Colonialism (Anthropology)

Introduction

Few topics in the discipline of anthropology are as important, and controversial, as colonialism. The historical origins of anthropology are rooted in the colonial enterprise, thus forever linking colonialism and anthropology. As such, colonialism is one of the most widely explored and written about subjects in the history of anthropology. Colonialism can be understood as the establishment of foreign rule over a distant territory and the control of its people. Generally associated with European imperial powers, colonialism and the colonial project include political and legal domination over a subordinate people, the exploitation of human and natural resources and the redistribution of those resources to benefit imperial interests, and the construction of racial and cultural difference that privileged the colonial ruler over the populations they ruled. Colonialism, which started in the late 15th century, is one of the fundamental social, cultural, and political forces that shaped our contemporary world. It is one of the phenomena that have structured modernity with regard to racial and economic hierarchies, which continues to have profound effects on communities worldwide. Though the traditional period of colonialism has ended, anthropological research on colonialism has pointed to the fact that there are lasting impacts of the colonial project worldwide. While anthropologists initially participated in the colonial project and later reproduced colonial relationships in their research projects, contemporary anthropological literature that is critical of the discipline’s historical roots developed alongside decolonial and postcolonial responses and critiques of colonialism and its ongoing legacy. In addition to theoretical and historical contributions to colonialism, anthropological research on colonialism focuses on four main areas. First, anthropologists describe the cultural representation of non-European others and focus on the impacts of colonialism on the communities that were colonized. Second, anthropological research examines the culture of the colonial project itself, focusing on the production of hierarchies and the process of exploiting human and natural resources to serve colonial needs. Third, anthropologists articulate the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. Fourth, anthropology focuses on resistance to colonialism, highlighting the everyday acts of the colonized in the struggle to overcome colonial rule.

General Overviews

Although anthropology is inextricably linked with colonialism, it wasn’t until the late 1960s and early 1970s that anthropology critically engaged with its colonial history despite the fact that early anthropologists did write about the colonial encounter (see Early Ethnographies). Gough 1968a and Gough 1968b take a powerful stance criticizing anthropology’s collusion with colonialism and its failure to accurately describe the impacts of colonialism on the people that anthropologists studied. Horvath 1972 attempts to define colonialism so that anthropologists can analyze it with a clear understanding of what it is, though the author failed to further Gough’s critique of anthropology’s collusion with colonialism. Perhaps the seminal text in anthropology and colonialism is Asad 1973, a volume that challenges anthropologists to seriously examine anthropology’s colonial roots. Lewis 1973 is an influential essay that engages anthropology’s colonial legacy, specifically critiquing the colonial relationship between the anthropologist and research subject. Despite Asad and Lewis’s call, very few anthropologists conducted critical research on the involvement of anthropologists in the colonial project in the 1970s and 1980s, with the notable exception of the work in Bodley 2008 (originally published in 1975). In the 1990s, more anthropologists took up this call, beginning with George Stocking (Stocking 1991), who published a volume examining the production of ethnographic knowledge in the colonial situation. This was followed by widespread anthropological engagement with colonialism and its effects, including an important collection, Pels and Salemink 1999.

Asad, Talal, ed. 1973. Anthropology and the colonial encounter. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
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This seminal collection of essays was one of the most important early works that examines the ways colonialism impacted anthropological thought and practice. The book is particularly valuable due to its critique of anthropology’s complicity with colonialism and Western imperialism.
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Bodley, John H. 2008. Victims of progress. 5th ed. Lanham, MD: AltaMira.
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Originally published in 1975, this is now a fundamental text in anthropology that explores the impacts of colonialism on the indigenous people in colonized territories. It does not only call the colonized victims, but also documents the responses to colonialism.
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Gough, Kathleen. 1968a. New proposals for anthropologists. Current Anthropology 9.5: 403–435.
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Calls anthropology a child of Western imperialism and argues that anthropology should join with revolutionary, anticapitalist struggles in the developing world in order to remain relevant.
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Gough, Kathleen. 1968b. Anthropology and imperialism. Monthly Review 19.11: 12–24.
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A highly critical condemnation of the role of anthropologists in the colonial and imperial projects. Also condemns anthropologists for neglecting to study colonialism and imperialism as a world system. Gough revisited the article in 1990 in an article titled “‘Anthropology and Imperialism’ Revisited,” claiming that anthropologists rectified the situation since her initial critique.
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Horvath, Ronald J. 1972. A definition of colonialism. Current Anthropology 13.1: 45–57.
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Horvath attempts to define and classify colonialism in order to consolidate its study among academics so that there is a common definition for scholars to use when analyzing colonialism. The article defines colonialism as a form of domination and exploitation, and roots it in the concept of power.
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Lewis, Diane. 1973. Anthropology and colonialism. Current Anthropology 14.5: 581–602.
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Examines the historical role of the anthropologist in pursuits of colonial interests and compares the anthropologist-subject relationship to that of the colonizer-colonized. One of the most influential texts linking anthropology and colonialism.
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Pels, Peter, and Oscar Salemink, eds. 1999. Colonial subjects: Essays on the practical history of anthropology. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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A comprehensive volume of ethnographic practice under colonial rule that sheds light on the myriad ways in which anthropology was entangled with colonial rule.
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Stocking, George W., Jr., ed. 1991. Colonial situations: Essays on the contextualization of ethnographic knowledge. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.
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Examines the history of colonial situations in which ethnographic knowledge was produced. It reopens anthropological conversations about the idea of “colonial situations” first introduced in Balandier 1966 (See Historicizing Colonialism).
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Journals

Few journals are specifically focused on colonialism (Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History and Settler Colonial Studies), and none are particularly dedicated to colonialism and anthropology. Peer-reviewed articles on colonialism appear widely in general anthropology journals that are focused on broader theoretical and practical discussions within the discipline, such as American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, History and Anthropology, and Political and Legal Anthropology Review. Other journals emphasize postcolonial and decolonization research, such as Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies and Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, and Society.

American Anthropologist. 1888–.
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This is the flagship peer-reviewed journal of the American Anthropological Association, which publishes articles in all four subfields of anthropology. It often publishes ethnographic research on colonialism and everyday life in postcolonial societies.
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American Ethnologist. 1974–.
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A central journal in social and cultural anthropology, American Ethnologist publishes a wide range of articles that include colonialism as a central topic in anthropological investigations.
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Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education, and Society. 2012–.
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A peer-reviewed, open-access online journal dedicated to scholarship on decolonization, focusing on the practice, and not theory, of decolonization. This journal is activist in scope more than it is academic, and seeks to ground decolonization in the lived experiences of those living through decolonization.
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History and Anthropology. 1984–.
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A peer-reviewed journal that focuses on the intersection between history and anthropology. Many of the articles emphasize and highlight colonial history as it is related to the discipline of anthropology.
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Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies. 1998–.
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This peer-reviewed journal focuses on postcolonial theory, history, and politics. It publishes articles on wide-ranging topics in postcolonial studies such as the history of colonialism, the role of culture in colonialism and resistance to it, and the connections between colonialism and modernity.
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Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. 2000–.
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Published by Johns Hopkins University Press, this peer-reviewed journal publishes articles on a broad range of topics regarding colonialism, imperialism, and their effects from precolonial societies to the present.
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Political and Legal Anthropology Review. 1973–.
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This peer-reviewed journal of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology publishes articles relating to political and legal anthropology, of which colonialism is a central focus.
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Settler Colonial Studies. 2011–.
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This interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal publishes critical scholarship on settler colonialism and has played an integral role in establishing settler colonial studies as an emerging academic discipline.
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Reference

This section includes a brief list of anthropology dictionaries and encyclopedias that contain entries that may be a useful and easy starting point for studying anthropology and colonialism. Though most of the entries are brief, they also contain lists for further reading. The most thorough and detailed entries are in Barfield 1997 and Barnard and Spencer 1996. Seymour-Smith 1986 and Hunter and Whitten 1976 are also useful.

Barfield, Thomas, ed. 1997. The dictionary of anthropology. Oxford: Blackwell.
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The “colonialism” entry, written by Michael Watts, is a brief introduction to colonial history, theory, and the links between anthropology and colonialism.
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Barnard, Alan, and Jonathan Spencer, eds. 1996. Encyclopedia of social and cultural anthropology. London: Routledge.
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Comprehensive entry written by Nicholas Thomas divided into useful subheadings. Also contains a list for further reading.
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Hunter, David E., and Phillip Whitten, eds. 1976. Encyclopedia of anthropology. New York: Harper and Row.
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Entries for “colonialism,” “colonization,” “internal colonization,” “imperialism,” and “neocolonialism,” all of which are useful entry points. Also lists resources for additional reading.
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Seymour-Smith, Charlotte. 1986. Dictionary of anthropology. Boston: G. K. Hall.
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Contains brief entries for “colonialism,” “internal colonialism,” and “imperialism.”
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Early Ethnographies

This is just a small list of the many works written by anthropologists in colonial societies. Though anthropologists from Europe conducted ethnographic research in the 19th century that was used by the colonial powers to manage the indigenous populations, many of the early leaders in social and cultural anthropology also produced influential ethnographic works in colonial contexts. These early ethnographic works exemplify the language and approach of early anthropologists with regard to “primitive” and “savage” indigenous communities and demonstrated little reflexivity about the colonial implications of their research. They are also interesting examples of the colonial relationship between anthropologists and their research subjects that was later critiqued in Lewis 1973 (see General Overviews) and in other works. Malinowski 1922 is important for being the first ethnography to use participant observation, and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (see Radcliffe-Brown 1964) is widely considered the founder of the influential structural functionalism school of British anthropology. Fortes and Evans-Pritchard 1940 and Gluckman 1940 describe the colonial situation in Africa, while Foster 1960 examines colonialism in Latin America.

Fortes, Meyers, and E. E. Evans-Pritchard, eds. 1940. African political systems. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
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Highly influential collection of essays in British social anthropology that categorizes political systems in Africa into states and stateless societies. The essays explore political systems in Africa as both native political systems and as systems developing under colonial rule.
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Foster, George. 1960. Culture and conquest: America’s Spanish heritage. New York: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
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Explores the process of acculturation in Latin America, emphasizing the cultural processes that resulted in the contact between the native population and the Spanish colonizers.
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Gluckman, Max. 1940. Analysis of a social situation in modern Zululand. Bantu Studies 14.1: 1–30.
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A unique ethnographic description and analysis that follows the events of one day, focusing on the interactions between Zulus and European colonizers. The analysis illuminates the everyday struggles of the Zulu living under colonial rule.
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Malinowski, Branislaw. 1922. Argonauts of the western Pacific. New York: E. P. Dutton.
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Widely considered the first ethnography rooted in participant observation, it describes the Western colonial presence in relatively classical ways and is not at all reflexive about the colonial implications of the research project.
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Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred. 1964. The Andaman islanders. New York: Free Press.
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A structural-functionalist description of the indigenous people on the Andaman Islands. An important work in the development in the history of anthropology, originally published in 1922.
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Theoretical Frameworks

Anthropologists have mostly relied on theories of colonialism from outside the discipline that have impacted anthropological studies of colonialism, though some anthropologists have contributed theoretical frameworks for understanding colonialism. Said 1978, on the role that colonialism played in the construction of “the Orient” as an object of knowledge for the West, is perhaps the most influential text for anthropologists studying colonialism. Said’s impact on theorizing and understanding colonialism, not only for anthropology but also in many disciplines, cannot be understated. His understanding and use of discourse, premised on the work of Foucault, was used by others thinking through colonialism and power, such as presented in Scott 1995 and Fabian 1983, seminal texts that further theorized the impacts of traditional discourses of the “primitive.” Cooper and Stoler 1997, edited by two of the most prolific scholars on colonialism, is an important volume that provides an analysis on both theories of colonialism and a research agenda for the study of colonialism.

Cooper, Frederick, and Laura Ann Stoler, eds. 1997. Tensions of empire: Colonial cultures in a bourgeois world. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Important collection of essays exploring the relationship between the colony and metropole. The introduction, “Beyond Metropole and Colony: Rethinking a Research Agenda,” is an essential read for anyone seeking to understand modern academic approaches to studying colonialism.
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Fabian, Johannes. 1983. Time and the other: How anthropology makes its object. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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An investigation of how anthropology’s traditional understanding of the other as “primitive” was an essential legitimation of the colonial project. This text critiques the general assumption among anthropologists prevalent when he wrote the book that “the other” exists in a time that is not our own.
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Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Vintage.
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This groundbreaking text argues that the relationship between Western and non-Western cultures is one of domination, exploitation, and objectification. Said argues that the West’s colonial legacies created a discourse based on an epistemological distinction between “the Orient” and “the Occident.” Orientalism is an apparatus of colonial control.
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Scott, David. 1995. Colonial governmentality. Social Text 43:191–220.
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A Foucauldian analysis and critique of colonialism that focuses on Foucault’s notion of governmentality as it applies to power and colonialism. Uses the formation of modern colonial power in Sri Lanka to think through colonial governmentality.
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Historicizing Colonialism

This section looks at some of the literature that puts anthropological research on colonialism in a historical context. Early works were influenced by Balandier 1966, which looked at the colonial situation and presented that the colonizers themselves were integral to the process of colonialism. Anthropologists have dedicated significant energy to documenting anthropology’s colonial past, such as the work in Pels 1997, and called for new explorations into the writing of the history of anthropology, as evidenced in Pels and Salemink 1994. Comaroff and Comaroff 1992 contextualizes colonialism within historical ethnography, while Cooper 2005 historicizes the global scope of colonialism. Also included in this section is Levy and Young 2011, a volume focusing on the centrality of colonialism in the history of political thought, as well as Loomba 2005, an excellent introductory text to the history and themes of colonialism and postcolonialism.

Balandier, George. 1966. The colonial situation: A theoretical approach. In Social change: The colonial situation. Edited by Immanuel Wallerstein, 34–61. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
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Originally published in 1951 as “La Situation Coloniale: Approche Théorique,” this was one of the first major works to explore the “colonial situation,” leading to further investigations. Argued that the colonizers were integral to the process of colonialism and that the colonized were part of an exploitative colonial system.
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Comaroff, John, and Jean Comaroff. 1992. Ethnography and the historical imagination. Boulder, CO: Westview.
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A collection of essays that contextualizes colonialism within historical ethnography. It mostly focuses on the colonial encounter between the Tswana in South Africa and their colonizers.
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Cooper, Frederick. 2005. Colonialism in question: Theory, knowledge, and history. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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An important historical exploration of the global scope of colonialism, including an introduction that examines the history of colonial studies and the academic study of colonialism.
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Levy, Jacob T., and Iris Marion Young, eds. 2011. Colonialism and its legacies. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
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This volume explores the centrality of colonialism and imperialism within the history of political thought, particularly focusing on the ways in which colonialism shaped the history of European political thought.
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Loomba, Ania. 2005. Colonialism/postcolonialism. 2d ed. London: Routledge.
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A comprehensive description and analysis of many key ideas and themes in the study both of colonialism and postcolonialism. This is a good introduction for those beginning to explore the topic.
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Pels, Peter. 1997. The anthropology of colonialism: Culture, history, and the emergence of Western governmentality. Annual Review of Anthropology 26:163–183.
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An important and comprehensive examination of anthropology’s colonial past. Includes an extensive review of the literature and argues that anthropology must be reflexive about its colonial past if it is to ever disengage from it.
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Pels, Peter, and Oscar Salemink. 1994. Introduction: Five theses on ethnography as colonial practice. History and Anthropology 8.1–4: 1–34.
DOI: 10.1080/02757206.1994.9960856Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Calls for a new exploration into and the writing of the history of anthropology. Critiques academic practice and professionalization of anthropology. Claims that the context of ethnographic texts is often a form of intellectual colonization of “others,” and is thus part of a broader move in anthropology to consider writing ethnographic practice and a form of knowledge production.
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Colonial Construction of Culture and Cultural Representation

One of the major contributions anthropologists have made to the study of colonialism is emphasizing the construction of cultural representations and knowledge of non-European others that was integral to the colonial project. The success of colonialism was often predicated on the construction of an “other” through the construction of difference that enabled the colonizer to control the colonized. Anthropologists have successfully focused on the ways in which the cultural representations of the colonized by the colonizer shaped both the colonial project and those who lived through it. While it is important to consider the possibilities for representing the colonized, as evidenced in Said 1989, much work is focused on the cultural representations themselves, as can be seen in Cohn 1996, Torgovnick 1990, and Burbank and Cooper 2010. More theoretical works examine the connection and general relationship between the colonial project and the culture of imperialism that produced it, such as Said 1993, and on the discourses of colonialism that differentiate between the West and the rest, as in Hall 2006. Dirks 1992 and Thomas 1994 focus specifically on the link between culture and colonialism, thereby introducing the various ways in which they both shape and impact each other.

Burbank, Jane, and Frederick Cooper. 2010. Empires in world history: Power and the politics of difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Explores how the colonial project used and facilitated a notion of difference in order to maintain dominance and to shape a global order rooted in the idea of empire. This book takes a global approach to understanding colonialism.
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Cohn, Bernard S. 1996. Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: The British in India. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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A wide-ranging collection of essays covering the construction of colonial rule in India and the various ways the colonial project classified individuals in order to control them.
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Dirks, Nicholas B., ed. 1992. Colonialism and culture. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press.
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Explains how anthropology and culture have been both impacted and continuously reshaped by colonial encounters. Discusses how colonialism had both cultural effects and that it was itself a cultural project of control, thus exploring how colonialism was about culture.
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Hall, Stuart. 2006. The West and the rest: Discourse and power. In The indigenous experience: Global perspectives. Edited by Roger C. A. Maaka and Chris Andersen, 165–173. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’.
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Explores the use and power of discourse within a colonial context. This chapter places particular focus on how discourse enabled the colonial project to articulate the difference between itself and the “other” it encountered.
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Said, Edward. 1989. Representing the colonized: Anthropology’s interlocutors. Critical Inquiry 15.2: 205–225.
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Originally a paper delivered at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, it raises questions about the ability and possibilities for representing the colonized in ethnographic work. Said gives lengthy descriptions of the words in the title—representation, anthropology, colonized, and interlocutor.
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Said, Edward. 1993. Culture and imperialism. New York: Vintage.
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Examines the connection and general relationship between the colonial project and the culture of imperialism that produced it. In many ways a continuation of the project started in Orientalism, this book argues that the literature and culture of the colonial powers cannot be seen as separate from their imperial mission.
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Thomas, Nicholas. 1994. Colonialism’s culture: Anthropology, travel, and government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Argues that colonialism is a cultural process and that colonialism’s culture is an essential element of colonial relationships. In the cultural process of colonialism, the colonized are represented in a way that legitimizes racial and cultural differences, thereby legitimizing the violence of colonialism itself.
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Torgovnick, Marianna. 1990. Gone primitive: Savage intellects, modern lives. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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A comprehensive study of Western construction and perpetuation of the image of the primitive. Important in the way it helps us understand how the idea of the primitive was an essential construction by the West of the Other that legitimized the colonial project.
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Contemporary Ethnographies and Colonial Histories

This section provides a brief list of the countless histories and ethnographies that deal with colonialism. While this is just an introductory list of ethnographies from various places around the world, intended to show the geographical and historical diversity of anthropology’s examination of colonialism, an extensive search would reveal many more. The ethnographies listed here cover places as diverse as Latin America, evidenced in Galeano 1997, Alonso 1995, and Taussig 1986; South India, as analyzed in Dirks 1987; and multiple countries in Africa, which are explored in Comaroff and Comaroff 1991, Mitchell 1988, and Sharkey 2003. Additionally, Mintz 1985 provides a seminal ethnography of sugar that links colonialism with capitalism.

Alonso, Ana Maria. 1995. Thread of blood: Colonialism, revolution, and gender on Mexico’s northern frontier. Tucson: Univ. of Arizona Press.
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Ethnographic and historical account of ethnicity and gender in the colonial period in Mexico until 1920.
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Comaroff, John, and Jean Comaroff. 1991. Of revelation and revolution. Vol. 1, Christianity, colonialism, and consciousness in South Africa. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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A classic historical ethnography of the colonial mission project in South Africa with a specific focus on the relationship and encounter between the missionaries and the local Tswana community.
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Dirks, Nicholas B. 1987. The hollow crown: Ethnohistory of an Indian kingdom. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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A detailed historical ethnography of South India, spanning seven centuries. Raises important issues about the effects of colonialism.
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Galeano, Eduardo. 1997. Open veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent. Tranlated by Cedric Belfrage. New York: Monthly Review.
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A brilliantly detailed documentation of five centuries of conquest and the exploitation of human and natural resources in Latin America.
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Mintz, Sydney W. 1985. Sweetness and power: The place of sugar in modern history. New York: Viking.
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A fascinating cultural history of sugar that provides a unique view on the links between colonialism and capitalism. The book traces the domestication, spread, and use of sugar as it emerged as an essential commodity on the global market.
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Mitchell, Timothy. 1988. Colonising Egypt. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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An interesting examination and Foucauldian analysis of the colonial encounter in 19th-century Egypt.
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Sharkey, Heather J. 2003. Living with colonialism: Nationalism and culture in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Ethnographic exploration of the everydayness of colonialism, focusing on the mechanics of colonial rule and the everyday bureaucratic work of maintaining colonial control.
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Taussig, Michael. 1986. Shamanism, colonialism, and the wild man: A study in terror and healing. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
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A classic ethnographic exploration of colonialism, terror, violence, and shamanic healing among the indigenous community on the Putamayo River in Colombia.
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Colonial Resistance

One of anthropology’s most important contributions to the study of colonialism is an in-depth description, engagement, and analysis of resistance to colonialism. Ever since anthropologists started their critical engagement with colonialism, understanding local and indigenous resistance to colonial rule and colonial power has been central to anthropological investigations of colonialism. This anthropological contribution to colonialism is important because it focused on the agency of indigenous populations and highlighted their subaltern struggles. Fanon 2004, one of the most important texts on resistance to colonialism, includes a chapter legitimizing the use of violence as a strategy of resistance against colonialism. Scott 1985 has become highly influential in studies of resistance, particularly those ethnographic examinations of the mundane, everyday forms of resistance available to colonized people. Specific ethnographies include Stoler 1985, which examines protest and resistance in colonial Indonesia; Mamdani 1996 on Africa; Williams 1991 on Guyana; and Abu-Lughod 1990 on Bedouin women in Egypt.

Abu-Lughod, Lila. 1990. The romance of resistance: Tracing transformations of power through Bedouin women. American Ethnologist 17.1: 41–55.
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Analyzes Bedouin women’s resistance in Egypt, focusing on the everydayness of resistance as a confrontation of power dynamics and structures of power. Also uses resistance as a diagnostic of power.
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Fanon, Frantz. 2004. The wretched of the earth. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove.
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Originally published in 1961, this book explores and analyzes the psychology of the colonized, particularly in their relationship with the colonizer. Includes an argument legitimizing the use of violence as a strategy of resistance against colonialism. An essential read for anyone interested in the study of resistance to colonization.
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Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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An account of colonialism’s legacy in Africa that simultaneously analyzes how power was organized in colonial Africa and how it fragmented the resistance to colonial rule. Mamdani makes it clear that apartheid was not unique to South Africa, but rather it was the generic form of the colonial state in Africa.
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Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the weak: Everyday forms of peasant resistance. New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press.
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Ethnographic account of peasant resistance in rural Malaysia, focusing on the tools of resistance available to those living under conditions of oppression. “Weapons of the weak” is now an oft-cited phrase.
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Stoler, Ann. 1985. Perceptions of protest: Defining the dangerous in colonial Sumatra. American Ethnologist 12.4: 642–658.
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A historical analysis of the perceptions of colonial protest against the Dutch administration in Indonesia. This article focuses on the use of rhetoric both in the colonial administration and the resistance to it, understanding how rhetoric served both to shape and reproduce colonial rule.
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Williams, Brackette F. 1991. Stains on my name, war in my veins: Guyana and the politics of cultural struggle. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822381662Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Ethnography of Guyanese resistance to colonialism. This ethnography documents everyday life in the struggles of people in Guyana to form a national culture and produce a unified nation, thus examining the role of identity in the process of nation formation.
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Decolonizing Anthropology and Decolonial Methodologies

Since the history of anthropology is so deeply enmeshed in the colonial project, much effort has been put toward decolonizing the discipline by simultaneously critiquing the discipline’s complicity with colonialism and calling for a more ethical research agenda. Decolonizing anthropology also requires incorporating non-Western intellectual and ideological traditions both into anthropological theory and methodology. Integral to the project of decolonizing anthropology is the idea of decolonizing the mind, as argued in Thiong’o 1986. Most of the literature regarding the project of decolonizing the discipline has focused on research methodologies, such as the works Harrison 1997, Tuhiwai Smith 1999, and Hale 2008, all of which emphasize an activist agenda toward engaged research. However, there is also a strand of scholarship in decolonial thought that is focused on decolonizing knowledge and power, as evidenced in Mignolo 2000, Quijano 2000, and Quijano 2007 (the latter two cited under Colonizer-Colonized Relationship).

Hale, Charles R., ed. 2008. Engaging contradictions: Theory, politics, and methods of activist scholarship. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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A collection of essays that put forward an agenda for activist research, focusing on the ethical, practical, and political concerns that arise in the process of engaged activist research.
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Harrison, Faye V., ed. 1997. Decolonizing anthropology: Moving further toward an anthropology for liberation. 2d ed. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association.
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Groundbreaking collection that calls for decolonizing anthropology. It argues for the empowerment of subaltern voices and calls on anthropologists to root their work in counterhegemonic struggles of Third World peoples. The goal of decolonizing anthropology is social and cultural transformation.
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Mignolo, Walter D. 2000. Local histories/global designs: Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Theoretically rich historical account arguing that the process of cultural (mis)representation, along with the entire colonial epistemology, started with the Spanish conquest of the Americas in 1492. Mignolo maintains that modernity and the early-21st-century world system are rooted in colonial domination and exploitation.
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Thiong’o, Ngugi Wa. 1986. Decolonising the mind: The politics of language. London: James Currey.
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A deeply personal and critical investigation of the use and power of language in the colonial context. This book argues that the main goal of colonialism was to control the colonized through language, which had detrimental effects on the colonized.
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Tuhiwai Smith, Linda. 1999. Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.
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Proposes a methodological approach to decolonizing research and knowledge production from the point of view of indigenous communities. Argues that research itself is linked to European colonialism and imperialism.
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Race, Capitalism, and Colonialism

Deeply embedded within the colonial project is a construction of difference based on race as well as a control over the capitalist modes of production. Race and capitalism are inextricably linked with the colonial project as a direct result of the necessity to control and exploit both human and natural resources in colonial territory. Wallerstein 1974 introduced the idea of the modern world system, explaining capitalism as a global system, which influenced scholars both in anthropology and other disciplines. Anthropologists such as Sidney Mintz (see Mintz 1977) expanded on this theory and placed it in an anthropological context, encouraging scholars to locate capitalism in localized cultural contexts. Nash 1981 provides an important review of the ethnographic literature that specifically links global capitalism with colonialism. More recently, anthropologists such as Stephen Silliman (see Silliman 2001) examined the role that labor played in colonialism. With regard to race, Gilroy 1993 argues that there is one single black Atlantic culture that emerged both because of and in spite of colonialism. McClintock 1995 integrates race, gender, and sexuality as integral aspects of colonial rule, while Stoler 1995 explores how race was used as a fundamental category of exclusion in the colonial context. Gutierrez 2004, among other scholarly works, uses the idea of internal colonialism to critique and analyze race in the United States.

Gilroy, Paul. 1993. The black Atlantic: Modernity and double-consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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Argues that there is one black Atlantic culture that transcends nationality and ethnicity, which emerged both because of and in spite of colonialism. The idea of double consciousness, borrowed from W. E. B. du Bois, refers to the black Atlantic culture’s desire to be both European and black.
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Gutierrez, Ramon A. 2004. Internal colonialism: An American theory of race. Du Bois Review 1.2: 281–295.
DOI: 10.1017/S1742058X04042043Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the idea of internal colonialism as a theory of race in the United States. The article focuses specifically on the effects of racism on blacks and Chicanos in the United States, which are colonized populations in the United States.
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McClintock, Anne. 1995. Imperial leather: Race, gender, and sexuality in the colonial contest. New York: Routledge.
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Interesting historical and cultural analysis of race, gender, and sexuality as integral aspects of the colonial project.
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Mintz, Sidney W. 1977. The so-called world system: Local initiative and local response. Dialectical Anthropology 2.4: 253–270.
DOI: 10.1007/BF00249489Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An extension and analysis of the seminal text Wallerstein 1974, this article argues that it is essential to understand capitalism as a process rooted in the interaction of capitalist expansion and local cultural processes and responses to capitalism.
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Nash, June. 1981. Ethnographic aspects of the world capitalist system. Annual Review of Anthropology 10:393–423.
DOI: 10.1146/annurev.an.10.100181.002141Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Important review and analysis of the ethnographic literature that examines the impacts of global capitalism and colonialism.
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Silliman, Stephen W. 2001. Theoretical perspectives on labor and colonialism: Reconsidering the California missions. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 20.4: 379–407.
DOI: 10.1006/jaar.2001.0383Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Using the California missions as a case study, this article investigates labor both as a tool of colonialism and as a way to interpret colonialism. Silliman understands labor as a colonial imposition used for social control.
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Stoler, Ann Laura. 1995. Race and the education of desire: Foucault’s history of sexuality and the colonial order of things. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
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A Foucauldian analysis of 19th-century European colonial discourses of race and sexuality. Explores how race was used as a fundamental category of exclusion in the colonial context.
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Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The modern world-system: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. New York: Academic Press.
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This is the seminal text where Wallerstein introduced his world systems theory that revolutionized global understandings of capitalism as a global system.
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Postcolonialism

Postcolonialism is an interdisciplinary tradition that examines the effects of colonialism both on the colonizer and the colonized. Ashcroft, et al. 1989 explores postcolonialism through the conditions of the postcolony, which is the historical time after the end of colonialism. Postcolonial thought makes clear that despite the end of formal colonialism, the impacts are everlasting and require critical examination. Postcolonialism generally engages with a wide range of themes such as power, as evidenced in the seminal text Mbembe 2001; representation; development, as explored in Gupta 1998; nationalism; language; resistance; and feminism, which Mahmood 2001 raises as a critical concern of postcolonial thought. Williams and Chrisman 1994 and Ashcroft, et al. 2006 are important compilations of postcolonial essays that explore the myriad themes of postcolonial thought. Bhabha 1994 examines the ways in which anthropology intersects with postcolonialism on numerous levels, including investigations of cultural difference, representation, and globalization. Perhaps the most important intersection of anthropology and postcolonialism is the work of the Subaltern Studies collective that sought to decolonize Indian history and that has remained deeply influential for anthropologists. The essay Spivak 1988 on the subaltern is one of the most important and widely cited texts in postcolonialism.

Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin. 1989. The empire writes back: Theory and practice in post-colonial literatures. London: Routledge.
DOI: 10.4324/9780203426081Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An early text in postcolonial studies that examines the literature of those formerly colonized by the British. A deeply theoretical text that explores language, literature, and culture. Defines “post-colonial” not as a moment after colonialism, but as a condition that encompasses the culture impacted by colonialism.
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Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin, eds. 2006. The post-colonial studies reader. 2d ed. London: Routledge.
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Compilation of central texts on postcolonial theory divided into issues and themes for useful reference and easy reading.
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Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The location of culture. London: Routledge.
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A powerful collection of essays about diverse postcolonial themes such as agency, violence, and cultural difference. In this work, Bhabha lays out his theory of hybridity wherein the contact between the colonizer and colonized created a hybrid culture.
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Gupta, Akhil. 1998. Postcolonial developments: Agriculture in the making of modern India. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
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Focusing on the processes of development, this book examines the impacts of the postcolonial condition on Third World people, focusing on contemporary India. Gupta particularizes the postcolonial condition, arguing that there can be no universal understanding or experience of the postcolonial condition.
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Mahmood, Saba. 2001. Feminist theory, embodiment, and the docile agent: Some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic revival. Cultural Anthropology 16.2: 202–236.
DOI: 10.1525/can.2001.16.2.202Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A critical feminist analysis of Muslim women in Egypt and their involvement in the mosque movement. Raises important postcolonial questions about feminism and resistance.
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Mbembe, Achille. 2001. On the postcolony. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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A very particular and deeply theoretical understanding of the power relationship between the colonizer and colonized. It examines power and subjectivity as categories that require specific analysis in the postcolonial context.
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Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. Can the subaltern speak? In Marxism and the interpretation of culture. Edited by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271–313. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-19059-1_20Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This classic text in postcolonial theory examines the politics of Western representations of Third World peoples and questions whether or not it is possible for the subaltern to have a voice.
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Williams, Patrick, and Laura Chrisman, eds. 1994. Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: A reader. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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Good introductory reader that includes many key texts on colonial and postcolonial theory.
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Colonizer-Colonized Relationship

Perhaps one of the most important elements of colonialism is the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, which has been highlighted in studies by anthropologists as well as others. Two of the most influential and important texts on the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, Cesaire 2000 and Memmi 1965, were not written by anthropologists but remain highly valuable to anyone studying colonialism. Another important text not written by an anthropologist, Quijano 2000, radically transformed our understanding of the colonizer-colonized relationship by introducing the idea of the coloniality of power, which describes the relations of dominance between the Western colonial powers and their colonial subjects, and suggests that all forms of power are about processes of exploitation that emerge from the colonial project. This idea further cemented the idea that the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized is one of power, domination, and exploitation. Quijano 2007 further argues that this relationship still exists even though the traditional colonial period has ended. While Quijano argues that modernity and colonialism are coterminous with the West, Mamdani 2012 claims that this relationship and the very idea of “native” was itself created by Western intellectual elites. Stoler 2002 furthers our understanding of this relationship with a detailed ethnographic account of the regulation of race and sexuality in the colonial context.

Cesaire, Aime. 2000. Discourse on colonialism. Translated by Robin D. G. Kelley. New York: Monthly Review.
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Classic text originally published in 1955 that explores the colonial relationship as one of domination that negatively impacts both the colonizer and the colonized. Argues that colonization dehumanizes both the colonizer and the colonized and claims that a civilization that justifies colonization is a “sick” society.
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Mamdani, Mahmood. 2012. Define and rule: Native as political identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.4159/harvard.9780674067356Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A series of lectures addressing the difference in identity between the native and the colonial settler. Argues that the political identity “native” is itself a creation of intellectual elites in an “empire-in-crisis.” It also focuses on the management of difference between the colonizer and the colonized.
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Memmi, Albert. 1965. The colonizer and the colonized. Translated by Howard Greenfeld. New York: Orion.
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Argues that the colonial relationship is rooted in a racial hierarchy that must be managed to maintain the superiority of the colonizers over the colonized. Memmi claims that the colonizer-colonized relationship is one of domination that negatively impacts both the colonized and the colonizer, which leads to resistance movements.
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Quijano, Anibal. 2000. Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America. Nepantla: Views from the South 1.3: 533–580.
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The coloniality of power describes the relations of dominance between Western colonial powers and colonial subjects. Suggests that all forms of power are about processes of exploitation that emerge from colonial projects. Coloniality pertains to the direct political, social, and cultural domination that European colonial powers established throughout modern history.
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Quijano, Anibal. 2007. Coloniality and modernity/rationality. Cultural Studies 21.2–3: 168–178.
DOI: 10.1080/09502380601164353Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that despite the fact that most cases of political colonialism have ended, the relationship between Western cultures and non-Western cultures continues to be a relationship of colonial domination. Emphasizes that the modern global power structure presupposes that there is no modernity without coloniality.
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Stoler, Laura Ann. 2002. Carnal knowledge and imperial power: Race and the intimate in colonial rule. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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An examination of the link between colonial rule and the racialized regulation of who could be intimate with whom in colonial societies. A Foucauldian analysis of the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized, particularly regarding sexuality.
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Nation and Nationalism

Understanding the nation and nationalism is important both in the colonial and postcolonial contexts. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the rise in nationalisms led to the creation of new national cultures and the consolidation both of nation and state. Nationalism was one of the most important cultural responses to colonialism by the colonized communities seeking liberation and independence. Anderson 1991, a seminal and oft-cited text, discusses the idea of the nation as an imagined community, while the influential text Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983 also looks at the development of nations and nationalisms as an invented tradition. Cohn and Dirks 1988 focuses on the links between the European nation-state and colonialism, and Chatterjee 1993 explores the relationship between cultural identity, nationalism, and colonialism. Nationalism is a key postcolonial theme as well, as is evidenced in Hansen and Stepputat 2001 and Mamdani 2001.

Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.
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A classic work in the study of nationalism that understands the nation as an imagined community because most of the people living in the nation will never meet each other.
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Chatterjee, Partha. 1993. The nation and its fragments: Colonial and postcolonial histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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Detailed historical account exemplifying how cultural identity within a colonial society emerged on its own before coming in contact with and against the colonial power. Chatterjee points to how cultural identity precedes a nationalism that arises in response to colonial and imperial power.
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Cohn, Bernard S., and Nicholas B. Dirks. 1988. Beyond the fringe: The nation state, colonialism, and the technologies of power. Journal of Historical Sociology 1:224–229.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6443.1988.tb00011.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that the creation of European nation-states was inextricably linked with colonialism and colonial power. They examine the similarities of the cultural and political processes in colonialism and nationalism.
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Hansen, Thomas Blom, and Finn Stepputat, eds. 2001. States of imagination: Ethnographic explorations of the postcolonial state. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
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A collection of ethnographic essays that investigate the postcolonial state from the perspective of people at the everyday local level.
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Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, eds. 1983. The invention of tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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This collection of essays is a historical and anthropological exploration into the process of invention, arguing that most cultural traditions are recent inventions. Terence Ranger’s chapter argues that colonizers in Africa invented traditions to legitimize their colonial rule.
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Mamdani, Mahmood. 2001. Beyond settler and native as colonial identities: Overcoming the political legacy of colonialism. Comparative Studies in Society and History 43.4: 651–664.
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Investigation into the links between state formation and political identities as an attempt to understand the spread of political violence. This article challenges the colonial legacy that one is either native or settler.
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Settler Colonialism

Settler colonialism is a form of colonialism that seeks to replace the original population in a particular colonized territory with a new population of settlers. Usually, although not always, this new population has a connection to the colonial metropole. Most scholarship in the emerging field of settler colonial studies points to the fact that settler colonialism is premised on the occupation of a particular territory that intentionally coincides with the elimination of the indigenous population that resides in that territory. According to Wolfe 1999, settler colonialism never ends because it is a structure and not an event. Settler colonialism is a distinct form of colonialism that, according to Denoon 1979, requires its own frameworks and categories of analysis. While there are scholarly works that focus specifically on a theoretical analysis of settler colonialism, such as Veracini 2010, most recent works are edited volumes with a comparative framework, as evidenced in Bateman and Pilkington 2011 or Elkins and Pedersen 2005 with a global scope. Studies of settler colonialism often focus on the big three settler colonial societies—Australia, Canada, and the United States, which is the focus of Goldstein 2014—but the field is expanding to include other settler colonial societies such as Tibet and Israel, which Veracini 2006 explores in great detail.

Bateman, Fiona, and Lionel Pilkington, eds. 2011. Studies in settler colonialism: Politics, identity, and culture. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
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A collection of essays that puts settler colonialism in a global context. This volume is a great introduction to understanding various settler colonial societies, including Australia, Hawaii, Israel/Palestine, and Canada.
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Denoon, Donald. 1979. Understanding settler societies. Historical Studies 18:511–527.
DOI: 10.1080/10314617908595611Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
An early text in settler colonialism that distinguished settler colonialism as a distinct form of colonialism and colonial control. A very important theoretical analysis of settler colonialism.
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Elkins, Caroline, and Susan Pedersen, eds. 2005. Settler colonialism in the twentieth century: Projects, practices, legacies. New York: Routledge.
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This collection of essays covers a broad range of settler colonial topics worldwide. The essays investigate the history, legacy, and impact of the settler colonial projects. The introduction may be of particular interest for those interested in the broad theoretical understanding of settler colonialism and its uses.
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Goldstein, Alyosha, ed. 2014. Formations of United States colonialism. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
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A collection of essays that theoretically and historically examines the United States as a settler colonial society. These essays examine US settler colonialism in multiple locations and argue that settler colonialism is integral to understanding the United States in the early 21st century.
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Mikdashi, Maya. 2013. What is settler colonialism? American Indian Culture and Research Journal 37.2: 23–34.
DOI: 10.17953/aicr.37.2.c33g723731073714Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
While this piece does not exactly answer the question of the title, it is a beautiful, personal examination of the effects of settler colonialism in the United States and Palestine, rooted in the author’s experiences. The article was originally published for the Middle East studies online e-zine Jadaliyya.
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Veracini, Lorenzo. 2006. Israel and settler society. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto.
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An important articulation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a colonial conflict, this book examines Israel as a settler colonial state.
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Veracini, Lorenzo. 2010. Settler colonialism: A theoretical overview. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230299191Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This book is the essential entry point into settler colonial studies. It provides a comprehensive theoretical and historical overview to settler colonialism and emphasizes that the key aspect of settler colonialism is the settlers’ desire for the indigenous people to vanish.
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Wolfe, Patrick. 1999. Settler colonialism and the transformation of anthropology: The politics and poetics of an ethnographic event. London: Cassel.
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One of the central texts on settler colonialism and the foundational text in anthropology and settler colonial studies. It explores settler colonialism as a structure and emphasizes the politics of anthropological knowledge production within the context of colonialism.
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US Imperialism

US imperialism as a form of colonialism is an emerging anthropological interest, and anthropologists are using an ethnographic approach to understanding US imperialism and its effects. The works Kauanui 2008 and Stoler 2006 evidence this growing trend in anthropology, which coincides with a larger anthropological turn focusing on anthropology in the United States as a legitimate object of inquiry. Kaplan and Pease 1993 is an early volume that contributes to the analysis of the ways in which US imperialism impacted American culture itself. This section also includes works in disciplines outside of anthropology that have impacted anthropological understanding of US imperialism. Go and Foster 2003, for example, examines the impacts of US Imperialism in an international context, while Grosfoguel 2003 complicates understandings of imperialism and citizenship in a study on Puerto Ricans as colonial subjects.

Go, Julian, and Anne L. Foster, eds. 2003. The American colonial state in the Philippines: Global perspectives. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
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A collection of essays exploring the American colonial government in the Philippines by comparing it with colonial regimes in other parts of the world. This collection argues that there is nothing exceptional about US imperialism and that American colonialism must be studied alongside other colonial projects.
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Grosfoguel, Ramon. 2003. Colonial subjects: Puerto Ricans in a global perspective. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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Using the theory of coloniality of power as the starting point, this book examines how Puerto Ricans experience American exploitation and colonization. Puerto Rico is a particular compelling case study in American colonialism because Puerto Ricans have US citizenship, which is another element of colonial control that Grosfoguel details.
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Kaplan, Amy, and Donald E. Pease, eds. 1993. Cultures of U.S. imperialism. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
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This volume presents a comprehensive historical and cultural analysis of US imperialism both in an international and domestic context. The authors argue that US imperialism not only impacted the cultures of the people and places the US colonized but also had profound impact on American culture itself.
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Kauanui, J. Kēhaulani. 2008. Hawaiian blood: Colonialism and the politics of sovereignty and indigeneity. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
DOI: 10.1215/9780822391494Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A personal and historical account of the way that blood racialization constructs a measurable Hawaiian identity. A unique analysis that enables an understanding of American colonial rule in Hawaii as a form of colonialism that uses racial difference as a mechanism to exclude indigenous communities from their land.
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Stoler, Ann Laura, ed. 2006. Haunted by empire: Geographies of intimacy in North American history. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
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A compilation of essays taking a multidisciplinary approach to examining the ways in which empire is imbricated in US history. The collection is a conversation between postcolonial studies and US history, exploring the categories of difference essential to maintaining and justifying colonial rule.
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Colonial and Postcolonial Literature

Literature as a cultural expression often reflects the realities of everyday life in a particular society. It is therefore an important object of study and analysis for anthropologists seeking to understand local cultural processes. Colonial and postcolonial literatures give insight into the impacts of colonialism on colonized people and illuminate particular aspects of the relationship of the colonizer and the colonized. Conrad 1999 and Defoe 2001 provide examples of colonial literature that is deeply racist in its articulation of the colonized, while Kipling 1994 glorifies or legitimizes the expansion of empire. Postcolonial literature, conversely, represents the experiences of the colonized. Achebe 2009 and Thiong’o 2010 are famous and powerful examples of postcolonial novels written in English from an African perspective, while Kincaid 1988 is an important contribution to postcolonial literature from the Caribbean.

Achebe, Chinua. 2009. Things fall apart. New York: Anchor.
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Originally published in 1958, this classic novel (written in English) is about the impacts of colonialism and Christian missionaries on a native Igbo community in Nigeria. The story encourages us to think about native perceptions on the legitimacy of colonialism.
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Conrad, Joseph. 1999. Heart of darkness. New York: Penguin.
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Originally published in 1902, this novel is the story of a journey up the Congo River during colonialism. It raises important questions about the links between colonialism and racism and discourses of the “primitive” and “savage.”
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Defoe, Daniel. 2001. Robinson Crusoe. Edited by John Richetti. London: Penguin.
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An early colonial novel depicting the relationship between Crusoe and Friday. Crusoe represents the archetypal colonizer, particularly in the power relationship with Friday. Originally published in 1719.
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Kincaid, Jamaica. 1988. A small place. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
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Kincaid’s semiautobiographical book about the colonial legacies and the tourist industry in Antigua.
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Kipling, Rudyard. 1994. White man’s burden. In The collected poems of Rudyard Kipling. By Rudyard Kipling, 334–335. Ware, UK: Wordsworth.
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A very short yet highly acclaimed and oft-cited work that both defends and legitimizes the colonial project and urges US involvement in the Philippines. First published in 1899.
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Thiong’o, Ngugi Wa. 2010. Weep not child. London: Penguin.
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This novel explores the Kenyan war for independence through the eyes of a young boy. A highly influential work of postcolonial literature originally published in 1964.