Thinking Activity: Then and Now; Colonialism, Imperialism, postcolonialism, Globalization and Environmental studies

 

 Hello Readers,

Warmly welcomed to Blog. Here, I have discussed the marked for identification as diverse instances of cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism is one of a number of oppressive relations that may hold between dominant and subordinate cultures. Whether or not conscious and intentional, it serves to extend the political power, secure the social control, and further the economic profit of the dominant culture. 

Ultimately, it facilitates a type of cultural acquisition via conceptual, even material, assimilation; the dominant culture seeks to establish itself in indigenous cultures by appropriating, mining, and redefining what is distinctive in, or constitutive of, them. The mechanism for this, as we will see, is an oft-repeated pattern of cultural subordination that turns vitally on legal and popular views of ownership and property, as formulated within the dominant culture.

Situating Colonial and postcolonial studies

Colonialism and imperialism are often used interchangeably. The word colonialism, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), comes from the Roman ‘colonia’ which meant ‘farm’ or ‘settlement’, and referred to Romans who settled in other lands but still retained their citizenship. Accordingly, the OED describes

it as a settlement in a new country … a body of people who settle in a new locality, forming a community subject to or connected with their

parent state; the community so formed, consisting of the original

settlers and their descendants and successors, as long as the connection with the parent state is kept up.

Then and Now: Colonialism, Imperialism, postcolonialism, globalization, Environmental studies 

The word ‘colonialism’ of any implication of an encounter between peoples, or of conquest and domination. There is no hint that the ‘new locality’ may not be so ‘new’ and that the process of ‘forming a community’ might be somewhat unfair.

colonialism can be defined as the conquest and control of other people’s land and goods. But colonialism in this sense did not begin with the expansion of various European powers into Asia, Africa or the Americas from the sixteenth century.

1. How can we understand these differences? 

2. Was it that Europeans established empires far away from their own shores? 

3. Were they more violent or more ruthless? Were they better organised? Or a superior race? 

All of these explanations have in fact been offered to account for the global power and drastic effects of European colonialisms. Marxist thinking on the subject locates a crucial distinction between the two: 

• Whereas earlier colonialisms were pre-capitalist, modern colonialism was established alongside capit- alism in Western Europe (see Bottomore 1983: 81–85). 

• Modern colonialism did more than extract tribute, goods and wealth from the countries that it conquered—it restructured the economies of the latter, drawing them into a complex relationship with their own, so that there was a flow of human and natural resources between colonised and colonial countries. 

This flow worked in both directions—slaves and indentured labour as well as raw materials were transported to manufacture goods in the metropolis, or in other locations for metropolitan consumption, but the colonies also provided captive markets for European goods. The economic imbalance that was necessary for the growth of European capitalism and industry. Thus we could say that colonialism was the midwife that assisted at the birth of European capitalism, or that without colonial expansion the transition to capitalism could not have taken place in Europe but the global connections established by modern colonialism were not entirely new. 

The trade routes that had connected Europe with Asia, and Asia with Africa since antiquity were reworked and expanded as the Americas were ‘discovered’ by Europeans.

Capitalism 

The distinction between pre-capitalist and capitalist colonialisms is often made by referring to the latter as imperialism. This is somewhat misleading, because imperialism, like colonialism, stretches back to a pre-capitalist past. Like ‘colonialism’, imperialism too is best understood not by trying to pin it down to a single semantic meaning but by relating its shifting meanings to historical processes. Early in its usage in the English language it simply means ‘command or superior power’ (Williams 1976: 131). The OED defines ‘imperial’ as ‘pertaining to empire’, and ‘imperialism’ as the 

 ‘rule of an emperor, espe- cially when despotic or arbitrary; the principle or spirit of empire; advocacy of what are held to be imperial interests’.

As a matter of fact, the connection of imperial with royal authority is highly variable. Lenin thus predicted that in due course the rest of the world would be absorbed by European finance capitalists. 

Globalization 

and 

Imperialism 

This global system was called ‘imperialism’ and constituted a particular stage of capitalist development—the ‘highest’ in Lenin’s understanding because rivalry between the various imperial wars would catalyse their destruction and the demise of capitalism. It is this Leninist definition that allows some people to argue that capitalism is the distinguishing feature between colonialism and imperialism.

Direct colonial rule is not necessary for imperialism in this sense, because the economic (and social) relations of dependency and control ensure both captive labour as well as markets for European industry as well as goods. Sometimes the words ‘neo-imperialism’or ‘neo-colonialism’ are used to describe these situations. In as much as the growth of European industry and finance-capital was achieved through colonial domination in the first place, we can also see that imperialism is the highest stage of colonialism.

In the early years of imperialism, There is was a description of a specific phase in history. In the last few decades of the 19th century, the European powers reversed their previous commitment to free trade and an enlightened colonial policy, erected tariff walls and began a new scramble for overseas territories. By the turn of the century, most of the Third World had been divided among the great powers and the growing rivalry, punctuated by periodic near-clashes over colonial interests, pointed to the outbreak of World War I.

The imperialism to a growing concentration of economic power within the capitalist countries. Giant capitalist monopolies, coordinated by banks, sought more profitable trade and investment opportunities overseas as well as sources for raw materials. Powerful capitalists forced their governments to secure foreign territories, ward off opposition from both Third World peoples and the other imperialist powers, and increase the pace of investment and exploitation.

CITATIONS 

• Loomba, Ania. Colonialism-Postcolonialism. Third Edition ed., Routledge, 2015.

• “Loomba, Ania. 

Colonialism/Postcolonialism.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 27 Jan. 2016

• Whitt, Laurelyn. "Imperialism Then and Now." Science, Colonialism, and Indigenous Peoples: The Cultural Politics of Law and Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. 3-28. Print.

• Whitt, Laurelyn. Science, Colonialism, and Indigenous Peoples: The Cultural Politics of Law and Knowledge. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. Print.