expansion of international finance institutions fosters structural inequalities that trap millions in systemic servitude. Postcolonial critique exposes how this economic framework relies on the continued exploitation of cheap labor in the Global South to sustain affluent lifestyle standards in the Global North.
Resistance in Contemporary Fiction
Resistance in postcolonial fiction rarely takes the form of idealized or romanticized revolution. Instead, it manifests as tactical, messy, and sometimes morally ambiguous strategies of survival. Authors depict subaltern characters navigating systems of oppression through subversion, mimicry, and direct confrontation. By portraying resistance in its raw and unvarnished forms, contemporary fiction avoids facile moralizing and underscores the desperate conditions that force marginalized subjects to rewrite the terms of their own existence within oppressive systems.
Hybridity and Identity Crisis
Globalization intensifies what Bhabha terms "hybridity" the "third space" emerging from the intersection of colonial influences and indigenous heritage. For postcolonial subjects, this space is fraught with identity crises. Elite characters often perform a surface-level Westernization to secure global capital, masking systemic hypocrisy behind liberal ideals. Conversely, working-class subjects experience acute alienation, suspended between traditional cultural values and the hyper-individualistic demands of modern global capitalism.
The White Tiger: Globalization and Class
Ramin Bahrani’s cinematic adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger(2021) vividly translates these theoretical concerns to the screen, focusing on Balram Halwai’s journey from an impoverished village in "The Darkness" to an entrepreneur in Bangalore.
The "Rooster Coop" as Structural Servitude:** The film uses the rooster coop as an allegory for the psychological and institutional traps keeping the Indian working class in perpetual subjection. Balram’s ultimate escapekilling his master, Ashok demonstrates how extreme inequality renders subaltern resistance violent and unapologetic.
Capitalist Mimicry:Balram’s master, Ashok, and his wife, Pinky, represent the globalized Indian elite. Their Americanized mannerisms and talk of democracy crumble the moment their position is threatened, revealing that their hybrid identity serves primarily to maintain feudal control under a modern guise.
Subaltern Alienation: Through visual contrasts between Gurgaon’s gleaming glass skyscrapers and cramped servant quarters, the film illustrates Balram’s identity crisis as he sheds his rural roots to adopt the predatory ethics required by global capitalism.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist: Globalization and Identity
Similarly, Mira Nair’s film adaptation of Mohsin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist* (2012)** explores the postcolonial identity crisis within the corporate epicenters of the West. The protagonist, Changez, an ambitious Pakistani man working for a top Wall Street valuation firm, initially embraces the American Dream. However, post-9/11 racial profiling and imperialist geopolitics shatter his illusion of full inclusion in global corporate culture. Changez’s journey demonstrates how globalized financial systems commodify and discard postcolonial subjects, ultimately pushing him to reject corporate allegiance and return to Pakistan as a critic of Western foreign policy.
Personal Interpretation
When evaluating texts like The White Tiger and The Reluctant Fundamentalist, it becomes evident that postcolonial resistance in a globalized era is fundamentally about reclaiming narrative agency. These visual and literary texts demonstrate that subaltern agency cannot be neatly categorized as purely good or evil. Balram’s transformation into an employer who murders his master, or Changez’s pivot away from Wall Street, highlights that surviving neocolonial structures often requires dismantling the hypocritical moral frameworks imposed by global elites.
Broader Postcolonial Implications
Analyzing contemporary narratives alongside theoretical frameworks emphasizes the evolving role of postcolonial studies today:
Redefining the Sovereign State:National boundaries no longer offer complete protection against external economic pressures; instead, transnational corporate interests frequently dictate domestic policies in the Global South.
Challenging Neoliberal Hegemony:By exposing the fractures within globalized narratives, postcolonial thought provides critical tools to resist the homogenization of culture and the unchecked expansion of market forces.
Conclusion
Prof. Dilip Barad’s exploration of globalization and fiction underscores that narrative art serves as an indispensable tool for diagnosing contemporary power structures. By examining themes of resistance, hybridity, and identity crisis in literature and film, we uncover the hidden realities behind global integration. Texts like The White Tiger and The Reluctant Fundamentalist compel us to view globalization not as an inevitable path toward universal harmony, but as a contested are where postcolonial subjects continuously fight for autonomy, voice, and self-definition.
Reference:
Barad, Dilip. “Globalization and the Future of Postcolonial Studies.” Journal of Higher Education and Research Society, vol. 10, no. 2, 2022. ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376374570_GLOBALIZATION_AND_THE_FUTURE_OF_POSTCOLONIAL_STUDIES. Accessed 25 Aug. 2026
Barad, Dilip. “Globalization and Fiction: Exploring Postcolonial Critique and Literary Representations.” Journal of Higher Education and Research Society: A Refereed International, vol. 10, 2022, pp. 177–185. ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/376371617_GLOBALIZATION_AND_FICTION_EXPLORING_POSTCOLONIAL_CRITIQUE_AND_LITERARY_REPRESENTATIONS. Accessed 25 Aug. 2026.
Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. HarperCollins Publishers India, 2008.
Chomsky, Noam. “Globalization and Its Discontents: Noam Chomsky Debates with Washington Post Readers.” The Washington Post, 16 May 2000.
Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. Empire. Harvard UP, 2000.
Loomba, Ania. Colonialism/Postcolonialism. 2nd ed., Routledge, 2009.
Stiglitz, Joseph E. Making Globalization Work. W. W. Norton, 2007.
If you are also using The Reluctant Fundamentalist film:
Nair, Mira, director. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Mirabai Films, 2012.
Hamid, Mohsin. The Reluctant Fundamentalist. Penguin Books, 2007.
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