Week 2Colonialism and Post-Colonialism: A History of Thoughtsnippits-and-slappits.blogspot.com Dr Hayley Saul, 2018 Indigenous Cultures: A Global Perspective 101905
My Contact Details Hayley SaulEmail: [email protected] • Phone: 9190 • Office Building EJD.G.50 Student consultation times: By appointment. Please email me to arrange a meeting at Parramatta.
Where are we at? Indigenous CulturesWeek 1: • Understanding Indigeneity in a changing world: key conceptsWeek 2: • Colonialism and Post- Colonialism: A History of Thought
Today’s Key Concepts: Colonization and Imperialism• What are Colonialism and Imperialism?• The Colonial process• Documentary 1:Colonialism in Ten Minutes: The Scramble for Africa (Excerpt from the documentary Uganda Rising, 2006)• Colonial histories, discourses and impacts • Indigenous vs. non-Indigenous ontologies & epistemologies • Orientalism, the Other and binary systems • Colonising ‘the native’ body: ‘scientific’ classifications, race and evolutionary theory • Civilising ‘the savage’: eugenics, Stolen Generations and • Genocide
Today’s Key Concepts Post-Colonialism• What is Post-Colonialism?• The rise of Post-Colonial theories• Indigenous Methodologies• Some key events in the development of the Post- Colonial critique• Documentary 2: Murtankala (2014)• Documentary 3: Lousy Little Sixpence
Imperialism Defined as: ‘Imperial’ as simply ‘pertaining to empire’, and ‘Imperialism’ as the ‘rule of an emperor, especially when despotic or arbitrary; the principal or spirit of empire; advocacy of what are held to be imperial interests’. (Loomba, 1998: 4-5) Relates to power: The positioning of one State or group of people at the centre (as superior), projects outward to encompass other States/peoples (deemed inferior).marratapa.weebly.com
Imperialism & the Iconic ‘Evil Empire’ifunny.co
Colonialism & the ‘colonizing power’ Etymology – from the Roman ‘colonia’, meaning: ‘farm’ or ‘settlement’ and used to refer ‘to Romans who settled in other lands but still retained their citizenship’. (Loomba, 1998: 1, as per OED). ‘… represents the imposition of political control through conquest and territorial expansion over people and places located at a distance from the imperial power’. (Blunt, 2005: 176)opitslinkfest.blogspot.com
The Colonial Process www.bbc.co.uk• \"Voyages of Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan.\" Modern World History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?• ItemID=WE53&iPin=CRC02115&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 15, 2016). exploration.marinersmuseum.org
Establishing economic dominance• Mercantilism- an economic ideology dominant in the 16th-, 17th-, and 18th-centuries.• Exporting more expensive items than you import creates wealth in the ‘metropole.’• The economic process that fueled Imperialism. Manufactured goodsColonising country Colony Raw materials
The Columbian Exchange marbleheadcharter.org
The British East India Companyhttp://3fscs2011.wikispaces.com/Singapore+Under+British+Rule
Maintaining economic dominance• Mercantilism gives way to principles of Free Trade• BUT, this involves the colonisers designing structures of power that maintain their economic dominance, and limits to how much capital Indigenous communities can accumulate• These structures of power are a colonial legacy, and they vary in different places in the world• Colonialism as forced dependency Colonising poCwoelronising power EIC
Colonising technologies http://www.seankheraj.com/?p=1248forums.civfanatics.com americanhistory.about.com www.geocaching.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_in_Mexico taapworld.wikispaces.comwww.thefirearms.guide theoutreach.in www.history.com
Colonies in 1550By Andrei nacu - public domain animated map by Andrei nacu here, PublicDomain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1820667
Colonies in 1885commons.wikimedia.org
Colonies in 1936CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=860491
The colonial experience“We can estimate very surely “They took infants from theirand truthfully that in the mothers' breasts, snatching themforty years that have passed, by the legs and pitching themwith the infernal actions of headfirst against the crags orthe Christians, there have snatched them by the arms andbeen unjustly slain more than threw them into the rivers,twelve million men, women, and roaring with laughter and sayingchildren. In truth, I believe as the babies fell into thewithout trying to deceive water, \"Boil there, you offspringmyself that the number of the of the devil!”slain is more like fifteen ~Historia de las Indiasmillion” “With my own eyes I saw Spaniards~Historia de las Indias cut off the nose and ears of Indians, male and female, without “They laid bets as to who, provocation, merely because it with one stroke of the pleased them to do it. ...Likewise, sword, could split a man I saw how they summoned the in two or could cut off caciques and the chief rulers to his head or spill out his come, assuring them safety, and entrails with a single when they peacefully came, they stroke of the pike” were taken captive and burned” ~Historia de las Indias ~Historia de las Indiasalchetron.com
www.sydneybarani.com.au The colonial experience• 1769 – Whitianga Harbour, New Zealand.• Horeta Te Taniwha watched Cook’s ship arrive“and a vessel came there, and when our old “[He] took some charcoalmen saw the ship they said it was an atua, a and made marks on thegod, and the people on board were tupua, deck of the ship, andstrange beings or ‘goblins’…When these pointed to the shore andgoblines came on shore we (the children and looked at our warriors. Onewomen) took notice of them, but we ran away of our aged men said to ourfrom them into the forest, and the warriors people, ‘He is asking for analone stayed in the presence of those goblins; outline of this land’; andbut, as the goblins stayed some tim,e and did that old man stood up, tooknot do any evil to our braves, we came back the charcoal, and markedone by one, and gazed at them” the outline of the Ika-a- maui (North Island)”Extracts from: David Igler, The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush , pp.84-85.
The colonial experience1607 – the year that the first English settlement, Jamestown, was established in what is now North America http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/resources/native-north-americans/“some of his people led vs to their houses, showed vs the growingof their Corne & the maner of setting it, gave us Tobacco,Wallnutes, mullberyes, strawberryes, and Respises. One shewed vsthe herbe called in their tongue wisacan, which they say healespoysoned woundes, it is like lyverwort of bloudwort. One gaue me aRoote wherewith they poisen their Arrowes. they would shew vs anything we Demaunded, and laboured very much by signes to make vsunderstand their Languadg”.
Cultural and social colonialism • Enlightenment thinking (c. mid 1700s) – progress, scientific rationalism is the most perfect way to construct knowledge • Evolutionary theory, 1859 Origin of the Species ❖ Environmental determinism - the environment imposes limits on development of society. Attitude that some cultures are just more ‘advanced’ ❖ Cultural and social evolutionism – European cultural values have an innate importance that is universal. This is called Universalism ❖ Industrial revolution – ‘advanced’ cultures were within their rights, and morally obligated, to institute ‘progress’ upon ‘primitive’ cultures through industry. Technology is a measure of progress. • The project of Nationalism and nation-buildingcommons.wikimedia.org
Antiquarianism ❖ Montesquieu – social evolutionary scheme: hunting/savagery, herding/barbarism, civilisation ❖ Lewis Henry Morgan – the ‘noble savage’ ❖ The 18th and 19th centuries see an increase in the importance of cultural heritage as a way to mark ‘them’ and ‘us’ – Otherness is collected, recorded, classified and archived as ‘relic cultures’ ❖ Artistic values and aesthetics were priviledged and captured in royal and private collections called ‘cabinets of curiosity’ which were effective symbols of power and wealth (Vegro 1989). ❖ There is an appetite for Indigenous artefacts and cultural belongings.commons.wikimedia.org
MODERN COLONIALISM ‘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’ ~ (Loomba, 1998: 3).darrel.wanzerserrano.com
COLONIALISM ‘Colonialism was not an identical process in different parts of the world’.‘everywhere it locked the original inhabitants and the newcomers into the most complex and traumatic relationships in human history… The process of ‘forming a community’ in the new land necessarily meant unforming or re-forming the communities that existed there already, and involved a wide range of practices including trade, plunder, negotiation, warfare, genocide, enslavement and rebellions’. (Loomba, 1998: 3)
Uganda Rising Documentaryhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw12KGSj53k
COLONIALISM: Histories, Discourses & Impacts‘Most striking perhaps, considered on a world scale, were theresults of [colonial] contact: Entire continents were cleared of their inhabitants in order to make space for new European settlers, and paradoxically new groups of people, mainly from Africa and Asia, were shipped to the Americas to serve as their slaves. Of course the first people did not entirely disappear, nor were the European reasons given for slaughtering, enslaving, converting, infecting, or neglecting them entirely convincing’. (Schwarz, 2005: 2).
10 Minute break
Post-Colonialism• A Theory• A political Movement• A time periodFour key distinctions are:1. Post-colonialism as an end to,or state of being in a timeperiod after colonialism2. Post-colonialism as ‘neo-colonialism’ - i.e., a new formof colonialism3. Post-colonialism as anexploration of historical,social and cultural powerrelationships – i.e., betweencolonizer and colonized4. Or Critical post-colonialism,as a theory, practice orposition against imperialism,colonialism or Eurocentrism www.globalresearch.ca
Colonies in 1945By en:User:Aris Katsaris - File:Colonisation2.gif, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=350016
Decolonisation❖ Many independence movements emerge that were instrumental in decolonisation efforts and independence wars, eg., Malaysia, Vietnam, Algeria, Kenya❖ India Independence Movement, herrickun.wikispaces.com led by Mahatma Gandhi – nonviolent civil disobedience campaigns❖ 1962- The United Nations sets up a Special Committee on Decolonisation (AKA Committee of 24), to facilitate the process.
Indigenous and non-indigenous epistemologies‘… there are numerous significant differences in the ways in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples formulate knowledge. While this can be simplified into dichotomies between oraland written, narrative and definitive, practical and canonical, fluid and fixed, the reality is far more complex’ (Ward & Smith, 2000: 11).
Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies – ways of knowing the world Eg., The Evèn, a Siberian Tungus people Ontology (Object-Subject relationship): • Permeable worlds • Objects are/can be animated • Object-Subject relations are dynamic, fluid Epistemology (Knowledge formation): • Knowledge is allegorically communicated • The shaman travels to communicate to spirits, deferring to higher powers for knowledge acquisition • Knowledge is guarded by trans-world barriers that must be crossed in ritualised mannerswww.face-music.ch
Orientalism, the other and other binary systems Nature / Culture Woman / Man Body / Mind Eros / Logos Ancient / Modern Black / White Primitive / Civilised Irrational / Rational Deviant / Normal Bad / Good Dirty / Clean Orient / Occident Far / Near Other / SelfEdouard Richter – Sheherazade
Resistance to Western hegemony “From the vantage point of the colonized, a position from which I write, and chose to privilege, the term ‘research’ is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonization. The word itself, ‘research’, is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world’s vocabulary”www.youtube.com
Kaupapa Maori research Graham Smith, who has written extensively about Kaupapa Mao initiatives says that Kaupapa Mao research: 1. is related to being Maori; 2. is connected to Maori philosophy and principles; 3. takes for granted the validity and legitimacy of Maori, the importance of Maori language and culture; 4. is concerned with 'the struggle for autonomy over Maori cultural well being’ [Decolonising Methodologies, 185) . • Critical theory - intrinsic to Kaupapa Maori theoy is an analysis of existing power structures and societal inequalities. Research is socially directed, linked to projects of emancipation and resistance.Image: front cover of Decolonising Methodologies, by Linda Tuhiwai Smith (1999)
The Rise of The interrogation of tensions Postcolonialism between land and culture, culture and culture anddynamicafrica.tumblr.com between colonizer and the colonized have produced a number of theoretical debates: • Colonization; • Creolism; • Cosmopolitanism; • Power and authority; • Margins and centers; • Oppression and exclusion; • Hybridity; • Exile; • Mimesis and autonomy Staiff and Bushell 2013
MurtankalaThink about ‘POWER’ in the short film • https://vimeo.com/83437577
Critiques of post-colonialism• Colonialism hasn’t ended – especially for settler colonial states like Australia and Canada.• Even where colonialism has ended (e.g. India) the impacts (e.g. social divisions, conflict, poverty) remain and will continue for some time.• Colonialism impacts different groups irrevocably (i.e. there is no going back).• Colonialism endures – though not always through governments.
Lousy Little Sixpence Documentaryhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TfaXdI5Z8Qhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7z2Ad5K27s&t=37shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NuYLC6x8WU&t=9shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQPW57J9nHE&t=14s
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