Definitions of colonialism

In doing research for a class I’m teaching this summer, I realized that the definitions of colonialism that come up in a Google search are somewhat lacking in perspective. I thought I would add a couple more.

COLONIALISM:

“An enduring relationship of domination and mode of dispossession, usually (or at least initially) between an Indigenous (or enslaved) majority and a minority of interlopers (colonizers), who… pursue their own interests, and exercise power through a mixture of coercion, persuasion, conflict and collaboration.” (From the Dictionary of Human Geography, 2009, p. 94)

“Settler colonialism… strives for the dissolution of native societies… it erects a new colonial society on the expropriated land base—as I put it, settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event.” (From Wolfe, 2006, p. 388)

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