Colonialism definition, the control or governing influence of a nation over a dependent country, territory, or people. He also identifies it as a practice that helps defineEurope by creating a stable depiction of its other, its constitutiveoutside. The final section will introduce an Indigenouscritique of settler-colonialism that emerges both as a response tocolonial practices of domination and dispossession of land, customsand traditional history and to post-colonial theories of universalism.The goal of the entry is to provide an overview of the vast andcomplex literature that explores the theoretical issues emerging outof the experience of European colonization.Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. The ancient Greeks set up colonies as did the Romans, the Moors, and the Ottomans, to name just a few of the most famous examples. I am a social animal who likes to have maximum participation in any fest.The major problem is not whether the colonized country could pay the loan or not, but the misuse of power. At first it might seem relatively obvious that Enlightenmentthinkers would develop a critique of colonialism. Colonialism,then, is not restricted to a specific time or place. This in turn became ajustification for exploitation.Tocqueville was actively engaged in advancing the project of Frenchcolonization of Algeria. Colonialism is not a modern phenomenon. The language of civilization, savagery, and barbarism is pervasive inwriters as diverse of Edmund Burke, Karl Marx, and John Stuart Mill.It would therefore be incorrect to conclude that a developmentaltheory of history is distinctive of the liberal tradition;nevertheless, given that figures of the Scottish Enlightenment such asFerguson and Smith were among its leading expositors, it is stronglyassociated with liberalism. Although some thinkers draw on both Marxism andpoststructuralism, the two theories have different goals, methods, andassumptions. Diderotspecifically challenges this view, noting that the European tradershad proven themselves “dangerous as guests.” (Muthu 2003:75)In recent years, scholars have devoted less attention to the debateson colonialism within the Marxist tradition. Moreover, the term“colonial” as a marker of this domain of inquiry is alsoproblematic in so far as it suggests historically implausiblecommonalities across territories that experienced very differenttechniques of domination. In Tocqueville’swritings on Algeria, the French national interest is paramount andmoral considerations are explicitly subordinate to politicalgoals.Some of the Spanish missionaries sent to the New World, however,noticed that the brutal exploitation of slave labor was widespreadwhile any serious commitment to religious instruction was absent.Members of the Dominican order in particular noted the hypocrisy ofenslaving the Indians because of their alleged barbarity whilepracticing a form of conquest, warfare, and slavery that reduced theindigenous population of Hispaniola from 250,000 to 15,000 in twodecades of Spanish rule.
I am Prerna Jha, pursuing mechanical engineering from KIIT, Odisha, But I Love to Read and Write Sociology Related Concepts and Theories.