Cultural imperialism, also called cultural colonialism, comprises the cultural aspects of imperialism. "Imperialism" here refers to the creation and maintenance of unequal relationships between civilisations, favouring a more powerful civilisation. Thus cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting and imposing a culture over a less powerful society. This may take the form of cultural hegemony of industrialised or politically and economically influential countries influencing general cultural values and standardising (globalising) civilisations elsewhere.
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their religion, language, economics, and other cultural practices. The foreign administrators rule the territory in pursuit of their interests, seeking to benefit from the colonised region's people and resources. It is associated with but distinct from imperialism.
Imperialism is a policy or ideology of extending rule over people and other countries, for extending political and economic access, power and control, often through employing hard power, especially military force, but also soft power. While related to the concepts of colonialism and empire, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government.
Neocolonialism is the practice of using economic imperialism, Globalization, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence a developing country instead of the previous colonial methods of direct military control or indirect political control (hegemony). Neocolonialism differs from standard globalisation and development aid in that it typically results in a relationship of dependence, subservience, or financial obligation towards the neocolonialist nation. This may result in an undue degree of political control or spiraling debt obligations, functionally imitating the relationship of traditional colonialism. Neocolonialism frequently affects all levels of society, creating neo-colonial systems that disadvantage local communities, such as neo-colonial science.
Postcolonial feminism is a form of feminism that developed as a response to feminism focusing solely on the experiences of women in Western cultures and former colonies. Postcolonial feminism seeks to account for the way that racism and the long-lasting political, economic, and cultural effects of colonialism affect non-white, non-Western women in the postcolonial world. Postcolonial feminism originated in the 1980s as a critique of feminist theorists in developed countries pointing out the universalizing tendencies of mainstream feminist ideas and argues that women living in non-Western countries are misrepresented.
Whiteness studies is the study of the structures that produce white privilege, the examination of what whiteness is when analyzed as a race, a culture, and a source of systemic racism, and the exploration of other social phenomena generated by the societal compositions, perceptions and group behaviors of white people. An interdisciplinary arena of inquiry that has developed beginning in the United States from white trash studies and critical race studies, particularly since the late 20th century. It is focused on what proponents describe as the cultural, historical and sociological aspects of people identified as white, and the social construction of "whiteness" as an ideology tied to social status.
In phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the other human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknowledgement of being real; hence, the Other is dissimilar to and the opposite of the Self, of Us, and of the Same. The Constitutive Other is the relation between the personality and the person (body) of a human being; the relation of essential and superficial characteristics of personal identity that corresponds to the relationship between opposite, but correlative, characteristics of the Self, because the difference is inner-difference, within the Self.
Transnational feminism refers to both a contemporary feminist paradigm and the corresponding activist movement. Both the theories and activist practices are concerned with how globalization and capitalism affect people across nations, races, genders, classes, and sexualities. This movement asks to critique the ideologies of traditional white, classist, western models of feminist practices from an intersectional approach and how these connect with labor, theoretical applications, and analytical practice on a geopolitical scale.
In postcolonial studies and in critical theory, the term subaltern designates and identifies the colonial populations who are socially, politically, and geographically excluded from the hierarchy of power of an imperial colony and from the metropolitan homeland of an empire. Antonio Gramsci coined the term subaltern to identify the cultural hegemony that excludes and displaces specific people and social groups from the socio-economic institutions of society, in order to deny their agency and voices in colonial politics. The terms subaltern and subaltern studies entered the vocabulary of post-colonial studies through the works of the Subaltern Studies Group of historians who explored the political-actor role of the men and women who constitute the mass population, rather than re-explore the political-actor roles of the social and economic elites in the history of India.
Orientalism is a 1978 book by Edward W. Said, in which the author establishes the eponymous term "Orientalism" as a critical concept to describe the West's commonly contemptuous depiction and portrayal of "The East," i.e. the Orient. Societies and peoples of the Orient are those who inhabit the places of Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. Said argues that Orientalism, in the sense of the Western scholarship about the Eastern World, is inextricably tied to the imperialist societies who produced it, which makes much Orientalist work inherently political and servile to power.
Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Its contemporary uses are scattered across numerous academic disciplines and is salient in popular culture. Hybridity is used in discourses about race, postcolonialism, identity, anti-racism and multiculturalism, and globalization, developed from its roots as a biological term.
The concept of imagined geographies originated from Edward Said, particularly his work on critique on Orientalism. Imagined geographies refers to the perception of a space created through certain imagery, texts, and/or discourses. For Said, imagined does not mean to be false or made-up, but rather is used synonymous with perceived. Despite often being constructed on a national level, imagined geographies also occur domestically in nations and locally within regions, cities, etc.
Scientific imperialism is a term that appears to have been coined by Dr. Ellis T. Powell when addressing the Commonwealth Club of Canada on 8 September 1920. He defined imperialism as "the sense of arbitrary and capricious domination over the bodies and souls of men," he used the term "scientific imperialism" to mean "the subjection of all the developed and undeveloped powers of the earth to the mind of man."
Edward Wadie Said was a professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies. A Palestinian American born in Mandatory Palestine, he was a citizen of the United States by way of his father, a U.S. Army veteran.
Postcolonialism is the critical academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands. More specifically, it is a critical theory analysis of the history, culture, literature, and discourse of imperial power.
Douglas Hamilton Johnson is an American scholar who lives in Britain who specializes in the history of North East Africa, Sudan and the Southern Sudan. He was a resource person in the 2003 Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement negotiations over the Three Areas and later a member of the Abyei Boundary Commission. Since then, he has advised the Government of South Sudan on North-South boundary issues.
Decoloniality is a school of thought used principally by an emerging Latin American movement which focuses on untangling the production of knowledge from what they claim is a primarily Eurocentric episteme. It critiques the perceived universality of Western knowledge and the superiority of Western culture. Decolonial perspectives see this hegemony as the basis of Western imperialism.
Gloria Daisy Wekker is an Afro-Surinamese Dutch emeritus professor and writer who has focused on gender studies and sexuality in the Afro-Caribbean region and diaspora. She was the winner of the Ruth Benedict Prize from the American Anthropological Association in 2007.
Wendy Rosalind James, is a British retired social anthropologist and academic. She was Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1996 to 2007, and President of the Royal Anthropological Institute from 2001 to 2004.
Annette Krauss works as artist, writer and educator, she is based in Utrecht and Vienna. Krauss is a member of the Read-in collective and her projects include Read the Masks. Tradition is Not Given, Hidden Curriculum, Sites for Unlearning, and Spaces of Commoning. Currently, she is course leader of the Master Fine Arts at the HKU and Elise-Richter-Peek Post-Doc researcher at Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
