The rhetoric of decolonization, defunding, divestment, deconstruction, and decarbonization can take us only so far. If there is something missing from collective action today, it is concepts that place a greater emphasis on exploration, discovery, and the constructive potential of human agency.
NEW YORK – A couple of months ago, the Open Society Foundations hosted a roundtable discussion entitled “Who’s Afraid (and Should They Be) of Decolonization?” The panel centered on one of the most contested concepts in contemporary political and academic debates: decolonization. The event did not disappoint. Ultimately, all agreed that the notion of decolonization remains as relevant and as divisive as ever. But the panel left a bittersweet aftertaste, and a gnawing question: Are we ever going to be able to talk about colonization again?
Talking about colonization does not mean that we need to stop talking about decolonization – or “decoloniality,” “decolonialism,” and other variants of the term. We must not forget or condone the atrocities committed over centuries of European-led imperialism, because the traumas of slavery, genocide, and torture are still very much alive – both outside Europe and within its borders, parliaments, churches, and classrooms. Decoloniality – the idea that we should confront the legacy of colonialism in our institutions and forms of thinking – remains a powerful and much-needed instrument.
Decolonization also epitomizes the last major paradigm shift in modern social thought, as represented by the works of Frantz Fanon (and Jean-Paul Sartre’s late discovery of it), Aníbal Quijano, Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, and so many others. The influence of decoloniality on the social sciences of the postwar era is perhaps only comparable to that of historical materialism, positivism, and culturalism in the emergent social sciences of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More than just a methodological innovation, decoloniality has driven a profound cross-disciplinary transformation of how we study and understand modern society. So, it would be futile even to try to discredit the legacy of decolonial studies when talking about colonization today.
Nonetheless, talking about colonization – and what it should look like in the twenty-first century – may help us move past an overreliance on the prefix “de-” (and its variants), which continues to define so much collective action. Advocacy today is all about deconstruction, such that construction or reconstruction often becomes an afterthought. Black Lives Matter calls for defunding the police, pro-Palestinian students demand that universities divest from Israel, and heterodox political economists envision a utopian future engineered around degrowth. Such rhetoric can be effective at mobilizing people with shared grievances and mustering resistance to abuses of power. But it is limited in its capacity to inspire creativity beyond shared discontent.
This limitation is particularly worrisome today, when many longstanding consensuses are crumbling, and when the contours of a new international order are being fiercely contested. The neoliberal consensus, with its focus on deregulation, has failed to promote either economic justice or democratic citizenship. The post-Bretton Woods consensus, with its goal of de-escalating conflict, has failed to produce or sustain world peace. The environmental consensus, with its fixation on decarbonizing human activity, has yet to prove whether it has what it takes to defuse the climate-change time bomb. Wherever we look, fragile accords formed around “de-” are either collapsing or failing to provide cohesive visions of the future.
Moreover, talking seriously about colonization may help us counter the most dangerous, and yet most common, use of the concept. Historically, “colonize” has often been a synonym for “civilize,” implying that a colonizer is justified in unilaterally imposing norms, standards, and ideas on another people. This narrow definition of colonization is what propelled all forms of colonialism in the past, when entire cultures, cosmologies, and geographies were essentially dehumanized as a means of subjecting them to exploitation.
The newest issue of our magazine, PS Quarterly: Age of Extremes, is here. To gain digital access to all of the magazine’s content, and receive your print copy, subscribe to PS Premium now.
Subscribe Now
Alarmingly, this same dangerous conflation of “colonization” with “civilization” is regaining traction, as overconfident autocrats and multi-billionaires continue to redraw – arbitrarily – the frontiers of what they see as the “dehumanized universe.” For tech enthusiasts aspiring to humanize other planets, and for despots pursuing wars of aggression and sweeping campaigns of social control, the juxtaposition of “colonization” with “civilization” is always convenient.
Although critically important, it may not be enough merely to resist and confront all dehumanizing expressions of colonialism. In addition to decolonizing our institutions and ideas, we need to rehumanize the peoples and cultures subject to past and present forms of oppression. In many cases, this may call for expanding, updating, and deepening our shared concept of colonization.
Thinkers like Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Aílton Krenak, for instance, remind us that the colonization of the Americas began before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Moreover, the process continues to this day through the evolving languages and knowledges of indigenous and maroon communities. Colonization, de Castro and Krenak argue, can be less about controlling and transforming the natural world through artificial means (such as mechanization, industrialization, or digitalization), and more about developing adaptable ontologies: “ways of being” in and with the natural world. From their perspective, colonization alludes to the essential human tendencies to socialize, to create and share meaning, and to settle.
In a similar vein, anthropologist Anna Tsing suggests that colonization should be thought of less in terms of domination – of civility over barbarism, of men over nature – and more in terms of discovery and interdependence. A thorough student of the endangered cultures and ecologies of the Indonesian archipelago, the Congo basin, and the Bengal delta, Tsing does not ignore the tragedies of colonial imperialism. Yet she urges us to reflect on colonization from the standpoint of those who have historically been naturalized, dehumanized, and emptied out of any civilizational significance. At a time of mass extinction, when both human and non-human forms of diversity are facing unprecedented threats, what forgotten languages, knowledge, or modes of existence might we find – and “exploit” – if we venture out and look?
We don’t have to stop talking about decolonization. But we may be running out of time to begin thinking purposefully about colonization. We must continue to deconstruct and confront the root causes of injustice. But we also need to discover new languages, new shared understandings, and new ways of being. Before it’s too late – and the ferocity of self-obsessed despots and magnates is further unleashed – we must adapt to a world where inequality may become irreversible, and where autocracies and democracies may coexist less destructively. In a world so shaken by conflict and displacement, colonization could offer us new ways of settling.
To have unlimited access to our content including in-depth commentaries, book reviews, exclusive interviews, PS OnPoint and PS The Big Picture, please subscribe
With mainstream parties and politicians already preparing to accommodate the far right following this month's European Parliament election, the axiom of post-World War II European democracy has been quietly abandoned. “No collaboration with fascists" is being replaced by a tacit acceptance of them.
harbors no illusions about what the outcome of the European Parliament election means.
After eight decades of relative peace, the world is once again dividing into hostile economic and geopolitical blocs. The 80th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy offers a valuable opportunity to reflect on the principles we are willing to defend and the sacrifices we are prepared to make.
thinks understanding the causes and consequences of past global conflicts is crucial to preventing another one.
NEW YORK – A couple of months ago, the Open Society Foundations hosted a roundtable discussion entitled “Who’s Afraid (and Should They Be) of Decolonization?” The panel centered on one of the most contested concepts in contemporary political and academic debates: decolonization. The event did not disappoint. Ultimately, all agreed that the notion of decolonization remains as relevant and as divisive as ever. But the panel left a bittersweet aftertaste, and a gnawing question: Are we ever going to be able to talk about colonization again?
Talking about colonization does not mean that we need to stop talking about decolonization – or “decoloniality,” “decolonialism,” and other variants of the term. We must not forget or condone the atrocities committed over centuries of European-led imperialism, because the traumas of slavery, genocide, and torture are still very much alive – both outside Europe and within its borders, parliaments, churches, and classrooms. Decoloniality – the idea that we should confront the legacy of colonialism in our institutions and forms of thinking – remains a powerful and much-needed instrument.
Decolonization also epitomizes the last major paradigm shift in modern social thought, as represented by the works of Frantz Fanon (and Jean-Paul Sartre’s late discovery of it), Aníbal Quijano, Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o, and so many others. The influence of decoloniality on the social sciences of the postwar era is perhaps only comparable to that of historical materialism, positivism, and culturalism in the emergent social sciences of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More than just a methodological innovation, decoloniality has driven a profound cross-disciplinary transformation of how we study and understand modern society. So, it would be futile even to try to discredit the legacy of decolonial studies when talking about colonization today.
Nonetheless, talking about colonization – and what it should look like in the twenty-first century – may help us move past an overreliance on the prefix “de-” (and its variants), which continues to define so much collective action. Advocacy today is all about deconstruction, such that construction or reconstruction often becomes an afterthought. Black Lives Matter calls for defunding the police, pro-Palestinian students demand that universities divest from Israel, and heterodox political economists envision a utopian future engineered around degrowth. Such rhetoric can be effective at mobilizing people with shared grievances and mustering resistance to abuses of power. But it is limited in its capacity to inspire creativity beyond shared discontent.
This limitation is particularly worrisome today, when many longstanding consensuses are crumbling, and when the contours of a new international order are being fiercely contested. The neoliberal consensus, with its focus on deregulation, has failed to promote either economic justice or democratic citizenship. The post-Bretton Woods consensus, with its goal of de-escalating conflict, has failed to produce or sustain world peace. The environmental consensus, with its fixation on decarbonizing human activity, has yet to prove whether it has what it takes to defuse the climate-change time bomb. Wherever we look, fragile accords formed around “de-” are either collapsing or failing to provide cohesive visions of the future.
Moreover, talking seriously about colonization may help us counter the most dangerous, and yet most common, use of the concept. Historically, “colonize” has often been a synonym for “civilize,” implying that a colonizer is justified in unilaterally imposing norms, standards, and ideas on another people. This narrow definition of colonization is what propelled all forms of colonialism in the past, when entire cultures, cosmologies, and geographies were essentially dehumanized as a means of subjecting them to exploitation.
Secure your copy of PS Quarterly: Age of Extremes
The newest issue of our magazine, PS Quarterly: Age of Extremes, is here. To gain digital access to all of the magazine’s content, and receive your print copy, subscribe to PS Premium now.
Subscribe Now
Alarmingly, this same dangerous conflation of “colonization” with “civilization” is regaining traction, as overconfident autocrats and multi-billionaires continue to redraw – arbitrarily – the frontiers of what they see as the “dehumanized universe.” For tech enthusiasts aspiring to humanize other planets, and for despots pursuing wars of aggression and sweeping campaigns of social control, the juxtaposition of “colonization” with “civilization” is always convenient.
Although critically important, it may not be enough merely to resist and confront all dehumanizing expressions of colonialism. In addition to decolonizing our institutions and ideas, we need to rehumanize the peoples and cultures subject to past and present forms of oppression. In many cases, this may call for expanding, updating, and deepening our shared concept of colonization.
Thinkers like Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Aílton Krenak, for instance, remind us that the colonization of the Americas began before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. Moreover, the process continues to this day through the evolving languages and knowledges of indigenous and maroon communities. Colonization, de Castro and Krenak argue, can be less about controlling and transforming the natural world through artificial means (such as mechanization, industrialization, or digitalization), and more about developing adaptable ontologies: “ways of being” in and with the natural world. From their perspective, colonization alludes to the essential human tendencies to socialize, to create and share meaning, and to settle.
In a similar vein, anthropologist Anna Tsing suggests that colonization should be thought of less in terms of domination – of civility over barbarism, of men over nature – and more in terms of discovery and interdependence. A thorough student of the endangered cultures and ecologies of the Indonesian archipelago, the Congo basin, and the Bengal delta, Tsing does not ignore the tragedies of colonial imperialism. Yet she urges us to reflect on colonization from the standpoint of those who have historically been naturalized, dehumanized, and emptied out of any civilizational significance. At a time of mass extinction, when both human and non-human forms of diversity are facing unprecedented threats, what forgotten languages, knowledge, or modes of existence might we find – and “exploit” – if we venture out and look?
We don’t have to stop talking about decolonization. But we may be running out of time to begin thinking purposefully about colonization. We must continue to deconstruct and confront the root causes of injustice. But we also need to discover new languages, new shared understandings, and new ways of being. Before it’s too late – and the ferocity of self-obsessed despots and magnates is further unleashed – we must adapt to a world where inequality may become irreversible, and where autocracies and democracies may coexist less destructively. In a world so shaken by conflict and displacement, colonization could offer us new ways of settling.