Postcolonialism (postcolonial theory, postcolonian studies, or post-colonial theory) is a specifically postmodern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism and imperialism. Postcolonialism is defined in anthropology as the relations between nations and areas they colonized and once ruled. Postcolonialism comprises a set of theories found amongst history, anthropology, philosophy, linguistics,film, political science, architecture, human geography, sociology, Marxist theory, feminism, religious and theological studies, and literature.

A single, definitive definition of postcolonial theory is controversial; writers^[who?] have strongly criticized it as a concept embedded in identity politics. Postcolonial theory – as epistemology, ethics, and politics – addresses matters of identity, gender, race, racism and ethnicity with the challenges of developing a post-colonial national identity, of how a colonized people's knowledge was used against them in service of the colonizer's interests, and of how knowledge about the world is generated under specific relations between the powerful and the powerless, circulated repetitively and finally legitimated in service to certain imperial interests.^{[citation needed]} At the same time, postcolonial theory encourages thought about the colonist's creative resistance to the colonizer and how that resistance complicates and gives texture to European imperial colonial projects, which utilized a range of strategies, including anti-conquest narratives, to legitimize their dominance.