Colonial Empire Research Articles

Island Imaginaries: Introduction to a Special Section

ABSTRACT Colonial empires, scientists, philanthropists and Hollywood studios have long sustained an image of islands as remote places with unique ecologies and cultures, experimental labs, or loci of escapism. The climate crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic have contributed to a predominant view of islands as both exceptional spaces and testbeds to be scaled up onto continental or planetary levels. Likewise, the metaphor of the island is foundational to Western thought yet has been less explored in the context of scientific processes and technology development. Bringing together science and technology studies (STS) with critical Island Studies and related fields, this special section expands upon the spatial dimension of sociotechnical imaginaries to consider islands and their imaginations as both preexisting and channeling visions of science and technology. The introduced concept of Island Imaginaries captures the mutual constitution of island visions and their materialization in scientific, technological and technocratic endeavors that are imagined and pursued by scientific communities, policymakers, and other social collectives. Such an approach explores the co-constitutive dynamic of islands as sites for the foundation of technoscientific knowledge regimes, and the concomitant rendering of islands as conducive places for discovery and experimentation. The special section offers empirical case studies with insights into islands as synecdoche for larger wholes (the Earth), as experimental and exceptional sites for trialing business creation and political orders (in Singapore, and for Asia), and as variously interpreted laboratory paradise (of Hawai‘i). Further research themes for STS are suggested in the Conclusion.

Income inequality under colonial rule. Evidence from French Algeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Vietnam and comparisons with British colonies 1920–1960

We assess income inequality across French and British colonial empires between 1920 and 1960, exploiting for the first time income tax tabulations. As measured by top income shares, inequality was high in colonies. Europeans comprised the bulk of top income earners, and only a minority of autochthons could compete income-wise. Top income shares were no higher in settlement colonies, those territories were wealthier and the average European settler was less rich than the average expatriate. Inequality among autochthons was moderate, and inequality among Europeans was similar to that of the metropoles. The post-WWII fall in income inequality can be explained by the one among Europeans, mirroring that of the metropoles, and does not imply that the European/autochthon income gap was very much reduced. After independence, the mass recruitment of state employees induced a large increase in inequality among autochthons. Dualistic structures lost their racial dimension and changed shape, yet persisted.

Unequal institutions in the longue durée: citizenship through a Southern lens

This article argues that focussing on issues of citizenship highlights the relationality of North/South dynamics and that doing so through a ‘Southern lens’ reveals two complementary and otherwise neglected aspects of North/South relationality: the coloniality of the institution of citizenship, and the lasting impact that (de)colonial contestations and reinterpretations of citizenship rights have had on this institution from its emergence in the context of colonial empires until its most recent global reconfigurations. In order to show how the coloniality of citizenship has played out in a particular region of the Global South, the article focuses on the Caribbean as the region with the longest history of colonial entanglements with Europe and one that captures the very dialectics of modernity/coloniality today.

Jennifer Palmer, Intimate Bonds. Family and Slavery in the French Atlantic

In Intimate Bonds, Jennifer Palmer focuses on the French colonial empire, more specifically the port cities of La Rochelle and Port-au-Prince, to analyze how gender and race structured the social order, household and family relationships in the late 18th century. The author addresses the specificity of time-rhythm in the two territorial units from an Atlantic World perspective that integrates the metropolis (France) and the colony (Saint-Domingue) by observing the circulation of people, ideas...

Archaeology’s Offerings to Jesuit History

Abstract The contributions to the thematic issue of this journal address archaeological approaches to Jesuit missionizing in three contexts in the colonial Americas: substantial missions that also served as plantations, missions lacking full-time clergy, and short-term outposts on the edges of colonial empires. By relying on evidence from the landscape, the built environment, and objects, these studies demonstrate that the Jesuit enterprise was not subservient to, or a simple accomplice of, European colonial ambitions. Instead, missionizing by all Christian orders was intertwined with an evolution of both secular and religious philosophies that gave rise to modernity.

Fiscal Capacity and Dualism in Colonial States: The French Empire 1830–1962

What was the capacity of European colonial states? How fiscally extractive were they? What was their capacity to provide public goods and services? And did this change in the “developmentalist” era of colonialism? To answer these questions, we use archival sources to build a new dataset on colonial states of the second French colonial empire (1830–1962). French colonial states extracted a substantial amount of revenue, but they were under-administered because public expenditure entailed high wage costs. These costs remained a strong constraint in the “developmentalist” era of colonialism, despite a dramatic increase in fiscal capacity and large overseas subsidies.

Postal networks and global letters in Cartagena de Indias: the overseas mail in the Spanish empire in the eighteenth century

ABSTRACT In the eighteenth century, all European colonial empires undertook the task of institutionalising their postal systems. Within the framework of the Bourbon reforms, the Spanish monarchy embarked upon reforming the postal system within the Spanish America with the aim of making transatlantic communications more reliable and regular. These plans, however, were hampered by an ongoing power struggle between all agents with a stake in the circulation of information. This is clearly reflected in the postal office in Cartagena de Indias, which was a key node for the Crown and a point of confluence for the strategies and interests of different local and global powers; the office, therefore, represented the polyhedric reality of postal communication. This paper shows that the institution had its own agency by constituting one of the main power tools, which is a reflection of the close relationship that exists between empire and communication.

The role of the natural law in the French second colonial Empire. The example of the French colonial law in Algeria (1830-1930)

The article examines the role played by the natural law in the History of French colonial law during the Second French colonial Empire. We analyse how the notion of the natural law, which was perceived as an instrument of emancipation during the French Revolution, became an instrument of legal acculturation in the French colonial law in Algeria. We focus the attention on the case of Algeria during the period 1830-1930, for the reason that in this colony, the French tried to apply a policy of legal assimilation that tried to modify the Muslim law and the Kabyle customary law, making them more similar to the French law. The natural law had an important role in three phenomena: the implantation of private property, the codification of the Kabyles’ customs and the Muslim Law and the reformation of the customary law in the matters of inheritance and marriage.

Las colonias francesas dentro de la ecología-mundo (1830-1962): el caso de los combustibles fósiles, los bosques y las plantaciones tropicales en Argelia y Vietnam

Los imperios coloniales jugaron un papel importante en la historia del Capitaloceno a través de la apropiación y explotación de los recursos naturales baratos, de la mano de obra y las energías baratas del mundo extraeuropeo, pero también por su producción de las naturalezas capitalizadas dentro de él, y, más ampliamente su coproducción de un mundo ecológico caracterizado por intercambios económicos y ecológicos desiguales a escala global. Basado en una problemática resultante del trabajo de Jason Moore, una reinterpretación de la historiografía existente y un trabajo de archivo, este artículo muestra que, si bien es esclarecedor comprender la historia de los combustibles fósiles, los bosques y las plantaciones de Argelia (1830-1962) y de Vietnam (1858-1954) en términos de ecología-mundo, su contribución al desarrollo de la ecología-mundo debe examinarse a la luz de las especificidades de cada colonia y de cada sector. En primer lugar, hay que matizar la hipótesis de una producción colonial de combustibles fósiles que sería sistemáticamente barata y destinada a los centros capitalistas occidentales de la ecología-mundo, no correspondiendo esta hipótesis ni al carbón argelino (caro y usado localmente) ni a los hidrocarburos argelinos (caros y exportados principalmente a Francia) ni al carbón vietnamita (barato pero exportado al sudeste asiático). Entonces, la historia conjunta de las plantaciones de caucho vietnamitas y la agricultura colonial argelina revela una capacidad desigual y nunca absoluta de los colonizadores franceses, siempre dependientes de las condiciones ecológicas locales, para crear naturalezas capitalizadas que generen productos tropicales baratos. Finalmente, el estudio combinado de la explotación colonial de los recursos forestales en Argelia y Vietnam permite mostrar hasta qué punto el ecologismo manifestado por los colonizadores franceses, en particular el de las administraciones forestales coloniales, no obstaculizó la producción. Para la ecología-mundo, este análisis, evidentemente, merecería ser profundizado por nuevos estudios de caso, pero constituye, sin embargo, un primer vistazo a la compleja inserción histórica de las colonias francesas en el mundo ecológico.

Overview of Colonial Development Policy on Malayan pineapples industry, 1926-1934

During the inter-war years, the Colonial Empire played a significant role in contributing tropical products to the United Kingdom. Besides supplying raw materials, the colonies also contribute to the food supply for the mother country's inhabitants. In 1925, the Imperial Economic Committee began promoting and inquiring the empire’s food product for consumption in the United Kingdom. Afterwards, the British government introduced the Colonial Development Act of 1929 to encourage tropical development in the Colonial Empire. However, the present study neglected the influence of that on Malayan economic activities. Thus, this article examines the implementation of the colonial development policy in promoting Malayan pineapples industry. This study used content analysis to construct the relationship between colonial policy and economic development in Malaya. This study provides historical evidence and data collected from the National Archives of the United Kingdom and Malaysia's National Archives. The findings showed that the imperial aid had supported Malaya in becoming a major supplier for canned pineapples in the British Empire. However, the colonial development policy led the colonial government in Malaya as the debtor to the imperial government. Keywords: British empire, colonial empire, economic history, global trade, neomercantilism, tropical fruits.

A Counter-History of Laïcité: France and Islam in 1905

ABSTRACT Islam is typically presented as the most recent religion to have established itself on French territory, and as having been absent from the French religious landscape when the well-known law separating church and state was passed in 1905. The purpose of this article is to overturn this narrative. It demonstrates that not only was the Muslim religion widely present in France, particularly in its Algerian départements, but that proof exists of debates on the law's application in the colonial empire shortly after its passage. In the regions where Islam was the majority religion, the state chose either not to apply the law or, when legal restrictions and republican discipline were too strong – this only applied to Algeria until its independence en 1962 – to develop a regime of exception that allowed for control of the Muslim religion.

Similarities and differences in the management of psychiatric disorders by the colonial empires: an historical overview.

Colonial psychiatry represented the first, despite distorted, attempt to interpret psychiatric symptoms in non-Western cultures. This psychiatry, therefore, laid the roots for the subsequent development of ethnopsychiatry, but it also represented the first example of the political use of this discipline. Purpose of the present article is to provide a critical review about the management of psychiatric disorders in the different colonial empires. We critically summarized relevant literature about theory and practice of colonial psychiatry in the different European empires. All the colonial empires were characterized by few resources destined to mental health both for the colonizers, but especially for the local populations. The British used reports from psychiatric hospitals to maintain political control over the colonies. French colonial psychiatry focused more on cultural assimilation, while the Dutch one was based on theories of racial inferiority of local populations. In Italy, colonial psychiatry focused more on the differences between the north and south of the country than on non-European territories. Although with differences between the various empires, colonial psychiatry provided means and support for the political and social control of the occupied territories.

The concept of ‘Republic’ in Francophone African states: origin and impact

ABSTRACT Taking the opportunity of the 60th anniversary of independence of the former French colonial empire, this article addresses the issue of being ‘Republics' for the Francophone African states in sub-Saharan Africa. From the history of decolonisation and the milestones of the independence process in Francophone Africa, the article shows how that process was torpedoed by France, in order to guarantee a continuous presence in Africa and to preserve control over its former territories for its vested interests. Even after 60 years of independence, the decolonisation process appears to be unfinished. The article also emphasises that the current poor political system of governance in Francophone Africa lies in the concept of Republic and has a lot to do with history. Therefore, for the Francophone African states to assume mastery over their own destinies, they need to reconsider their historical legacy within the challenge of having their identity as ‘Republics’ as their sole reference.

From the great depression to decolonization: entrepreneurship and capital returns in the Portuguese colonial empire

ABSTRACT The integration of financial markets was a facet of the increasing globalization of the worldwide economy. The focus in this paper is the business organizational perspective of corporations that operated in Portuguese overseas territories: Distance, climate, lack of trained local labor force, and other difficulties related with cultural differences, required organizational aspects that represented higher risk and higher capital rewards. They were higher than the average index of the Lisbon Stock Market as a whole, and must be interpreted in the context of the role of different organizational aspects for entrepreneurship and businesses in overseas territories.

Decolonizing Central Europe: Czech Art and the Question of ‘Colonial Innocence’

The recent call to decolonize art history and the institutions of art have largely focused on the legacies of the major European and American colonial powers, such as Britain, France, Spain and the United States. Positioning Europe at the heart of modernity/coloniality prompts questions to do with how to place the states and cultures of east central Europe, none of which had colonial territories or engaged in projects of expropriation and colonial exploitation. It was along assumed that states such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were little touched by the debate over decolonization, precisely because they had no overseas colonial empires. Belief in ‘colonial innocence’ was an important aspect of national self-definition. This article examines this conviction with reference to the specific case of the Czech lands and Czechoslovakia. Looking at practices of cultural representation, museum collecting and architecture in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it suggests that the idea of colonial innocence is open to interrogation.

Lunatic asylums: A business of profit during the colonial empire in India.

The knowledge about “maladies of the mind” was in the early stages of development and far from being considered as medical conditions till the mid-19th century. Around this period, the British began to establish “Native-Only” lunatic asylums in India, particularly in the Bengal Presidency of their colonial empire. These institutions were primarily meant to provide custodial care and to rehabilitate those creating nuisance, particularly the wanderers and vagrants. However, these facilities turned into forced labor houses producing goods for the British Empire in the name of treatment. As traders, the British amassed India's wealth in several ways, and the establishment of lunatic asylums for the natives was one of the profit-making businesses. Undercover of Victorian morality, the reports of medical treatment had evolved into profit margin data. This article explores some of the obscure facts of British colonial rule in regards to mental health.

Osvrt na istorijat srpsko-britanskih odnosa

The upcoming year, 2022, marks a jubilee - 185 years since the establishment of official diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland at the very beginning of its Victorian era, and the Principality of Serbia at the beginning of its era of establishing statehood. In 1837, diplomatic and consular relations were established between the empire "on which the sun never sets" and the non-sovereign Serbian principality which was nominally autonomous within the framework and structure of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The topic of this paper is an outlook on the history of relations between two old European nations - the Serbs and the English, the Anglo-Saxons or the British , and two states - a great power and a colonial empire on the one hand, and a small but promising European country on the other.

International politics within the Japanese colonial empire, 1930-1938

International politics within the Japanese colonial empire, 1930-1938

Encenar a nação — a diplomacia cultural do Estado Novo português através dos Centros de Informações de Genebra e Roma

This article examines the efforts of Portuguese cultural diplomacy abroad in the aftermath of World War II. Drawing on the concept of soft power theorised by Joseph Nye, the research focuses on the first Portuguese Information Centres, in Geneva and Rome, created by the Portuguese Minister in these cities, António Ferro. Drawing mainly on unpublished documentary sources from the National Secretariat for Information fund in the National Archive, the aim was to shed light on its organisation, its relationship with central government, and to examine the activities undertaken and the results achieved. The working hypothesis was that the Centres functioned in a logic of defence of the nation, part of a strategy to «seduce» a post-war democratised Europe, confronted with the Portuguese dictatorship, which persisted in maintaining a Colonial Empire

The US Press and Imperialism: the Transfer of Ideas and Practices in 1945—1948

No research in the colonial system issues during the Cold War would be complete without studying the press of the participating parties. In order to give a detailed analysis of the international relationships in terms of the global transformations from the American point of view, the author draws relevant newspaper articles published after the World War II. The results have shown changes to priority schemes as viewed in American social discourse during 1945—1948. Roosevelt’s plan for the dismantling of the colonial empires was gradually replaced with less radical plans, which presupposed using the colonial experience for foreign policy of the USA.