Decolonization

Abstract

Abstract Decolonization refers to the withdrawal of colonial powers from their colonies and to the achievement of political, economic, and cultural independence by those former colonies. The term was first used in the 1930s, though it did not come into frequent use until the 1960s. Its usage has thus chiefly referred to the decolonization of former European colonies in Africa and Asia that took place over a period of roughly 50 years in the twentieth‐century, from the late 1940s to the late 1990s. While formally achieved when a government of a newly independent country is recognized internationally as a sovereign state, decolonization is also understood as a revolutionary process that continues after independence. In this sense, decolonization refers to social and cultural transformations aimed at overcoming colonial hierarchies and at achieving ambitions of development that were promised, but not fulfilled, by colonial regimes.