Imperialism and colonialism

Many who see the Northern Ireland problem as the result of imperialism frequently overlook the fact that, although the territory was indeed originally part of the British expropriation of Ireland, it has remained under British jurisdiction largely because of the size and determined resistance of its settler population. Imperialism and settler colonialism in general are not identical; and in respect to the 'native' peoples, the imperial ideology of the metropolis has differed in important ways from the colonial ideology of settlers. The British and French empires have been the most extensively studied in this context, both being particularly relevant because they included two important settler colonies which fiercely resisted majority rule, namely Southern Rhodesia and Algeria. Works on Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German and Belgian empires, however, draw very similar conclusions to those of the British and French (Alatas 1977:7)

Colonialism and Mandates

Daily life in contemporary African countries must be understood as determined by their status as members of an interlocking network of postcolonies, striving to imagine themselves as related through Pan-Africanism but struggling first to realize themselves as fully functioning nations. Even though Ethiopia and Liberia are generally spoken of as the only countries in Africa that were not colonized, this actually suggests the level of subjugation the rest of the continent did experience. After all, if Italy failed in its attempt to take over Ethiopia in the 1880s, Mussolini succeeded in doing so in 1936; Liberia was, in fact, a colony for several decades, created in 1822 by the American Society for Colonization of Free People of Color of the United States as a destination for freed American slaves

Psychoanalysis, colonialism, racism

Postcolonial theory has been ambivalent towards psychoanalysis, for good reasons. One of them is the general suspicion of psychological approaches, with their individualistic focus and general history of neglect of sociohistorical concerns. Additionally, there are specific elements of psychoanalysis’ conceptual framework that draw upon, and advance, colonialist ideology. Freud’s postulation of the “primitive” or “savage” mind, which still infects psychoanalytic thinking, is a prime example here. On the other hand, psychoanalysis’ assertion that all human subjects are inhabited by such “primitivity” goes some way to trouble developmental assumptions. In addition, psychoanalysis offers a number of tools that provide leverage on postcolonial issues—most notably, the damage done by colonialist and racist thought. This article presents some of these arguments in greater detail and also examines two specific contributions to postcolonial psychology made by psychoanalysis. These contributions address the “colonizing gaze” and the “racist imaginary.

Power, discourse and city trajectories

Examines social theory and contemporary human geography in the context of urban development. Covers theoretical debates in political ecology, the cultural turn in the economy, social relations and scale, space and place, and colonialism and post-colonialism

Race, empire and the British-American "special relationship" in the Obama era

With the election of Barack Obama, much attention in Europe has focused on the possibility of the return of the good transatlantic relations that characterised the post-war period and was seriously damaged under Bush’s war on terror, unilateralism and imperialism. Much attention has also inevitably been focused on the fact that Obama is the first African-American president elected in a country that many view as historically and structurally racist. While Obama's election was seen to represent an end to both the damaging impact on transatlantic relations of the Bush era and to white supremacy in America, these two issues have rarely been connected. This chapter will look at the link between these by focusing on the “special relationship” between the United States and Britain, a relationship that has not only been the most enduring, if at times unequal and controversial, partnerships in the post-war era. Most notably between Churchill and FDR during the Second World War, Thatcher and Reagan during the Cold War and Blair and Bush during the War on Terror and invasion of Iraq. In spite of such cooperation, it is a relationship founded on colonialism and anti-colonialism, conflict and criticism – American criticism of British colonialism and, corresponding to it, British criticism of American racism. Far from representing pure anti-racism or anti-colonialism, British criticisms of American racism and American criticism of British colonialism have been deployed at crucial moments in which their relationship and relative geo-political power and influence was being contested or undergoing realignment, from the American Revolution through the cold war to the election of Obama. This chapter will examine the British response to the election of Obama in terms of the realignment of the special relationship and the place of both race and colonialism in the discussions about Obama’s election and relationship with Britain. More specifically, it will look at how this election has been celebrated in Britain as a victory over American racism, while his relationship to Britain has been criticised for his alleged anti-colonialism. I will argue that this response to Obama reflects historical and current tensions over the colonialism and imperialism of and racism in both countries, the realignment of the special relationship and concerns about the image, influence and power of each country globally following the Bush-Blair years, as well as changes in the domestic politics of each country following their elections

A Neocolonial Warp of Outmoded Hierarchies, Curricula and Disciplinary Technologies in Trinidad’s Educational System

I re-appropriate the image of a space-time warp and its notion of disorientation to argue that colonialism created a warp in Trinidad’s educational system. Through an analysis of school violence and the wider network of structural violence in which it is steeped, I focus on three outmoded aspects as evidence of this warp--hierarchies, curricula and disciplinary technologies--by using data (interviews, documents and observations) from a longitudinal case study at a secondary school in Trinidad. Colonialism was about exclusion, alienation, violence, control and order, and this functionalism persists today; I therefore contend that hierarchies, curricula and disciplinary technologies are all enforcers of these tenets of (neo)colonialism in Trinidad’s schools. I conclude with some nascent thoughts on a Systemic Restorative Praxis (SRP) model as a way of de-stabilizing the warp, by stitching together literature/approaches from systems thinking, restorative justice and Freirean notions of praxis. SRP implies that colonialism (and this modern-day warp) has rendered much psychic and material damage, and that any intervention to address structural violence has to be systemic and iterative in scope and process, include healing, be participatory, and foster an ethic of horizontalization in human relations

Adam Smith and Colonialism

In the context of debates about liberalism and colonialism, the arguments of Adam Smith have been taken as illustrative of an important line of anti-colonial liberal thought. The reading of Smith presented here challenges this interpretation. It argues that Smith’s opposition to colonial rule derived largely from its impact on the metropole, rather than on its impact on the conquered and colonised; that Smith recognised colonialism had brought ‘improvement’ in conquered territories and that Smith struggled to balance recognition of moral diversity with a universal moral framework and a commitment to a particular interpretation of progress through history. These arguments have a wider significance as they point towards some of the issues at stake in liberal anti-colonial arguments more generally

Postcolonialism and the study of anti-semitism

In recent years Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) has become a common point of reference for those within postcolonial studies—such as Paul Gilroy, Aamir Mufti, and Michael Rothberg—who wish to explore the historical intersections between racism, fascism, colonialism, and anti-Semitism. “Postcolonialism and the Study of Anti-Semitism” relates Arendt’s comparative thinking to other anticolonial theorists and camp survivors at the end of the Second World War—most prominently, Jean Améry, Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, Albert Memmi, Primo Levi, and Jean-Paul Sartre—who all made connections between the history of genocide in Europe and European colonialism. The article then compares this strand of comparative thought with postcolonial theorists of the 1970s and 1980s who, contra Arendt, divide the histories of fascism and colonialism into separate spheres. It also contrasts postcolonial theory with postcolonial literature by exploring the intertwined histories in the fiction of V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Caryl Phillips. Said’s late turn to Jewish exilic thinkers such as Theodor Adorno, Erich Auerbach, and Sigmund Freud is also related to this Arendtian comparative project. The main aim of the article is to promote a more open-minded sense of historical connectedness with regard to the histories of racism, fascism, colonialism, and anti-Semitism

Politics, penality and (post-)colonialism : an introduction

Politics, Penality and (Post-)Colonialism: An Introductio

The Universal Alliance of All Peoples : Romantic Socialists, the Human Family, and the Defense of Empire during the July Monarchy, 1830-1848

This article documents the procolonial rhetoric among romantic socialists in France during the July Monarchy (1830-48), demonstrating its pervasiveness. It argues that these years must be highlighted as key to the transition from eighteenth-century universalist ideas of humanity toward taxonomies of national, racial, and sexual difference that underpinned the rationale of empire in the second half of the nineteenth century. It explores the views on colonialism espoused by socialists such as Etienne Cabet, Pierre Leroux, Constantin Pecqueur, and Jean Reynaud; situates them in the broad socialist consensus on empire; and demonstrates the relationship between these men\u27s socialism and their colonialism. Further, it contextualizes their advocacy for colonialism in relation to contemporary debates about the abolition of slavery and free trade. Finally, it demonstrates the coexistence of universalist and particularist language in romantic socialist discourse on colonial expansion and its importance to the developing logic of the mission civilisatrice