Colonial History Research Articles

Pelo negro y dramaturgia: sentir, pensar y politizar el pelo negro mediante dos piezas cortas de teatro

This article explores the significance of black hair as a symbol of creativity, imagination, culture, and identity. It emphasizes that black hair, like performing arts, is political, as it deconstructs hegemonic beauty standards that have historically marginalized Blackness. The article highlights how colonial structures have used black hair to reinforce racism, exclusion, and inequality. The focus of the article is on the research and creative process that led to the development of two short theater pieces: Alisado and Gloria, Lola, Margarita, and Luis, written by Pablo Tatés Anangonó. These works use black hair as a starting point to explore intercultural themes and reflect on racial discrimination. In the introduction, the significance of hair in daily life and on stage as a tool for constructing stories and characters is emphasized. Hair is seen as continually processed through cultural practices, which bestow meaning and value upon it. The theoretical framework delves into concepts related to plot, dramaturgy, and the thematic concerns of the plays. Black hair is examined as a physical attribute historically used to identify Black individuals, and how colonialism has employed this to establish racial hierarchies and differences. The analysis connects these ideas to artistic and aesthetic theories that link art with social and political dimensions. The methodology employed is research in the arts, addressing and visualizing issues of personal and cultural significance. Autonarrative methods from various paradigms are employed, linking personal experience with cultural context, and testimonies of racism and discrimination related to black hair are collected. In the discussion, the theater pieces Alisado and Gloria, Lola, Margarita, and Luis are examined from different perspectives, showing the importance of black hair in colonial history and its commodification in modern times. The influence of capitalism on this commodification is addressed, and the plays spark reflections on racism and oppression. The conclusion underscores the importance of using performing arts as a research methodology to produce knowledge and foster reflections on significant social and cultural issues. The plays presented in academic events, referenced in this article, were well-received and provoked valuable discussions on black hair and its meaning in contemporary society.

Questioning Devotions, Reorienting Commitments

This paper is a methodological reflection on my time as a graduate student studying Indian Residential Schools through archival sources. I broadly survey relevant secondary studies to access the current state of the field and to chart prospective avenues for future scholarly engagement. I suggest that, for religionists, the frameworks of church history and mission history can be selectively utilized to examine the history of residential schooling. I argue that the ‘Indian Residential School’ (or IRS) terminology creates a narrowed understanding of colonialism and assimilative education by disregarding other modes of schooling deployed in Indigenous communities: the day schools and mission schools, but also hospitals, convents, and other church-operated institutions. Largely dating to the pre-Confederation period, mission schools especially fade from view when studies focus on the national model of the IRS launched in 1879 and expanded in 1884. In many regional contexts, mission schools of the colonial era laid the literal and conceptual groundwork for the later launching of the IRS system. By studying the works and the records of specific church bodies, religionists might elucidate with greater clarity the evolving differences, synchronicities, or collaborations of ideologies, policies, and practices among members of church and state over several centuries. Attending to pre-Confederation, colonial history also lends a transnational scope to a topic that is often framed in the context of national history, i.e., ‘Canada’s residential school system’. A global perspective on colonial education could assist historians of religion to assess the legacies of church, empire, and imperialism on Canada’s national model of residential schooling.

A Punahou moʻolelo: the creation of institutional memory and myth

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how Punahou School, a K-12 Hawaiʻi private school with tremendous local influence, has represented its history and particularly its ties to the U.S. colonization of Hawaiʻi. This account of how various actors tell, grapple with, or memorialize violent histories has implications locally for the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and broadly for questions surrounding memory and representation. I argue that Punahou has employed a two-pronged approach to representing its historical founding and articulating a school identity: first, Punahou has strategically sanitized the history of its founding to present a narrative that glorifies the missionary project and implies, or at least fails to question, the notion that the Christianization and colonization of Hawaiʻi were beneficial. Second, Punahou has incorporated – or, alternatively, appropriated – Hawaiian cultural symbolism, moʻolelo, and heritage to indigenize itself, thus deemphasizing the role the school itself has played in the erasure of those very same hallmarks of indigeneity. The impact of Punahou’s representational strategies is to erase the brutality of the missionary project and settler colonialism; normalize colonial ideas, behaviors, and histories; and grant implicit pardon to Punahou as an institution from reckoning with its violent history.

What the Dutch benefits scandal and policy's focus on ‘fraud’ can teach us about the endurance of empire

In the benefits scandal, the Dutch state wrongfully accused at least 35,000 Dutch parents of young children of committing fraud with subsidies for childcare, based on ethnic profiling. Especially families with heritage in the former Dutch colonies in the Caribbean and Suriname were hit. Because they had to compensate for this supposed ‘fraud’, families were often thrown into severe debt and years of financial and legal struggle, a struggle that is ongoing for many. For the parents of more than 2,000 children, this even led to the loss of custody of their children. The Dutch state has formally acknowledged that ‘institutional racism’ was part of the problem, yet the scandal remains analysed by many, especially white scholars and journalists, as unintended, incidental and unrelated to Dutch colonial history. This commentary addresses the scandal as a case of an enduring colonial legacy of targeting racialised and gendered citizens in social policy. ‘Fraud’ is a social policy category through which this is made possible and violence continues to be inflicted upon racialised and gendered members of the Dutch population.

“The Brunt of the Colonial Yoke Continues to Weigh on Us”: Understanding Africa’s Geopolitics as a Decolonial Struggle

ABSTRACT The escalation of tensions in the global political arena is hardly a recent development. Presently, there’s a notable shift toward acknowledging the enduring impact of historical traumas such as slavery, World Wars, and colonialism on humans and nations. Colonialism dealt a significant blow to Africa, with the effects manifesting as trauma. Despite its colonial tragedy, a substantial body of literature recognizes the increasing agency of Africa. Thus, this study examines Africa’s evolving economic, political, and security tensions in light of its colonial history. It applies Postcolonial Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as theoretical and analytical lenses to examine the speeches of twelve (12) African leaders who participated in the 2023 Russia-Africa Summit. I explore the pattern of issues discussed by these leaders in terms of their indicative nature of postcolonial trauma and examine how the speeches demonstrate Africa’s agency within the international political landscape. The findings reveal that African leaders tie their current political, economic, and security situations in their country to the remnants of colonialism and imperialism. Fueled with resentments, these leaders are more inclined to distrust the West but maintain trust in Russia and its “strategic” partnership. Therefore, in asserting to their agency, the analysis indicates a shift toward Africa’s interdependency and desired participation in big power politics with “sincere” support from Russia. This study highlights a significant trend in Africa’s geopolitical landscape, examining how colonialism has shaped the region’s political dynamics and impacted its diplomatic aspirations in today’s multipolar world.

Colonial Glass Beads (16th-Cent.) from Indigenous Localities of the Tamtoc Peninsula (San Luis Potosí), Mexico

We have investigated two Nueva Cádiz tubular glass beads (16th-Century) from the indigenous localities of the Tamtoc Peninsula, Huasteca Potosina (Mexico). It was part of an exceptional discovery of 96 European glass beads found in archaeological contexts of the Early Colonial period (dated 14C 1512 AD ± 30 years, before 1560 AD). They correspond typologically to the Kidd's typology's colour variants IIIc1 and IIIc2. These multilayered beads are made from a gob formed by three successive dips, then blown up, drawn, and hot-formed before being sectioned. PIGE/PIXE (Particle-induced Induced Gamma and X-Ray Emissions) and Raman spectroscopy analyses reveal that the glass type is an ashes soda-lime-silica glass. Trace elements associated with the metal oxides used to tint and opacify these glasses are also significant. The outer layer of both types is blue-coloured by copper oxide while a mixture of tin and lead oxides opacifies the middle layer in white through cassiterite (SnO2) formation. As, Ni, Bi, and U contents reveal this cobalt, mixed with manganese, which colours the inner layer of type IIIc1 beads in purple, comes from the Freiberg mine in Southeastern Germany (Saxony). Compared with other Pan-American finds from the same period, these Mexican Nueva Cádiz beads have similar chemical compositions to specimens discovered in the colonial city ‘ruins of Nueva Cádiz (Cubagua Island, Venezuela). Finally, we question 16th-Century texts on how Mesoamerican peoples might have culturally perceived these blue beads made with a material unknown to them. By studying Mexico's colonial history, we propose several Spanish expeditions that may have introduced these beads to the Huasteca.

The Impact of Political Stability on Regional Economic Growth in India: A Comparative Study of State-Level Development

This study explores the intricate dynamics of Indian politics, focusing on the interplay between historical legacies, electoral processes, and socio-economic factors shaping contemporary governance. As the world's largest democracy, India offers a unique perspective on political evolution influenced by colonial history, diverse cultural contexts, and rapid economic changes. The analysis covers the historical foundations of India's political system, the impact of major political parties and leaders, and the role of elections in determining policy outcomes. Key areas of focus include the influence of caste and religion on voting behavior, the effects of political campaigns and media, and the evolution of political alliances. The study also addresses current challenges such as corruption, governance inefficiencies, and the impact of globalization on domestic politics. Findings indicate that while India's democratic institutions are resilient, significant disparities in political representation and governance persist, highlighting the need for reforms to enhance transparency and address socioeconomic divides. This examination provides valuable insights into the complexities of democratic governance in a diverse and rapidly evolving society. Additionally, the study underscores the role of regional politics and local governance structures in shaping national policies. It highlights how regional parties and state-level leaders influence broader political trends and contribute to the complexity of India's federal system. By incorporating these perspectives, the analysis offers a comprehensive understanding of how local and national forces interact, shaping the overall political landscape of India

Mapping Women’s Memories of Britain’s Forced Resettlement Scheme in Late Colonial Kenya, c. 1953–1960

Abstract This article maps the memories of Gĩkũyũ women and girls who were forcibly concentrated during the 1950s emergency period in Kenya. Using Britain’s strategy of ‘villagization’, it considers the unique forms of surveillance and violence deployed against women understood as the ‘backbone’ of the anti-colonial Mau Mau movement. By analysing colonial records and women’s oral testimonies, the article examines civilian relationships to coercively designed counterinsurgency environments. It situates these ‘villages’ into a longer tradition of Britain’s carceral landscape across colonial states, offering fresh insights to established histories of violence, gender, and colonialism.

Credibility of Churches’ Antiracism Engagement

Abstract This article aims to explore how the entanglement of Protestant Christianity and race and racism is manifested in contemporary Dutch society, and to identify which themes for introspection this yields for majority white Dutch Protestant churches. We argue that introspection on perceived superiority of white Dutch Protestantism is crucial to uncover subtle, unconscious mechanisms and ideas that are present in majority white Dutch Protestant churches and that contribute to maintaining racism. Furthermore, we argue that contemporary topical issues such as racism and colonial history run the risk of being pushed to the margins again as long as there is no systematic review of power and privilege of white Dutch Protestantism.

A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF FRENCH AND ZIONIST SETTLER COLONIALISM IN ALGERIA AND PALESTINE

The paper explores and analyzes similarities and differences between French settler colonialism in Algeria and Jewish Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine. This study focuses on the history and historical development of French settler colonialism and Jewish Zionist settler colonialism by deploying the analytical framework of settler colonialism, and the comparative history of settler colonialism. Settler colonial studies and comparative settler colonialism allow for gaining insight into the genesis, and development of settler colonies. The intention behind the application of comparative settler colonialism, specifically in juxtaposing French settler colonialism in Algeria and Jewish Zionist settler colonialism in Palestine is to identify overlaps, similarities as well as differences between these settler polities. The results of this study have shown that French and Zionist settler colonialism share numerous similarities and features. The most important feature that these settler colonialisms adhere to is the logic of elimination, which is defined as policies and practices of settler colonial policies aimed at the dispossession, displacement, ethnic cleansing, genocide, as well as cultural assimilation of the indigenous populations. In this case, both French and Zionist settler colonialisms have subscribed and followed the logic of the elimination of the natives. Yet as opposed to French settler colonialism, Zionist settler colonialism has been less interested in cultural assimilation and integration of the indigenous people of Palestine into settler society. Another conspicuous difference between French and Zionist settler colonialism is that while French settler colonialism is already defunct, Zionist settler colonialism has managed to survive and persist. The current study contributes to settler colonial studies and the comparative history of settler colonialism. Moreover, our research can inform other studies in the field of settler colonialism, and we suggest that more research into comparative settler colonialism needs to be undertaken.

“We’re no longer the senzala”: Race, space, and difference in the Ethnic Capital of Brazil

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Ijuí, a small rural city in Rio Grande do Sul, this work examines how history, race, and power over space articulate in the construction of a multiethnic heritage tourism festival. Ijuí has recently garnered significant national and international heritage recognition based on its unique history of multiethnic European colonization and the metanarrative that this produced an exceptionally tolerant and harmonious society. Contrasting with this narrative, the reality for the city’s Black, indigenous, and mixed residents reveals how tourism is often situated within a zone of ambivalence, serving both as an enduring source of precarity and a critical site of hope. Drawing from Michel De Certeau’s theories of strategies and tactics, along with Susan Gal and Judith Irvine’s work on rhematization, this article aims to (1) trace the precarity involved when colorblind multiethnic tourism operates within contexts of marked racial inequality, (2) interrogate the ideological, material, and semiotic processes by which these precarities become recursively inscribed within the space of tourism, and (3) show how the space of tourism can be reappropriated and utilized through tactics that defy categorization as tourism, serving ends that threaten the very basis of the precarities themselves. Thus, even as the multiethnic tourism landscape has been a source of ongoing marginalization, I argue in this work that it can also be reimagined as a space of potential where new communities, relations, visibilities, and histories can circulate and take root.

‘Know the Game—Boxing’: Boxing in Colonial Kenya, 1895–1963

The history of organized boxing in colonial Kenya is complicated. The complexity stems from multiple facets undergirding colonialism. Until the last decade of British colonial rule in Kenya (1953–1963), organized boxing belonged to a tiny cadre of opulent white settlers in the colony. It became a sport for Blacks in the mid-1950s, especially impecunious Africans who appeared to colonial officials as lacking the qualities constituting morally acceptable citizens. This observation challenges the insinuation that British colonizers—administrators, missionaries, and settlers—introduced organized boxing in colonial Kenya exclusively for the indigenous people. This essay historicizes boxing in colonial Kenya (1895–1963). It is a socio-cultural history that grounds boxing within the broader history of colonization and contributes to the general history of sports and imperialism in Africa. The dynamics of class, race, citizenship, gender, power, and masculinity flow through the essay. Boxing in colonial Kenya is undocumented and undertheorized. The present work attempts to break this circle.

Miscegenation Madness

Abstract In this article, I examine how the fear of miscegenation developed as a raison d’être for the construction and maintenance of apartheid. I argue that despite its efficacy at reproducing racial-caste formations, miscegenation taboo ultimately undermined its own hegemonic mythology by constructing contradictory erotic desires and subjectivities which could neither be governed nor contained. I consider how miscegenation fears and fantasies were debated in public discourse, enacted into law, institutionalized through draconian policing and punishment practices, culturally entrenched, yet negotiated and resisted through everyday intimacies. While crime statistics show that most incidences of interracial sex involved White men and women of color, the perceived threat to “White purity” was generally represented through images of White women—volks-mothers and daughters—in the Afrikaner nationalist iconography. White women’s wombs symbolized the future of “Whiteness.” This article offers a critique of the prevailing South African “exceptionalism” paradigm in apartheid studies. Detailed analyses of government commission reports (1939, 1984, 1985) and parliamentary debate records (1949) reveal considerable American influence on South Africa’s “petty apartheid” laws, and especially the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act (1949) and Immorality Amendment Act (1950). While these “cornerstone” policies of apartheid developed from local socio-political conflicts and economic tensions, they were always entangled in global racial formations, rooted in trans-oceanic histories of slavery, dispossession, and segregation. This historical anthropological study of race/sex taboo builds on interdisciplinary literatures in colonial history, sociology, postcolonial studies, literary theory, art history, cultural studies, feminist theory, queer studies, and critical race theory.

A Lantern View from The Ruwenzori Mountain Range

This article explores the role of magic lantern performances in Belgian colonial history, and their impact on broader discussions on science communication and colonial representations. It centers on a lantern lecture that recounted a scientific expedition to the Ruwenzori mountain range in the Belgian Congo in 1932, extensively illustrated with photographic slides. Our analysis focuses on the performative strategies employed by Ganshof Van der Meersch, the lecturer, to frame his scientific discourse on the Ruwenzori mission. Drawing on visual tropes and the narrative structures of an adventurous travel story, he emphasizes the hardships and heroism of the expedition members. While the scientific aspects of the mission are highlighted, the lecture predominantly portrays the scientific process and the heroic endeavors of the members, rather than delving into the region’s fauna and flora. This narrative reinforces Western superiority over the colonized territory and its inhabitants, aligning with imperialist agendas. Enhanced by captivating visuals, the lecture strategically evokes emotional engagement to solicit financial support. By examining these dynamics, the article unveils the underlying mechanisms behind science communication in service of colonial endeavors. In the broader context of colonial studies and the history of science and knowledge, this analysis contributes to understanding of how performance-based science communication was used to advance the colonial agenda.

Syndemic Connections: Overdose Death Crisis, Gender-Based Violence and COVID-19

This article will use syndemic theory to identify and analyze overlapping health and social conditions, focusing specifically on how gender-based violence is systemically interconnected with contemporary public health issues. The overdose death crisis that continues to afflict Canadian populations is not an isolated health issue. Across Canada, it is intertwined with mental health, HIV/AIDS, COVID-19 and structural violence—the chronic and systemic disadvantages affecting those living in poverty and oppressive circumstances. Opioid use is an often-avoidant coping strategy for many experiencing the effects of trauma, relentless fear, pain, ill health and social exclusion. In particular, Indigenous and non-Indigenous women’s experiences with opioid addiction are entangled with encounters with gender based-violence, poverty and chronic ailments within structurally imposed processes and stressors shaped by a history of colonialism, ruptured lifeways and Western ways of knowing and doing, leading to disproportionate harms and occurrences of illness. While biomedical models of comorbidity and mortality approach substance misuse, gender-based violence and major infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 as distinct yet compounding realities, this article argues that these conditions are synergistically interrelated via the critical/reflexive lens of syndemic frameworks. Through secondary research using academic, media and policy sources from the past decade in Canada, complemented by prior ethnographic research, the synergistic connections among opioid addiction, gender-based violence and the effects of the COVID pandemic on diverse women will be shown to be driven by socio-structural determinants of health including poverty, intergenerational trauma, the legacy of colonialism and Western optics. Together, they embody a contemporary Canadian syndemic necessitating coordinated responses.

Elizabeth Acevedo, Laura Esquivel, and the Politics of Multilingualism

AbstractA number of bloggers, journalists, teachers, and librarians have compared Elizabeth Acevedo’s 2019 young adult novel With the Fire on High with Laura Esquivel’s Como agua para chocolate (1989), recommending that fans of Esquivel’s work pick up Acevedo’s—and vice versa. These suggestions echo Acevedo’s own comments about the narrative, which she has characterized as “parecido a ‘Como agua para chocolate,’ pero en el barrio” (Acevedo & Pichardo, 2019). This article takes this recent reception history as an invitation to think through how With the Fire on High deepens and course-corrects the revolutionary path of Esquivel’s earlier text. More specifically, I interrogate how Acevedo and Esquivel engage with linguistic identities and with multilingualism in particular as source material for political resistance and healing. Acevedo, like Esquivel before her, represents multilingual identities in ways that disrupt and resist the neocolonial violence of the United States. However, whereas Como agua para chocolate’s references to minoritized languages are executed in a manner that threatens to reinscribe traumatizing ethnoracial and class hierarchies passed down via colonial history, multilingualism in Acevedo’s novel works more systemically to intervene in and undermine such established matrices of power. Acevedo participates in a project of linguistic resistance and healing that involves reclaiming a heritage language for a multiply marginalized protagonist and, through that act of reclamation, rejecting the received cultural wisdom propagated by both colonial and neocolonial systems.

The Postcolonial Unconscious in North African Migrant Fiction

The impact of the postcolonial unconscious on North African migrant fiction has been extensively explored and revealed through both theoretical frameworks and literary practices throughout the postcolonial era. Scholars and writers alike have delved into how the psychological remnants of colonialism continue to influence the narratives, themes, and character development in this body of work. This ongoing examination highlights the deep-seated cultural and psychological legacies that shape the identities and experiences of both individuals and communities within North African migrant literature. As a reflection of the long-lasting consequences of colonial history on people and society, North African migrant writers, like other postcolonial writers worldwide, tackle themes of identity, displacement, and post-colonialism. Theorists like Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, Frantz Fanon, and Jacques Derrida have theorized that the unconscious influences language and subject creation, which in turn shapes their narratives. This analysis uses Fanon’s concept of the postcolonial unconscious, which explores the psychological effects of colonialism, such as internalized trauma and cultural hybridity, as a major framework. This study examines how postcolonial unconscious and related themes appear in the writing of North African writers who have immigrated to Europe and the USA, emphasizing the psychological and cultural effects of colonization on both individuals and groups. In addition to offering in-depth examinations of some texts, the paper presents a comprehensive view of the importance of postcolonial literary criticism in comprehending the complexities of postcolonial societies.

Colonized Body Of Women In Ahmad Tohari’s Novel The Dancer

This study aims to analyze how the female body is colonized in Ahmad Tohari's novel "The Dancer." The novel portrays the lives of women in Javanese culture, shaped by colonialism and patriarchy, and illustrates how the female body becomes a site of domination, control, and exploitation. Utilizing a postcolonial feminist perspective, this research examines the experiences of physical, psychological, and social oppression faced by the female characters in the novel and their responses to various forms of colonization of their bodies. The findings reveal that through narrative and characterization, Ahmad Tohari explores the complexities of female identity influenced by colonial history and patriarchal structures. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the female body as a battleground between dominant forces and women's resistance against various forms of oppression. Thus, this study contributes to the broader discourse on gender and colonialism studies in Indonesian literature.

Uniform Civil Code: A Balancing Act Between Equality and Diversity

This research paper examines the challenges of applying uniform legal frameworks, specifically the Uniform Civil Code (UCC), in culturally and religiously diverse contexts like India. The paper highlights how historical, geographical, and environmental factors have influenced the evolution of religious practices, particularly in personal laws. India’s colonial history, religious diversity, and political influences have shaped distinct legal systems across communities. While International human rights norms emphasize equality and non-discrimination, the implementation of a UCC must account for India's vast cultural landscape. The study underscores the importance of balancing religious freedom with individual rights, especially women’s rights, while exploring the potential conflicts between personal laws and constitutional principles of equality. Case studies such as the Shayara Bano and Shah Bano judgments further illustrate the judiciary’s role in advocating for a UCC. Drawing on international examples like Turkey, the paper explores how a secular legal framework could promote equality while being inclusive of diverse cultural practices.

Indigenous Cultural Landscapes: Decolonizing Landscape Within Settler Colonial Societies

Geographic scholarship on landscape and colonialism has not substantially engaged with the specific logics of settler colonialism, propelling recent calls to “unlearn” and “decolonize” landscape studies. This article highlights the Indigenous cultural landscape (ICL), a policy tool used since the 1990s to protect aboriginal landscapes globally, as a vital resource for geographers interested in decolonizing both material landscapes and landscape studies. I analyze six ICL studies conducted by the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, a unit of the U.S. National Park Service, in robust partnership with Indigenous nations, academics, and conservationists between 2013 and 2022. In their approaches to scale, mobility, temporality, visuality, and modes of relationship, the ICLs documented and mapped in these collaborative studies fundamentally challenge settler colonial histories and conceptions of landscape. These conceptual distinctions have clear material impacts, as I demonstrate: In Virginia, the Rappahannock River ICL study facilitated the return of land along Fones Cliffs to the Rappahannock Tribe. Considering the processes, conceptual interventions, and material impacts of the Chesapeake ICL studies together, I argue that the ICL concept can generate and expand Indigenous relational space amid ongoing settler occupation, despite the tensions and limitations of working with the settler state to do so.