Political Geography - Colonialism and post-colonialism

What is culture?

Culture is taken to be an intrinsic and relational dimension of identity and difference, and a concept that focuses our critical attention on the uneven and unequal production and circulation of meaning. As Arjun Appadurai suggests, culture is "a pervasive dimension of human discourse that exploits difference to generate diverse conceptions of group identity. As Derek Gregory notes, culture is seen "a series of representations, practices and performances that enter fully into the constitution of the world.

What is imperialism?

Edward Said 1993 Culture and Imperialism - "at some very basic level, imperialism means thinking about, settling on, controlling land that you do not possess, that is distant, that is lived on and owned by others.

What is colonialism?

Franz Fanon said that we live in "a world divided into compartments"

What are colonising geographies?

Gregory (2002) - coined the term to convey the idea that geography and colonialism/empire work into one another in myriad ways, and can be approached from multiple positions.

What is colonisation?

Osterhammel 1997 - "Colonisation designates a process of territorial acquisition, colony a particular type of sociopolitical organisation, and colonialism is the system of that process"

Why is culture so important?

Post colonialism's characteristic cultural emphases reflect its disciplinary origins in the fields of literary and cultural studies and anthropology. More profoundly, however this recourse to culture stems from the recognition that the break up of European colonial empires did not place decolonized nations on an equal cultural footing with the west.

What is post colonialism?

Postcolonialism can be characterised as an 'ameliorative' and 'therapeutic' project that is concerned with the impact of colonialism on colonising and colonised peoples and places, and reexamines imperial/colonial history in the light of contemporary realities and especially the predicaments of decolonisation. Post colonialism is centrally concerned with the means by which the west arrogated to itself the authority to grant (and deny) cultural respect to others, and to decide on what counts as truth and knowledge (and what does not).