Colonialism

colonialism

a practice or policy of control by one person/power over other people/areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance

colonialism is a relationship between an indigenous (or forcibly imported) majority and a minority of foreign invaders

• the fundamental decisions affective the lives of the colonised people are made & implemented by the colonial rulers in pursuit of interests that are often defined in a distant metropolis.

• rejecting cultural compromises with the colonised population, the colonisers are convinced of their own superiority and their ordained mandate to rule

settler colonialism

• involves large-scale immigration by settlers to colonies, often motivated by religious, political, or economic reasons

• aims largely to supplant prior existing populations with a settler one, and involves large number of settlers emigrating to colonies to settle down and establish settlements

exploitation colonialism

• fewer colonists

• focuses on the exploitation of natural resources or labour to the benefit of the metropole

• consists of trading posts as well as larger colonies where colonists would constitute much of the political and economic administration

trade colonialism

• involves the undertaking of colonialist ventures in supprot of trade opportunities for merchants

• most prominent in 19^th-century Asia, where previously isolationist states were forced to open their ports to Western powers

• examples: Opium Wars & the opening of Japan

Age of Discovery (age of exploration)

• aka the early modern period

• period largely overlapped with the Age of Sail → seafaring Europeans explored & colonized regions across the globe

scramble for Africa

• the rapid colonization & division fo the African continent by European powers

• driven by economic, political, and strategic motives → Europeans sought to exploit Africa’s vast resources, expand their empires, and increase their global influence

Scramble for Africa: Berlin Conference

• Europeans led by Otto von Bismarck, met to set rules for colonizing Africa, avoiding conflicts among themselves but completely disregarding African sovereignty

scramble for africa: results

• artificial borders - Europeans drew arbitrary borders, splitting ethnic groups & merging rival communities → long-term instability

• exploitation & oppression - African people were forced into labor, and many suffered under brutal colonial rule → millions died due to forced labor and violence

• cultural & social disruptions - indigenous governance systems & traditions were often destroyed/undermined

• resistance & conflicts - Africans fought back in wars → Ethiopia defeated Italy

decolonization

• the undoing of colonialism

• 2 reasons:

  1. independence movements in the colonies → people rebel against colonialist powers

  2. economically wasn’t worth the effort for colonizers to continue the investment of the areas

postcolonialism

the critical academic study of the cultural, political, and economic legacy of colonialism & imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands.

→ critical theory analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of (usually European) imperial power

Edward Saïd: Orientalism

orientalism was an organized method of discrimination of non-European societies in order to establish European imperial domination

→ the representations of the Orient as “different” from the West are based entirely on accounts from textual sources

Spivack: subaltern voices

subaltern = a class in society that is oppressed even in its ability to make its voice able to be heard → disregarded & dehumanized

Homi Bhabha: hybridisation

• the emergence of new cultural forms from multiculturalism

• mimicry → members of a colonized society imitate and take on the culture of the colonizers