Colonialism assumes differentiated conceptualuzations, theoretical expositions and empirical manifestations, in space and time (ie, historically and geographically). As researchers we need to be conversant with these spatio-temporal trajectories to adequately capture the human condition in its conjunctural instanciation (cf eg Jacques Ranciere, Pierre Bordieu, Henri Lefebvre, etc)

I think you raise important questions. Colonialism and its "derivatives" Post-Colonialism etc tend to be over-used and conflated with Imperialism but they should not all be thrown into the same cauldron. There are distinct differences between those terms that need to be highlighted. I.e. were there imperial powers that did not need or want to colonize other areas? Was the rise of US power in Europe and Asia after WW2 within its Cold War framework neo-imperialist (in the soviet mind) or neo-colonialist (in the eyes of some third world states)? Russian policy in the the former Soviet Union space is it neo-imperialist or neo-colonial?

the question is important? however, the definition of the concept (colonialism) is different from contemporary social exclusion, marginality and resistance in the sense the colonialism is defined as policy/practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country. social exclusion, marginality and resistance in what capacity for instance, if it is within a state than i will not see it as colonalism ?

I think Colonialism persists nowadays. Perhaps the forms have changed but there are new forms with the same meaning, exploitation from one countries over the other. I ask, is it possible one world without Colonialism, Imperialism and similar?

How so remarkable. I am currently working on a paper that addresses precisely these themes, so a good and timely question.

First, it is not exactly clear from this question that the problem of conflation is the result of overuse. Perhaps misuse is what is at the heart of the question, or perhaps use out of context, where meaning spirals out of control and tumbles into meaninglessness. However, overuse can also result in misuse, but only when it becomes abused or debased, which is to say, decontextualised. The word paradigm shift for example, has become overused and is sometime used in discussions that have nothing to do with paradigm or even shift, or in ways that it was not originally meant. Kuhn, who popularised the word once lamented that the term appears to be the only thing scholars have picked from his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962).

Any change now appears to be a paradigm shift, and to use the term, even out of context, now appears to be the mark of a scholar, even if the user knows little about what the term once described. For example, a divorced man who marries a new wife might be said to have engaged in a paradigm shift or vice versa. It is this kind of absurdity that the overuse of a term might descend into.

But misuse is the real devil of a thing, which changes meaning and takes you like an inefficient satnav to Washington DC when your intended destination is Washington Tyne and Wear. That is not overuse, it is misuse- such as a category mistake, the kind that Gilbert Ryle talks about - such as the mistake of thinking that a university institution such as Oxford university is separate from the units of the structure that bears its name - Ryle's example. So a visitor bein shown round Oxford colleges and libraries then asks, so where is the university? But I digress and this digression may not be helpful. I merely mean to point out how conflation is often a mistake of miscategorisation (misuse) and not necessarily overuse.

What I suggest is an analytical approach to these terms, to see what each might mean or how each might fit within a discourse in which they may appear. The point is that colonialism in one form or another continues to this day. These terms therefore hang together like quadruplets, who though are individuals in their own right but still share certain similarities, or what Wittgenstein calls 'family resemblance.' Yes, we might mistake one for the others, - not through overuse, but through sloppiness or a lack of care to how they differ, which is why we need care and attention to discern ways in which each is different just as in how they may also be similar. But importantly, they all are children of the same mother: Western conceptual framework and the manner of its breeding these offsprings that surrounds Foucauldian power concepts.

Just remember that when Molière in his play "The miser" plainly copied Plaute "The gold pot" (Rome,1stBC), he suppressed the main character, the slave Strobilus, that steel his greedy master to buy back his liberty. Molière was forced by his main sponsor Louis XIV king of France and instigator of "The Black Code" (a repulsive slavery treaty). This ignominious historical and cultural colonialism is still alive and ruling. Remember any transaction in West Africa have to go through Paris, thanks to CFA franc: economic colonization means long term profits for France. How do you call it?

The concept of colonialism is not, in anyway, over used. The concept appears to be wearing a new meaning to those who did not experience the colonialism of foreign countries and their capitalist agents. Though, these new class or group of people, called it internal colonialism, but I chose to refer to it as, "bad governance". This new version of colonialism has no geographical limitation neither is it colour related. The currency of the word "colonialism" continues to be relevant in so far as we experience colonialism in varying forms. European colonialism, immediate post-European colonialism, and the colonialism of bad governance.

"However, is it possible that the conceptual strength of this lumping also hinders our ability to understand the specific modalities of social injustice in various contexts and in different historical moments?": Hence the need for contextually-driven, historical analysis of colonliasm, which is, as I have suggested above.

It belongs to the ex-colonies to get aware of how under-used, how sub-estimated had been the concept of colonialism. Colonized were taught at mandatory school how colonizers were superior kind of beings. Do you think those billions that had to recognize themselves as inferiors are able some day to feel free? Do you think that society self-deconsideration can be wiped off just by a snap of mondialization? I don't like the way you conflate marginality and colonialism. Is that a way to say ex-colonized end up as marginals (as far they miss the colonizer center), a very popular claim nowadays? Another point is conflating colonalism with capitalism and imperialism, as if it was a logical consequence in an historical economical process and not a consequence of the oldest human occupation: slavery and human trade. Remember Noe says to Cain: "You'll be the slave of your brother's slaves".

Gabriel O. Apata I was really seduced by the subtility of your accurate "misuse".

Fred, your argument is really confusing or at best buried in ambiguities. But, I need to respond to a few points. First, no group of people "recognize themselves as inferiors", therefore, the question of being free do not arise. Superiority posturing is a question of self egotism, which cannot be ascribed to any particular colour or group of persons. Secondly, the concept of colonialism is multifaceted, hence marginalization, injustice, deprivation, denial of right among others are consequences of colonialism, whether you view it from social, economic, education, religious and political spheres of humanity. Therefore, it will be illogical to separate marginality from colonial traits, simply because you considered it as "historical economical process". Third, marginalization, injustice etc as part of social process cannot be wiped out on the faces of earth, but, when marginalization or injustice is in a large scale and affecting billions of population, then we cannot shy away from its name: colonialism.

Excuse-me but when you're forced to recognize the intruder as "superior" up to the point he teaches you who were your Gaulois ancestors, of course you feel inferior with your Bambara ones and try to dissimulate them: you have to fight endlessly with yourselves to accept this horrendous situation. Superiority have an archaic hero, named Nemroth from Assyria. Second, I don't think it's possible to reduce marginality to a colonization consequence. Third, capitalism is a system that can only survive by the exclusion and exploitation of a large number. Choose the name you prefer for them, but don't conflate them all in the same helium balloon. Colonialism is just industrialization of slavery.

If colonialism is "industrialization of slavery", then, you have embraced my initial position, that colonialism is nothing but the crass stealing of what does not belong to you or from the common good. It does not matter whether you are the white colonizers or the present drivers of bad governance, but in as much as you have STOLEN or STEALING it is colonialism.

Fred, we must place the concept of capitalism in its proper perspective, capitalism does not preach exclusion, but it survives through surplus value. Capitalist cannot exclude the slaves, hence there will be no production. Capitalism encourages the minimal existence of the labourers (you refers to it, slaves) in other to keeping the factory functional for the capitalist appropriation of the surplus values. It is on this premise that marginality cannot be wished away.

@J.Tochukwu Omenma Capitalsim doesn't exclude slaves, of course, it survives on slaves.

Well, well well. What have here? It would appear that conflation has not only set in but has taken over the entire discourse. The fact of the matter is that these terms are contestable and each of us approach them from different perspectives, which does imply that some objective senses of use cannot be discerned.

Tochukwu writes ',First, no group of people "recognize themselves as inferiors", therefore, the question of being free do not arise. Superiority posturing is a question of self egotism, which cannot be ascribed to any particular colour or group of persons.'

This is simply and untenably wrong. Du Bois for example talks about 'double consciousness' which includes the black man's view of the way the white man views him. He sees or knows that the white views him as inferior amongst other things. He may not believe he is inferior, but that is trying to make the tide flow upstream. Africans refuse to buy African made goods believing they are inferior to Western goods. The Nigerians are particularly well known for this, describing goods in perjorative terms, such as Igoo-made, meaning cheap and inferior. More examples can be provided of this phenomenon.

But this inferiority pertains not only to goods but is seen as an extension of the maker of the goods - white then means superior, while black means. Some black people bleach their skins, for example, in self denigration of blackness. Labelling theory has thought us that labels attach long enough on an agent that the agent starts to believe the label. Tell a student he or she is not good enough and they begin to believe it. That is classic stereotyping, which becomes a weight on the shoulders of the black race. Inferiority is a sociological as well as a psychological phenomenon. It does spring out from nowher, it is what others make you feel through a myriad of ways, whether you like it or not, but it is something you cannot fail to recognise. Even if you think of yourself as clever, good looking, slim, beautiful etc. someone somewhere can make you feel it is all an illusion and you are in comparison really inferior.

so in this I agree with Fred.

Tochukwu also says that colonisation is stealing. Well, I must draw breath. In as much as colonialism is taking what does not belong to one, it might be deemed to a form of stealing. But this half the picture. Colonialism is not about stealing. It does more than that. If A steals B's watch, - A cannot be said to colonise B, but B may be sans his watch but he is not diminished by the theft of his watch. What colonialism has done is to subjugate, denigrate and to diminish the humanity of the other. Therefore to say that colonialism is stealing is a form of reductio ad absudum or at least does strike at the heart of what colonialism really is and did to places like Africa.

What makes colonialism even more pernicious is that the system is present continuous.

Then Uchenda writes 'The three concepts (imperialism, capitalism and colonialism) have no concrete relationship to "modernity". Well tell that to the Enlightenment philosophers whose big brains dreamt it up. Modernity is the ocean into which the entire project seems to end up. It is both the process of progress as well as the destination of progress. What use then is capitalism if not that it enables you to take your dinner on the high table with superb cutlery whilet been served by the black slave and another is crouched under the table as footstool, while the dinner had itself been cooked by the slave, from produce picked by slaves. Yes, modernity began with civilisation, which drove capitalism, which fed the colonial expansionism, that was maintained by imperial - superior- power all of which began in the house that the West built. Phew!

But all of these did not come free and had to be paid for somehow and guess what happpened? Yes, quite right. Africans paid the price for much of it and continue to pay the price for much of it: economically, politically, culturally and psychologically. No inferiority complex then or no concrete connection with modernity? Slave consciousness abound still and let me know the next time you're invited to Buck palace and tell me if you will not spend a week thinking of what to wear. Me? A whole me, invited to Buck house? I could not believe it when the invitation landed on the mat, I hear you say. That's modernity and inferiority consciousness at work, my friends.

Rather there has been less than sufficient discussion on the subject.

I agree with Gabriel, but I think colonialism is a dynamic never ending process that morphs depending on a nation's political needs such as expansion, border security, or annexiation of another country. You mentioned "slave consciousness" with respect to Africa, but I have noticed an increase in slave consciousness in the United States among African Americans since the election of 2016. Has anyone started work on that subject?

Yes, Bob. As I mentioned at the the beginning of my contribution to the question, I am currently working on these very themes. My work also looks at the phenomenon in the US.

Algerians are known to denigrate anything coming out of Algeria, even themselves. During 150 years, they were forced to learn at mandatory school how French saved them from Barbary, forced on the basis of a faked History to recognize how slave they always had been. French even invented a Roman past to Algeria to let Algerian know they always had been slaves and it was normal to follow traditional way, as slaves. Algeria was of Roman culture but exactly the kind of landscape Roman hated and they never settled in Algeria. But the Roman past was fitting the burlesque desire of empire legitimity of Napoleon III. The final result is Algerians hate their own past (the one taught by French) so have difficulties to project themselves in the future. Nevertheless, nowadays things are slowly changing and the popularity of History forums, questioning colonization's knowledge tells it all. I'm myself very proud to have brought them the original book (in Spanish) Topography and General History of Algiers (1612), so they could realized all what the French took away from their History in their 1870 version. I call it a cultural crime. It should be punished or at least, lightened, so it won't reproduce anymore.

Fred Romano: Indeed, it is always the HISTORY BY THE OPPRESSOR that is forced upon the exploited and oppressed people of the world! (Cf eg the excellent works by Eric Hobsbawm, Lois Wacquant, Jacques Ranciere, Michel Foucault, Frantz Fanon, etc). Poor South Africans are still trying to understand their own, AUTHENTIC History, prior to their brutal conquest by colonizers.

In 2018, Germany begged forgiveness to Tanzania, a country they colonized in 19th with unseen cruelty. I can't understand why French and English can't do the same with the countries they oppressed. Spaniards are an exception due to Bartolomé de las Casas's book "A quick description of Indies's destruction"(1552), a real confession of colonization crimes, the first European book to give Indians an existence as human beings (even as horribly tortured by colonizers). His books were so shocking that Emperor Carlos V pronounced laws to protect Indians from mistreat and to forbid Indian slavery.

Gabriel, I strong insist that "superiority" is purely a self evaluation concept, and it depends on where you stands and who is speaking. Du Bois "double consciousness" did not agree less with my position.

Your analogy is both simplistic and amusing too. It is a simplification of my dismissal to Fred "superiority" posturing. That "Africans refuse to buy African made goods believing they are inferior to western goods". Because you acquired western education, which your forefathers did not, has not made you, in anyway, superior to them. superiority or inferiority contest is not artifact or skyscraper driven it has to do with self-evaluation. Even if we have to stretch the argument further, cradle of civilization started in Egypt, does it suggest the superiority of Egyptians over other human species? Artifact-based development (modern) is not synonymous to superiority instinct. That you killed your brother, confiscated his wife, children, property etc and build a mansion for yourself and your future generations does not confirm any superiority on you. We should draw a line between subjugation and superiority. In fact, it is your inferiority complex that propelled your action. The same is applicable to the white colonizers who could not compete with Africans over Africans mineral resources. The same is applicable to all purveyors of bad governance systems across the continent of the world. We may call this capitalism, imperialism, neo-imperialism, industrialization of slavery, etc. And this is my contribution to the colonialism debate before Fred introduced the superiority argument.

I think there is no conceptual conflation in the use of 'colonialism, 'imperialism', 'capitalism' and 'modernity' in examining the roots of different forms of exploitation and oppression. I agree here with Uchendu Eugene Chigbu in that the mother of all these frameworks and systems of oppression is ultimately capitalism. Perhaps what Martin Hebert's question suggests here is that there is an epistemological and methodological problem in the way in which we over-emphasize and single out identity in examining equality and fairness today. Whilst Fanonian 'postcolonial' thought always had as its basis the economic foundations of colonialism, today's scholarly work tends to downplay capitalism's lasting effects in perpetuating systems of oppression of different sorts.

I agree with Mr. Williams in that it's always the story the Oppressor has to tell. The Oppressed (past or present) are just left flaying their arms in silent protest. Try unravelling some mysteries of the past, read well loved and renowned literature from the 'other's' point of view (Rudyard Kipling's -The Jungle Books) and be prepared to struggle again, this time defending your thoughts on that matter. I think the concept of colonialism should be looked at in a simple way, by giving more voice to the people who bore the brunt of the Opressors and have another story to tell. Colonialism as we know nowadays has been stretched to the limits. It's time for change.

The Colonialism give knoledge and identity,obviously taken lifes to impose some ideas but whorever these countries has find another form of wiew the life,and for the invaders is the way to make more eslaves because that people dosen't think in be armed because they belive in the earth, in the sky, in the sun............

Such a good question! Martin Hebert points to an issue that was identified (under the term decolonization) in Tuck & Yang's (2012) article, "Decolonization is not a Metaphor." As those authors write, "Decolonization brings about the repatriation of Indigenous land and life; it is not a metaphor for other things we want to do to improve our societies and schools." Yet, as Martin pointed out, the lumping together of separate but related concepts provides authors with a convenient way to talk about a vast array of social issues with some coherence. At the same time, though, that lumping leaves authors open to criticisms about ignoring the concerns posed by capitalism, imperialism, and so forth. And as a conceptual "shorthand," it may serve as an erasure of some of the exact problems that use of a colonial or decolonizing analytic lens may strive to illuminate.

thankyou Martin for posing the question: Has the concept of colonialism become overused? this is a good question, and is raising some very interesting responses.

I feel that 'colonialism' and other terms, many of which are relatively new terms within academia (and often not used or known about at grass roots level) will continue to be debated, defined, analysed, and critiqued as long as colonialism is an urgent and pressing concern within society. Similarly, the use of terms such as 'slavery' will likely remain in our sights even though there is some suggestion that on a global scale slavery has been abolished in many parts of the world.

I have found your responses very thought provoking, as an Australian Indigenous scholar and member the Adnyamathanha group in Australia. I have read each with great interest. I agree absolutely that we must have the space to tell our own histories, and to share our experiences first hand rather than through an interpretor, to be able to freely talk back to the Oppressors, and to build our own visions for the future without being apprehended, silenced, or categorised through a colonial lens.

I am in the process of proposing a new edited text that can be used as a handbook at undergraduate level to provoke a rethink of Indigenous Studies, how it is defined and what benefit this area offers in creating or working toward a post-colonial rather than post-colonising future. This text would also have a focus on issues within Indigenous research and serve as a self-directed resource for research candidates in the area.

I am hoping for this text to be primarily authored by Indigenous people from Australia and elsewhere, with chapters that can focus on particular concepts or cases as stand alone discussions and points of debate. I also hope to create it as an eBook as well as hard copy so it is readily available.

Can anyone direct me to other books of this kind, and is anyone interested in contributing to this proposed publication?

No contexto da pós-modernidade, tem-se utilizado o termos colonialidade para referir a um processo de dominação muito mais complexo. Enquanto o colonialismo se referia (especialmente na América do Sul, a un modelo político de exploração, em muito, acompanhado de escravidão) a ideia de colonialidade acompanha melhor as novas perspectivas políticas atuais, como a visão da dominação por territórios redes, articulando poderes locais, regionais e transnacionais por exemplo, a ideia de mão de obra de reserva, etc. Um autor muito relevante na discussão e Boaventura de Souza Santos. Recomendo

Hi Hebert,

I have enjoyed the variouse discussion but will go with those that asserts that colonialism as a word is been underused, so far as we can still see the sociocultural effects of colonialism on the oppressed. I just turned in a PhD thesis on German colonialism in Ghana and surprisingly most people dont know a thing about this occrance. So I believe there should be more discussion on colonialism from History, Anthropology and other disciplines.

No, it is still very relevant.

There is no question that terminology can become 'fuzzy' when it is widely used but the concept it denotes is not well understood. Your own question indicates that (as it conflates the term with post-colonial as if they refer to the same thing rather than being very different sorts of concepts, one of which is informed by the other), as does one of the replies which suggests Rudyard Kipling as a voice of the 'other' (seriously?! Kipling the poet of imperialism?). But that is really an example of *mis-using* rather than *over-using* a term. I don't see how a term can be used well, that is to represent a relevant and useful concept, and be over-used. After all I need to employ the concept of colonialism every time I examine the commonality in the historically specific incidents that make up Western occupation of South Asia in the nineteenth century. So to ask is it overused is really to suggest that too much attention has been given to the period or subject for which it is a useful concept. Is that really true? Have departments studying the history of Europe, the Greco-Roman classics, or English literature been shut down en masse to make room for teaching post-colonial feminist literature? Sarcasm aside, obviously not, the vast majority of research in the humanities is still euro-centric, the vast majority of it representing the interests of a tiny fraction of the world's population and a tiny fraction of its history and cultural production. I feel confident I could find more students that have read Plato than Said. Even colonialism as a subject frames the interesting bit of the 'other' in terms of Europe. So if academia's blinkers have been nibbled at the edges it is still by only the smallest margin.

Time I think for a shameless plug. I wrote several pieces for a volume published by Cambridge University Press called Empires of Faith in late Antiquity. The contributions on art history touch a wide variety of different factors that have influence academic thought, starting in the nineteenth century, of which colonialism is one.

I don't think that it is overused

In teaching about the history of Indigenous sovereignty, invasion, systemic white privilege and racial oppression in Australian context i find colonialism a useful concept. It facilitates a range of discussions that might otherwise be omitted or attributed to a very white-washed version of events and processes