Colonial Forces Research Articles

Differing Eco-Phenomenological Discourses in Amitav Ghosh's Ecological Realism and Timothy Morton's Dark Ecology

This paper explores the contrasting yet complementary eco-phenomenological discourses in Amitav Ghosh’s ecological realism and Timothy Morton’s dark ecology. Both thinkers offer crucial insights into the Anthropocene, but they do so from different perspectives. Ghosh, through his historical materialist framework, focuses on the socio-political, historical, and colonial forces driving the current ecological crises. His ecological realism reflects the entanglement of human and non-human histories and advocates for a literary realism that incorporates the agency of nature. Morton, on the other hand, embraces post-humanist philosophies, specifically object-oriented ontology, to develop his concept of "dark ecology"—a framework that highlights the inherent strangeness, ambiguity, and uncanniness of the natural world. Morton introduces the notion of hyperobjects, entities like climate change that are too vast and complex to be fully comprehended by humans. This paper argues that despite their differences, both Ghosh and Morton challenge anthropocentric thinking and offer radical reconfigurations of humanity's relationship with the natural world. By placing their theories in dialogue, this paper underscores the importance of embracing both historical materialist and ontological perspectives to address the ecological challenges of the Anthropocene.

“Two normative orders”: Time, the body, and memory in Okey Ndibe’s Foreign Gods, Inc.

ABSTRACT Foreign Gods, Inc. by Nigerian American writer Okey Ndibe (2014) features the protagonist’s return to his native Nigeria to steal the statue of the local deity for monetary gain. The novel establishes the connection between the loss of respect for the Indigenous belief system and the forces of colonialism and their aftermath in a globalized context. This article argues that the novel’s theme occurs through unifying into realistic representation the three principles of Igbo epistemology – interconnectedness, cause and effect, and reincarnation – as encoded in time, the body, and memory. These dual orders endorse a powerful vision of nature and question the anthropocentric vision embedded in colonialism and capitalism. By incorporating the principles of these dual orders, the novel displays the rich cosmos of the Igbo community that disrupts the discourse of othering and discourages its continuation in the contemporary world.

Demanding Images and Memories of Colonial Violence in Tanzania

This article analyses the complex histories and contemporary uses of a colonial-era photograph of Nduna Songea Mbano Lwafu, a sub-chief in Tanzania, taken before his execution during the Majimaji War (1904–1908). The photograph, initially used for colonial anthropological purposes, has been repurposed in postcolonial Tanzania to memorialise and honour national heroes. The study traces the photograph’s journey from its creation by German colonial forces to its current role in Tanzanian museums, textbooks and artistic expressions. By analysing its use in various contexts, the article addresses the broader implications of addressing colonial visual materials that resonate with violent histories. The article highlights how the photograph’s materiality allowed it to be transformed and reinterpreted in Tanzanian cultural forms such as carvings, sculptures and calendars. It discusses the methodological approach of using oral history to provide context to the photograph, underscoring the importance of understanding the colonial violence that accompanied its creation. The article argues for the need to critically engage with colonial photographs to prevent the erasure or misrepresentation of historical figures and events. Through this case study, the article contributes to broader discussions on the politics of memory, the decolonisation of visual archives and the dynamic nature of photographic meanings in postcolonial settings.

Gaza’s Broken Lullaby: Genocidal Unchilding and the Impossibility of Mothering

ABSTRACT This article describes the devastating impact of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the strategies used to dismantle the social and familial structures of Palestinian people, particularly targeting women and children. It sheds light on the severe conditions and the complex layers of violence that affect these mothers, who struggle to provide a semblance of normalcy and safety for their children amidst such adversity. The focus on women and children is a deliberate tactic by the settler colonial project to ensure there is no future for the Palestinian nation. By disrupting the ability to mother and nurture, the settler colonial forces aim to erase the continuity and resilience of the Palestinian identity, culture, and community, essentially targeting the very reproduction of the nation itself.

Shaykh Yūsuf of Makassar (d. 1111 AH/1699 CE): A Bio-bibliographical and Doctrinal Survey

Compared to the pre-modern Arab and Persianate worlds, relatively little is known about the intellectual life of the Malay-Islamic world between the 13th and 19th centuries, and even less is known about its individual figures and their contribution to different fields of learning. This article seeks to redress this scholarly neglect by introducing Shaykh Yūsuf (d. 1111 AH/ 1699 CE), a scholar and Sufi warrior of Makassar, who led the armed opposition against the Dutch colonial forces, for which he was captured and exiled to Ceylon and later to South Africa, where he breathed his last. In this article, we examine his intellectual career and legacy, focusing on the key concepts in his teachings such as the need to observe the Divine Law (Sharī‘ah) as well as to attain the Truth (Ḥaqīqah) in order to draw near to God and become one of His “friends” (awliyā’), which can be achieved through constant liturgical remembrance of God (dhikr Allāh) as a means to attain the Truth. This study uses the historical-critical approach to investigate Shaykh Yusuf’s ideas on Sufism, which may explain his political activism and resistance against colonial rule. Drawing upon the extant manuscripts of his treatises that are now preserved in the National Library of Indonesia in Jakarta, this study concludes that Shaykh Yūsuf's life embodied the values central to Sufism, i.e., relentless trust in God, unfading sincerity, and unabated sense of sacred duty.

Historiographic Comics and Abina and the Important Men

ABSTRACT: Comics have long been praised as a medium ideal for nonfiction, and especially for memoirs of experiences in historic events such as war and persecution. I analyze Liz Clarke and Trevor R. Getz’s Abina and the Important Men: A Graphic History (first edition 2012), the first and most successful of Oxford University Press’s Graphic History Series. This series of collaborations between historians and artists exemplifies comics’ capability for nuanced historical representation. OUP’s Graphic History Series are graphic and prose textbooks aimed at high-school and college-level readers, the goal of which is not merely to relay historical facts, but rather to invite readers into historical inquiry, investigating how history becomes knowable as well as the material factors that limit and distort historical knowledge. Abina illuminates one woman’s quest to claim agency for her own life against the entangled forces of slavery, British colonialism, and West African patriarchy. Like the other titles that follow it in the series, Abina and the Important Men is composed of several parts, parts which combine to articulate “History” as a process rather than a simple object of knowledge. The comics portion of the textbook makes strategic use of the medium’s formal potential to complicate notions of time and space, and to exploit dissonances between individuals’ speeches, as well as between verbal and visual representation. These formal manipulations support Abina and the Important Men ’s interrogation of historical practices and invite inquiry into disciplinary history.

Colonial Mindset in Society

The knowledge of colonialism and its psychological effects on the Puerto Rican populace is imperative to comprehend the island’s attitudes, mentalities, and behaviors towards its colonial system. The development of a Puerto Rican colonial mentality has origins rooted in the island’s colonial history and political structures, which have resulted in its manifestation through attitudes of assimilation as well as resistance towards external cultural factors. The previously mentioned Puerto Rican attitudes are becoming increasingly significant as the island’s political tension increments alongside the need to conceptualize the predominant political ideologies within their origins as expressions of the Puerto Rican mentality and psyche. Puerto Rico’s colonial past and interactions with external cultural forces have impacted Puerto Ricans’ relationships and associations with cultural and national identity, their construction of self-concept, and their perspectives on the Puerto Rican collective. Mentalities of internalized inferiority have been found in circles of the Puerto Rican population as being connected to the island’s colonial status. Puerto Rican identity has nevertheless developed independently and distinctly from its colonial forces.

The Hokianga Dog Tax Uprising

Why was a seemingly mundane 19th-century fiscal measure—a tax levied on dog owners—met by Māori with widespread repudiation and an armed uprising? The significance of what is known as the ‘Hokianga Dog Tax Rebellion’ is often framed in terms of its apparent quashing by colonial forces in 1898, taken to signal the moment at which Crown sovereignty was finally imposed upon northern Māori. This paper questions the mainstream historical narrative, taking seriously the political stakes of taxation and locating the ‘dog tax’ within a disciplinary colonial regime that sought to interpellate Māori as financially and morally liable subjects. The dog tax was aimed at the protection of sheep, a central pillar of the early colonial economy, but was also viewed as a means of transforming Māori into citizen-subjects of the colonial regime. The doggedness with which colonial officials sought to enforce payment, and the steadfastness of Māori opposition to the tax, illuminate the highly politicised character of taxation in the colonial context. This article is an excerpt from Catherine Cumming’s The Financial Colonisation of Aotearoa, to be published by Economic and Social Research Aotearoa in late 2021.

Understanding Political (In)stability in Nigeria: Colonial Force, Post-colonial Farce and Africa’s ‘Two Public’

Peter Ekeh’s ‘Two Public’ – primordial and civic – is a novel invention to understanding the socio-political and economic life of African society. The two public espouses the existence of dual moralities resulting from colonialism while highlighting the divisive role of this colonial legacy in contemporary African politics and how it continues to undermine the possibility of unified praxis in post-colonies against the hydra-head manifestations of imperialism cum neo-colonialism. This paper examines why the moralities of both publics differ? Why does the two public and its dual moralities matter in contemporary African politics? We evoke decolonial epistemic lens to explore the aetiology of (Westphalian) state and how uncritical subscription to it constricts understanding of the character and functioning of post-colonial enclaves masquerading as states. The study utilises secondary data and concludes that uncritical quest for stability in post-colonial states is tautological as the state never was.

Saidia : La perle Bleue de la méditerranée

The article has chosen to talk about the city of Saidia, the Blue Pearl of the Mediterranean. Ajroud was the name of this coastal town in eastern Morocco which underwent a modification before its foundation in 1883. The strategic border position of the Kasabah of Saidia gives it a crossroads location that connects the cities of: Oujda - Ahfir - Berkane - Nador. According to the historical thread of this Moroccan region, the Kasabah of Saidia has often aroused the interest of colonial forces, such as Germany in 1870. The foundation of the Kasabah "Saidia" is carried out, following a cooperation between the tribes of the eastern region under the supervision of the governor of Oujda. April 18, 1907, is the date of the French colonial occupation of Saidia, maintaining the position of Caid of Saidia and chief of the tribe of Ouled Mensour, (indigenous people of Saidia), to former rulers in order to secure peace and ward off rebels. Following the unique charm of Saidia beach, the French authorities have programmed several tourist projects for French residents in Morocco. This has led to changes within the space of the Kasabah. Today, the Kasabah forms the center of the city of Saidia. It has benefited from three restorations during the years: 1998 -2004 - 2012. The enhancement of the material heritage of Saidia calls for a concerted approach to local development which includes the following aspects: restoration, culture and living heritage.

‘Pou maumahara’, ‘the memory place’: Remembrance and material cultures of colonial conflict at the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira

This article explores how material objects reveal patterns of remembrance in the public histories of the nineteenth-century New Zealand Wars fought between British regiments and colonial forces and Māori hapū and iwi (tribal groups). It is based on collections research conducted at the Auckland War Memorial Museum which conceptualises a new gallery displaying stories and objects relating to the wars. Bringing together museology and historiography, the article argues that an engagement with the material culture of the New Zealand Wars and public lexicons of memory in a museum context offer opportunities to move beyond national narratives. Just as these colonial conflicts reconfigured the materiality of violence and collective belonging, so too do museum-based objects activate the presentation of these histories in light of new public needs since 2017.

The place of Somali in the resistance of Ethiopia against the Italian colonial forces in the Ogaden, 1915 to 1941

The place of Somali in the resistance of Ethiopia against the Italian colonial forces in the Ogaden, 1915 to 1941

Physically Exiled, Spiritually Returning: A Comparative Reading of Beckett’s Murphy and a Selection of Poems by Darwish

This article explores a selection of Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry and Samuel Beckett’s Murphy (1938) as postcolonial texts which are rich with postcolonial undertones. Beckett and Darwish articulate a counter-discursive rhetoric that undermines any hierarchically installed oppressive structures. Although political classifications and restrictions limit many neutral inquiries of such texts and hinder objective scholarship on Irish and Palestinian literature, many academic studies on Irish and Palestinian forms of literature have emerged. Counteracting hubristic structures, this paper tackles works from Ireland and Palestine as predominantly imbued with postcolonial implications. The research brings these authors from far-flung parts of the world to address postcolonial manifestations in Ireland and Palestine. Despite their convergences and divergences, texts from both perspectives must be used to critique structures and forces of colonialism in order to further contextualize them within the postcolonial realm. Reading Beckett alongside Darwish helped to solidify the idea that colonialism employs the same discourse regardless of place or time. It also demonstrates that oppressed people tend to employ comparable dissent mechanisms. Much like the speakers of Darwish’s Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, Leaves of Olives, “Mural,” and “My Mother” are always caught up in subordinate power relations, the eponymous protagonist of Murphy is degraded as an inferior other; one who is disenfranchised and excluded both inside and outside Ireland. Both authors refute stereotypes and stigmatization and offer a dissenting paradigm blurring power-based divisions to the status quo that renders the Palestinians and Irish as inferior to others.

Complicity and the Colonial Force of Law in the Courtroom of Katie Kitamura’s Intimacies

This article analyzes the account of the courtroom interpreter portrayed in Katie Kitamura’s novel Intimacies and argues that the book’s account presents the interpreter as an actor who must erase the subjective self in the service of advancing legally defensible narratives. The article contends that this vision of the interpreter, and the novel’s treatment of its judicial setting function as a critique of the colonial roles of law in both systemic and personal terms, and highlights the law’s pursuit, not of monolithic truths, but of procedurally defensible narratives.

Fatal gunshot trauma of a child: A case from colonial Cyprus.

Forensic science has made some significant contributions to the investigation of human rights abuses related to armed conflicts, especially in the last 40 years. Some investigations are aimed at the collection of evidence in order to prosecute those responsible, while others are humanitarian in nature. This paper presents the multidisciplinary effort to recover and identify the remains of a 7-year-old child who was shot by British colonial forces in Cyprus in 1956. An investigation led to the discovery of the burial site, and archaeological methods were used to recover the remains. The anthropological examination provided information about the age of the child, as well as the nature of the skeletal trauma present. DNA results confirmed the identity of the victim, and the remains were released to the surviving family members for burial.

Depiction of Shona marriage institution in Zimbabwe local television drama, Wenera Diamonds

Marriage is a highly celebrated phenomenon among the African people. It is one of the important institutions among the Shona and Ndebele people in Zimbabwe as expressed in the saying ‘musha mukadzi’ and ‘umuzingumama’ (home is made by a woman) respectively. However with the coming of colonialism in Zimbabwe, marriage was not given the appropriate respect it deserves. This has given impetus to this paper where the researchers in the study through drama want to bring out the depiction of marriage institution in a post -independence television drama, Wenera Diamonds (2017). This paper therefore, aims to show the impact of neo-colonialism on Shona marriage institution. The neo colonial period is characterised with the perpetuation of Western imperial interests through protocols of diplomatic relations, treaties and existing bilateral agreements which marked a new phase of relationships with former colonisers. The aim of this article therefore is to depict marriage institution in neo colonial Zimbabwe in Wenera Diamonds (2017), a Zimbabwean television drama. Using qualitative research methodology, the research employs content analysis to elucidate the depiction in the said performance. Guided by the Africana womanist perspective, the article argues that the indigenous knowledge needed for African social development is rendered irrelevant by a dysfunctional set of values of the western hegemony. Against that, the paper establishes that the depiction of marriage institution in Wenera diamonds is a reflection of imperialist colonial forces on the black person hence the need to go back to basics and resuscitate their culture.

My Mother Wild

Indigenous land relationships are central for Indigenous wellness, ceremonies, language, and cultural resurgence; as original caretakers of Turtle Island, the relationship with land is a profoundly spiritual one. This same relationship has also been the focus of colonial forces’ division, separation, and control, resulting in dislocation from traditional territories and ensuing impacts across all domains of Indigenous health and wellbeing. This article reviews existing literature that centralizes Indigenous land relationships, and contributes the reflections and stories of Indigenous youth that participated in this author’s dissertation study. Employing a narrative inquiry methodology with oral storytelling traditions, nine Indigenous youth and four traditional knowledge keepers were interviewed and shared their experiences on urban migrations, employment, education, and mental health. Their connections and reflections on land are included here, with key reflections, proposed connections to existing literature, and in-depth exploration that centers and promotes Indigenous land-based healing and education efforts.

Disrupting learning and evaluation practices in philanthropy from a feminist lens

ABSTRACT Patriarchal, imperialist, and colonial forces have long attempted to delegitimise global South epistemologies and elevate Western modes of thinking, knowing, and therefore being. In particular, within development discourse, the principles and practice of mainstream Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (popularly known as MEL) continue to legitimise these forms of knowledge construction, production, and dissemination. Traditional MEL is based on the assumption that grantees must provide ‘accountability’ to donors and ‘evidence’ to establish value for money based on predefined indicators and logframes. This approach to MEL has worked to erase the voices of girls, women, indigenous people, LGBTQI+, and others from the history of social change and to disconnect activists, collectives, and movements from a deep well of knowledge and learning. A collective reimagining of MEL is needed. Although there have been a number of alternative approaches and frameworks proposed, these remain on the periphery with most funders continuing to require grantees to fulfil multiple regimental reporting requirements to justify being funded. In this article, through a collective conversation, we document our shared learning. We showcase three diverse cases in which we as feminist practitioners and the movements we support are attempting to disrupt oppressive MEL structures, tools, and language, and funder practices as profound acts of resistance.

Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander games and sports in Australia: new perspectives

Our paper highlights that the proliferation of Indigenous sport research has not been focused on examining Indigenous games and sports. Additionally, no one has to date produced a framework for understanding them on their own merits even though these games now form part of a national physical education curriculum. The overwhelming majority of research focuses on Indigenous engagement with the British imports of cricket, the rugby codes, soccer, and Australian Rules football. We argue that this focus serves to diminish Indigenous cultures and adaptability to colonial forces, that, while disruptive, never eliminated Indigenous games and sports which go back as far as 60,000 years. We lay out such a framework in the hopes that future research will ensure that Indigenous games and sports are understood historically and in the present day.

The footprints of Three Latvian Female Missionaries in Colonial Contexts

During the era of colonial domination of much of Africa and Asia, many female missionaries from Europe served in these parts of the world. They served as teachers, medical practitioners, and evangelists but were also often seen as supporters of colonial culture. This paper examines the previously unresearched work of three female missionaries from Latvia who were sent by German mission societies to China, India, and Indonesia, respectively. The study uses historical-comparative, content analysis, and hermeneutical methods to interpret the missionaries’ own texts and those written about them. It finds that the missionaries felt compelled to cooperate with colonial forces in order to carry out their ministry, even though colonial policies sometimes restricted what the missionaries could do. They also exhibited effective application of cultural frameworks and use of language skills in serving and collaborating with local populations.