Thinking Activity: Then & Now: Colonialism, Imperialism, Postcolonialism, Globalization, Environmental Studies

 

Colonialism is the practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of one person to another. One difficulty in defining colonialism is that it is difficult to distinguish it from imperialism. Often the two concepts are considered synonymous. Like colonialism, imperialism involves political and economic control over a dependent territory. The etymology of both words, however, provides some clues as to how they differ. The word colony comes from the Latin word colonus, meaning farmer. These roots remind us that in the practice of colonialism the population usually migrates to a new territory, where the arrival maintains political loyalty to their country of origin and remains as a permanent settler. Imperialism, on the other hand, comes from the Latin word imperium, meaning command. Thus, the term imperialism draws attention to the fact that through indirect methods of compromise, sovereignty or control, one country exercises power over another. The legitimacy of colonization has long been a concern for political and moral philosophers in the Western tradition. Ironically, in the same period, when most political philosophers began to defend the principles of universality and equality, the same individuals still defend the legitimacy of colonialism and imperialism. One way to reconcile apparently conflicting doctrines was with an argument known as a “culture mission,” suggesting that for a period of political dependence or community, “unrelated” societies needed to move to the stage where they could survive.

Postcolonialism, a Western historical period or state of affairs that represents the result of Western colonialism; The term can also be used to describe a simultaneous project to reclaim and reconsider the history and agency of subordinates under various forms of imperialism. Although postcolonialism hints at a possible future of overcoming colonialism, such changes could lead to new forms of domination or domination, including new forms of global empire. One should not be confused with the claim of postcolonialism that the world we currently live in is really devoid of colonialism.

 

The ultimate goal of colonial empires is to enrich the empire, both in trade and in resources. This was accomplished with the mechanisms of natural resource extraction and cash crop production. These were often undertaken with reluctant concern and at worst negligible concern for the local environment. The strain of the sheer geographic expanse of global imperialism on the resources of the colonizer meant that long term environmental impacts (often like the concern for the wellbeing of the indigenous populations)  were pushed to the sides in an attempt to make a profit out of the very expensive enterprise of controlling a significantly-sized colony. The post-colonial period focuses on the new nations that had arisen from the ashes of the former global European empires; as two massive European conflicts rendered these powers

unable to maintain their grip on their far-flung colonies. This period is also shaped by the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. The other periods lack such a definitive delineation and therefore will be defined using the Kondratieff cycles of global growth and stagnation as well as the logistics wave’s concept. The industrial period starts roughly in the middle of cycle II and represents a fundamental change in colonialism as global capitalism and global imperialism form an exploitive feedback loop.