Colonialism and Postcolonialism

The Palgrave Handbook of the History of Human Sciences, 2021

This chapter offers a comparative historical analysis of three trends – the indigenous, the postcolonial, and decolonial – which have confronted the nineteenth century Western disciplinary field of sociology as a hegemonic field organized through the colonial grid. It maps the ontological-epistemic stances that these positions articulate to legitimize non-Western pathways to political modernity. It argues that distinct political contexts have organized the scholarship and research queries of these subaltern/non-hegemonic perspectives and analyzes these in terms of the two forms of colonialism: settler vs. non-settler colonialism. While highlighting some internal critiques that have informed these positions, it argues that these circuits of knowledge-making have created cognitive geographies which need to be taken into account to ensure non-hegemonic global social theory.

Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2020

European colonialisms (circa. Late 1400) are complex, particularized, and changing political- economic-social-religious systems of domination. In the pursuit of capital accumulation and appropriation, Western European colonialisms generated and benefited from racialized and racist logics. Following the “formal” decolonization of much, but not all, of the colonized world—from Haiti in 1804, to Cameroon in 1960, to Papua New Guinea in 1975, to Timor-Leste in 2002—colonial structures, relations, and imaginaries often persisted in altered forms. Social scientists draw variously from political economy and historical materialism as well as postcolonial thought and cultural materialism within the broader field of colonial studies to both critique European colonialisms of the past and reveal the persistence(s) of colonial relations/structures in the present. Colonial “durabilities” and the “coloniality of being” continue to inform post-colonial political economies, social relations, and knowledge productions, creations, circulations, and contestations. The protraction of colonial domination(s) into the early 21st Century have given rise to reinvigorations of anti-colonial and postcolonial critique, including decolonial options and polygonal projects of decolonization. Widespread discontent regarding the persistence of “colonialism in the present” are manifested in the vocal and visible debates within early 21st Century universities around decolonizing knowledge, including struggles to decolonize the discipline of geography.

IJRAR - International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews, 2019

Postcolonial is a period of freedom and exemption from European colonial clutches and grasping. It is quite necessary to define the word 'colonialism' before understanding 'postcolonialism.' P K Nayar in his seminal book Postcolonial Literature: An Introduction projects light upon the etymology of the word as thus "The term 'colony' once meant something very different. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that the fourteenth-century term, 'colonye,' derived from the Latin 'colon-us,' meaning farmer, cultivator, planter, or settler in a new country, was used to describe the Roman settlements in the fourteenth century" (1-2). Colonialism is a gradual process of settling down Europeans in various corners of the world and considering themselves superior to those where they settled down. They migrated to non-European countries and started forming colonies and began to establish their own rules and regulation and imposed upon the colonized. Sometimes it was quite harsh and, most of the time, inhuman. The process of migration is continued since the existence of the earth and human beings kept on moving in quest of a better life and safe places. But the eighteenth and nineteenth-century scenario is extremely awful and consternation where the colonizers moved to exploit the colonized places and contaminated the previously established social cultures and introduce their own. Let's see what OED reads, "Colonialism is an alleged policy of exploitation of backward, or weak peoples by a large power." Colonialism is a derogatory word and it is a sort of stigma on colonizers. It is the second name of cruelty, oppression, exploitation, hate, servitude, racism and inequality. Colonization is dreadful for native races, cultures and spaces. Their intention at the beginning of these settlers was just to trade and later, seeing the gullible and hospitable nature of the people, their cunningness came out and they invited several people from their country and gradually tried to control and train the native people in their own way. They came to trade with the permission of local Nawabs and rulers, but with the passage of time, these traders conquered those local nawabs and rulers and became the ruler of those areas and started subjugating the people of the area. Colonialism brought destruction for the native knowledge, culture, art and understanding. Colonizers started to command the economy, politics and society as per their crafty intention. They introduced massive changes by demoralizing Indian values, customs and practices. Native people began to see their own customs and rituals with susceptible eyes in which they used to believe firmly. In India, they replace dhoti, kurta, turban, saree with shirts, pants, coats, ties and gowns. The products of colonialism are hybrid; they oscillate between their native culture and colonial culture. The colonization process started forcefully but later on it impacted on the mentality of the native people. They began to subjugate mentally, making the natives considered inferior, uncivilized, illiterate and so on. P K Nayar, quoting the most famous Orientalist scholar Edward Said, says, "Colonialism cannot be seen merely as a political or economic 'condition': it was a powerful cultural and epistemological conquest of the native populations" (Postcolonial Literature: An Introduction 3).

Without colonialism there would be no post-colonialism. Colonialism is about the dominance of a strong nation over another weaker one. Colonialism happens when a strong nation sees that its material interest and affluence require that it expand outside its borders. Colonialism is the acquisition of the colonialist, by brute force, of extra markets, extra resources of raw material and manpower from the colonies. The colonialist, while committing these atrocities against the natives and territories of the colonies, convinces himself that he stands on high moral grounds. His basic assumptions in defense of his actions are: The colonized are savages in need of education and rehabilitation The culture of the colonized is not up to the standard of the colonizer, and it's the moral duty of the colonizer to do something about polishing it. The colonized nation is unable to manage and run itself properly, and thus it needs the wisdom and expertise of the colonizer. The colonized nation embraces a set of religious beliefs incongruent and incompatible with those of the colonizer, and consequently, it is God's given duty of the colonizer to bring those stray people to the right path. The colonized people pose dangerous threat to themselves and to the civilized world if left alone; and thus it is in the interest of the civilized world to bring those people under control. As a result of this the white Europeans ventured adventurously into the so called underdeveloped countries in Africa and Asia and dominated a lot of geographical spaces

This course provides an introduction to the history of science by focusing on modern science's complex relationship with colonial rule. While the colonies served as a “living laboratory” (Helen Tilley) during European expansion, the local and vernacular forms of knowledge European scientists encountered had repercussions on European self-understandings of science. The course examines a wide range of historical and anthropological materials and methods in order to retrace the everyday workings of different scientific disciplines in colonial contexts. Special attention will be paid to the so-called “field sciences”, to the disciplines of anthropology and medicine, as well as to disease control in global pandemics. During the “scientization” of colonialism in the twentieth century a distinct regime of knowledge and power emerged which, in turn, had effects on the historical process of decolonization.

Public Culture, 2002

Imperialism and colonialism insistently intrude upon political and cultural discussion despite the disappearance of imperialism from political language except as a term of critical approbation, and formal repudiation of colonialism as a legitimate or acceptable practice in world politics. Within the context of an international order based upon globally recognized norms of national sovereignty, the relationships these terms refer to seem much more problematic than they were in the heyday of a Euromodern order in the early twentieth century, when "empire" was born as a badge of honor, and colonial possessions were proudly displayed in world's fairs as signs of civilizational ascendancy. 1 As imperialism and colonialism were disavowed after 1945, the persistence of the inequalities they had shaped and the struggles of postcolonial states for development rendered them much more complicated as concepts than simple descriptions of domination and submission, Scholarship on imperialism and colonialism, especially the latter, has proliferated since the early 1950s, albeit with fluctuations in interest, as well as shifting pardigms. 2 The relationships suggested by those terms, and how we understand them, have been blurred further by economic and cultural globalization, which may account for the extensive interest in the subject the last two decades.

Reviews in Anthropology, 2012

In this study, historical and sociological discourse of colonialist movements will be critically analyzed by referring post-colonial theories. In doing so, it is proposed to shed light on the process of colonialism, its reason, consequences and impact on colonialized territories in the light of social science discipline. In order to generate a systematic study, the issue problematized will be examined in an historical approach. That is why, the text will include some sub-titles that might show the development and status of colonialist discourse in social science (and specifically sociology) literature. After that, some deconstructive theories on colonialist discourse will be mentioned in consideration of new/contrary arguments on race and culture. At the end of the study, Orientalizm as one of the well-known colonialist discourse of Western dominance will be discussed. This paper doesn't propose to give detailed information on colonialist movements in an historical context. It, rather, proposes to underline the Western view of the World and movements on colonialized countries encouraged by these view. That is why, throughout the stud, modern Western theories will be attributed to colonialist approaches and actions.