Temporality, sovereignty, and imperialism: When is imperialism?

Abstract

Scholars of modern imperialism have conventionally defined it in clear contrast against the ostensibly legitimate rule of the sovereign territorial state. From this conventional perspective, the theoretical distinctiveness of imperialism as a phenomenon appears in juxtaposition against normal sovereign state rule and effectively ‘begins’ at the transgressions of state power beyond some accepted space of normalized sovereign dominion. While the spatial and temporal dimensions of sovereignty have been well explored and the spatial distinctiveness of imperialism has mirrored that of sovereignty, the temporality of imperialism has not been as carefully considered. While the problems of what imperialism ‘is’ and what it ‘does’ have been thoroughly examined, ‘when’ imperialism is has not. This article aims to correct this by offering a critique of the conventional temporality of imperialism and its subjection to a spatial ideology, and instead articulating a critical temporality of imperialism that avoids some of the conventional conception’s limitations, especially that of naturalizing state rule and its claims to legitimacy.