Is the process in which a dominant group leads another group to accept subordination as the norm?

European Colonialism(s)

Colonialism refers to the combination of territorial, juridical, cultural, linguistic, political, mental/epistemic, and/or economic domination of one group of people or groups of people by another (external) group of people. European colonialism refers to the various formulas of territorial domination effected by European powers upon non-European people (indeed, upon much of the world), from the late 1400s to the mid- to late 1900s. These European countries included Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands. At various points in modern history, European powers colonized, in some form, most of Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania, the Middle East and the Arctic (excluding Antarctica). As with any large-scale, multidimensional, and socially holistic phenomenon, there is incomplete transferability of the characteristics of one form of European colonialism upon another. Heterogeneous material practices and imaginaries emerge(d) from and within European colonial systems. These colonialisms are extensive, porous, and dissimilar imagined and material (re)orderings of the world. Frictions and power struggles between European powers as well as colonial subjects for the control over territory, markets, labor, and ideology shaped the patterns of European colonialism.

Interdisciplinary scholars working within colonial studies demonstrate the disunities, ambiguities, and incoherence of European colonialisms, including how they were practiced and experienced distinctly according to historical context, local geographies, colonial policy, precolonial sociopolitics, and more. As such, these epochal terms are problematic. The “precolonial,” for example, was never absolute nor static and some scholars have argued these are inappropriate frames for understanding the rich range of human history. The Nigerian political philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò writes of the limitations of the dominant historical imposition of precolonial, colonial, and post-colonial upon African societies as explanatory categories. He argues that the preeminence given to these epochal structures works to essentialize African societies, reduce appreciation for people's agency, and misrepresent the dynamism of culture.

Colonial domination, law, appropriation, and containment were distinct and dynamic over time in each respective colonial territory, but European colonialisms shared various broad tendencies. Chief among them were (a) the initial penetration and restructuring of colonial markets, territories, and cultures by concessionary companies and Christian missionary work; (b) “accumulation by dispossession,” or colonial enrichment through legalized territorial domination, natural resource extraction, forced labor, and tax administration (later to be replaced by colonial debt burdens and subsequent economic restructuring); and (c) racialized, patriarchal, and heteronormative logics and shared white supremacy that afforded ideological foundations for European colonialism.

Abstract

Internal colonialism refers to the relations of exploitation and domination between ethnically/culturally heterogeneous groups within a sovereign territory. The internal colonialism theory (ICT) was pioneered in the advanced country context (the United States) and in the global periphery (South America), but it has been applied to many other parts of the world. While the interest in the ICT has declined since the 1980s, it is still used in the academic literature. The ICT challenges the dualistic ideas of modernization theory. Taking inspiration from the literature on colonialism–imperialism, the ICT draws a parallel between oppression/exploitation of peoples in external colonies of a sovereign country and oppression/exploitation of an ethnic/racial group inside the country. The ICT explores the link between class and nonclass relations such as ethnicity/race. The theory has been criticized on several grounds. One is that some adherents of the ICT treat ethnic/racial relations as autonomous of class relations: One entire group of people is said to subjugate another. Besides, the dominant ethnic group is assumed to have a vested interest in maintaining internal colonialism forever, so the possibility that internal colonialism might weaken with the development of capitalist relations is not considered. Many scholars have also criticized the ICT for its problematic political implications.

Colonialism

Colonialism has been the most frequent way for one group of people to dominate another. Colonialism is the maintenance of political, social, economic, and cultural domination over people by a foreign power for an extended period (W. Bell, 1991). Colonialism is rule by outsiders but, unlike annexation, does not involve actual incorporation into the dominant people's nation. The long control exercised by the British Empire over much of North America, parts of Africa, and India is an example of colonial domination.

Colonialism has often led indigenous people, such as tribal groups, to become a minority in an area they once were the majority (dominant) group. Examples of this process include the Maori of New Zealand, the First Nation people of Canada, and the Hawaiians of Hawaii. Societies gain power over a foreign land through military strength, sophisticated political organization, and the massive use of investment capital. The extent of power may also vary according to the dominant group's scope of settlement in the colonial land. Relations between the colonial nation and the colonized people are similar to those between a dominant group and exploited subordinate groups. The colonial subjects are generally limited to menial jobs and the wages from their labor. The natural resources of their land benefit the members of the ruling class.

Colonialism is domination by outsiders. Relations between the colonizer and the colony are similar to those between the dominant and subordinate peoples within the same country. This distinctive pattern of oppression is called internal colonialism. Among other cases, it has been applied to the plight of blacks in the United States and Mexican Indians in Mexico, who are colonial peoples in their own country. Internal colonialism covers more than simple economic oppression. Nationalist movements in African colonies struggled to achieve political as well as economic independence from Europeans. Similarly, African-Americans also call themselves nationalists in trying to gain more autonomy over their lives (Blauner, 1969, 1972).

The meaning of colonialism has changed over time. Originally used to describe practices and phrases unique to colonies, it came to represent the process by which some countries established settlements of their own populations in other lands. Its modern usage, normally pejorative, refers to the political control and economic domination by metropolitan states over other peoples. Anticolonial movements attacked this relationship and achieved independence, thus ending formal colonialism. However, neocolonialism is said to exist when rich states of the north are able still to dominate the internal affairs of these ex-colonies while dominant groups within states can exercise internal colonialism by using their economic and political powers to control other groups. Recent scholarship has re-evaluated both the degree of control exercised by the metropolitan powers to emphasize local initiatives and the benefits gained by those who lived under colonial governments.

Colonial Impacts

Colonialism has greatly impacted upon indigenous peoples and their helping practices and requires recognition. In many parts of the world, indigenous peoples are oppressed and prevented from living in ways that emerge from their epistemes and cultural practices. This oppression varies throughout the world, ranging from forms that marginalize indigenous voices and practices to outright violent persecution of indigenous peoples.

Theorists indicate that oppression has disconnected indigenous peoples from their own epistemes and ways of experiencing and being in the world in varying degrees (Akena, 2012; De Souza and Rymaez, 2007; Fanon, 2008/1951; Hart, 2002; Memmi, 1991/1965; Simpson, 2008). Some indigenous peoples have maintained a strong connection with their epistemes to remain the dominant driver in how their peoples move forward in their daily lives. These individuals include elders who maintain knowledge of the traditional ceremonial practices of their nation (Couture, 2011). Others have internalized cultures stemming from oppressive forces to the extent of incorporating various dominant epistemes and practices. For another segment, this incorporation has come by force and impacted upon them to the degree that they have internalized oppression against their own people and now actively work against ways of living that reflect indigenous epistemes. An example of internalized oppression is demonstrated through indigenous gangs that attempt to rule their own communities through fear and violence (Comack et al., 2013). One result of imposed colonialism has been increased diversity within indigenous communities, spanning from individuals maintaining a way of being based in their indigenous episteme to individuals who separate themselves from indigenous ways of being.

Colonialism and Exploration

Colonialism was and had always been associated with exploration given that colonialists need to investigate their actual or potential territories. There is a change in emphasis here from what might be termed exploration as encounter to exploration in detail, from claiming territory now known to exist to getting to know the territory, the better to administer and exploit it.

One of the first examples is that of Hernando de Soto (c. 1496–1542), a Spaniard who had been with Pizarro in the Conquest of Peru and had become wealthy on the plunder therefrom. In 1539, he led an expedition to what is now the south of the United States seeking, as always, a passage to the Orient and gold but also with the aim of establishing colonial settlements. His party traveled through areas, including present-day Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, and Texas, and they may well have been the first Europeans to see the Mississippi. de Soto, who died on the expedition, failed in all his objectives. His surviving men limped back into Spanish Mexico in 1642 in penury, without gold, in poor health, and wearing only animal skins. However, the records of the exploration are invaluable scientifically as they detail aboriginal culture prior to contact with Europeans other than their own party, ironically societies which they helped in large part to devastate, not through conquest but rather the transmission of diseases to the aboriginal peoples against which they had no immunity. Finally, de Soto's explorations were the basis for the Spanish claim to large parts of what is now the southern United States.

In a similar vein was the expedition led by Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) and William Clark (1770–1838) of 1804–06. In 1803, the recently established United States had acquired from France through the Louisiana Purchase over 2 million square kilometers of territory west of the Mississippi. President Thomas Jefferson set up this expedition party, the Corps of Discovery, with the principle aim of establishing practicable water communication across the continent for the purposes of commerce, with subsidiary aims of studying local people, botany, geology, etc. Starting in Illinois in May 1804, the party reached the Pacific Ocean and, after overwintering at Fort Clatsop in Oregon, began the return journey in March 1806 reaching St Louis in September carrying significant information, including scientific samples and maps regarding the geography of the new territory of the United States. The Lewis and Clark expedition helped open up the new land for the fur trade initially and later more extensive settlement and also strengthened the US claims to further areas beyond the Louisiana Purchase, namely Oregon Territory.

A less well-known but equally valid example of exploration associated with the acquisition of territory relates to the British occupation of the Falkland Islands from 1833. In that year, after a complex history of settlement and ownership, the British navy established authority over the islands. There was a need to create a more substantial presence than the handful of people supported by naval rations who lived in the one settlement there in the 1830s. The Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners were instructed to report on economic prospects for the Falklands and suggestions included use as a penal settlement, a refreshment station for ships rounding South America, a military base, and an agricultural colony, suitable, it seemed, for a small body of people of frugal and industrious habits—Scottish islanders were suggested. A new lieutenant-governor, Richard Moody (1813–87), was sent down replacing the last of the naval officers in charge and tasked to explore the area under his command. In 1842, within 3 months of his arrival, Moody presented an extensive document of 15,000 words of detailed topographical and geological description including a land classification. This was an exploration with a focus on economic opportunities: pastoralism, hunting and fishing, and growing vegetables. He identified plenty of building stone, peat for fuel, and kelp for manure near the coasts.

A generation later when the British, at first through the Hudson's Bay Company, were settling in Vancouver Island off the west coast of Canada, people there went to explore, to see what there was. It is perhaps appropriate that this example of exploration in detail was carried out in a place named for George Vancouver (1757–98), whose voyages in this area were exploration as encounter. The first private settler, W. Colquhoun Grant (fl. 1820–57), published in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1857 a lengthy account of the island and its potential, including timber and coal supplies, harbors and fisheries, and prospective agricultural land, also sections on the native peoples; all “the results of personal observation,” one of the sections being a “trip round the island.” Grant looked to Vancouver Island “being settled by bodies of independent freeholders accustomed to rely on themselves for support.” Within 3 years Facts and Figures Relating to Vancouver Island and British Columbia Showing What to Expect and How to Get There by the island's surveyor-general, J. Despard Pemberton (1821–93), had appeared to further encourage such migrants.

Postcolonial Changes: National Identities

While colonialism left a long legacy of Westernized place names in many colonies, the birth of independent states since World War II created a wave of indigenous toponyms, reflecting nationalistic expressions, a political control of history, and expressions of a new political order. The postcolonial rise of nationalism in many developing countries has seen a reassertion of indigenous place names. On independence, many of the island states in the Pacific reverted back to their indigenous names: Tuvalu (from Ellice Islands), Vanuatu (from New Hebrides), and Kiribati (from Gilbert Islands). In the continent of Africa, the reversion to indigenous country names was widespread after independence from the colonial masters: Benin (from Dahomey), Burkina Faso (from Upper Volta), Ghana (from Gold Coast), Djibouti (from French Somaliland), and Rhodesia (named after Cecil Rhodes) became Zimbabwe. In Burma, the military junta opted for Myanmar (comes from myan or strong and maa meaning hardy) as the country's new name, its capital of Rangoon was changed to Yangon, and its main river the Irrawaddy became the Ayeyarwady. Similarly, Ceylon became Sri Lanka (1972), British North Borneo became Sabah (1963), and in India, the roll call of city name changes since independence has not stopped. Every few years, cities named by the British are being renamed: Trivandrum to Thiruvananthapuram (1991), Bombay to Mumbai (1995), Madras to Chennai (1996), Calcutta to Kolkata (2001), and the proposed Bangalore to Bengalooru (2007). Even in the noncolonized country of Siam, the country's rulers changed the Western-derived name to reflect its true national spirit and renamed the country, Thailand (1949), the “land of the free.” These name changes in the contemporary world reflect in part the complex processes of deterritorialization and reterritorialization of the histories of connection and disconnection and what Doreen Massey calls the “progressive sense of place.”

Every war of nationalism has also been signified with an endorsed place name to reflect the indigenous politics: East Pakistan to Bangladesh; Saigon after its fall to North Vietnam's communist masters to become Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Like the city of Brasilia (new capital of Brazil), in Malaysia a new capital was established under the Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohammad and was named Putrajaya (or Putra's success) after the name of Malaysia's first Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj. In Myanmar, the military government chose to build a new capital called Pyinmana Naypyidaw (Naypyidaw means “the abode of kings”). The new capital's place name seems to reinforce Myanmar's illustrious kingdoms of the past and the ruling junta's belief in astrological predictions. The preceding postcolonial naming exercises of national figures like Ho Chi Minh and Tunku Abdul Rahman can be interpreted as indicators of nationalistic fervor or community identity. While colonialists named street names in their tropical colonies after Western heroes and wars in the West, at times the decolonizing process did not lead to name changes of irrelevant colonial inspired place names. For example, in Singapore, Petain Road still remains a colonial reminder of World War I despite the fact General Petain was a disgraced hero (who collaborated with the Germans) in World War II and all street names and public mementoes of him have been almost eradicated in the West. Ironically, Singapore is the last significant public bastion commemorating General Petain despite private appeals to government officials to remove his street name.

The nationalistic unfolding from formerly developed “imagined communities” has given way to more nation-states in the developing and communist worlds. The most recent dramatic examples of new nation-states are East Timor, the fragmentation of the former Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia (“Land of the South Slavs”) has been Balkanized into numerous nations: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Hercegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Like the process of decolonization in the developing world, the devolution of a former state like Yugoslavia created a similar toponym effervescence that translated into “semiotic polyglotism,” linguistic hybridizations, and diverse ethnic, cultural, and social text and codes. Yugoslavia Balkanized into several independent states, creating a post-Tito state with postsocialist transformations, and a cultural politics of “Other(ing) and Self(-defining)” according to Sakaja and Stanic. Josip Tito's multiethnic state experiment imploded and new fractured states were bent on nationalizing territories, tearing down old monuments, and renaming streets to fit the identities of their new nation-states.

After an interlude with communism, Russian leaders decided to change the name of Leningrad (after Lenin) to the city's more legendary name of Saint Petersburg and Stalingrad (after Stalin) to Volgograd, a reflection of deep historical nationalism. Singapore's street names reflect the contradictions and swings of policies in nation-building in which street names at times underscored nationalist ideologies (e.g., Malayan, dialect, and pinyin names) to construct the “nation” and at times names were erased in line with the reshaping of national imaginary. In Great Britain, the Council for Name Studies in Great Britain and Ireland saw the importance of place names as a national endeavor and hence encouraged its own members in March 1965 to compile for the first time a comprehensive and systematic list of place names covering England, Scotland, and Wales. The result was the book by Margaret Gelling, W. F. H. Nicolaisen, and Melville Richards, The Names of Towns and Cities in Britain.

At the national level, it seems evident that place names provide communities a sense of social belonging, territoriality, and national ownership. As Claude Levi-Strauss observed “space is a society of named places.” A place name gives identity to people as in country names. We refer to citizens by their country or nationality: English, Russians, French, Mexicans, Japanese, Indians, and Australians. Names of nation-states carry a sense of deep pride for their citizens or are viewed in derogatory ways by foreigners. In Renaissance Europe, Hale documents the unflattering national characteristics: the French are rash, the Italians effeminate, the Dutch drunken, the English busy-hands, the Swethens timorous, the Irish barbaric, the Spanish weaklings, and the Bohemians inhuman. In the globalized world, country names have become important brand names for food, sports, history, holidays, and other human activities. We think of Thai and French foods, of Brazilian soccer or football, of Italian and French fashion designs, and German, Swiss, and Japanese precision. Place names also carry with them idyllic, Edenic, and relaxing associations: Hawaii, Bali, Tahiti, the Caribbean, and the Maldives.

For the Westerner, the terms “Orient,” “the East,” and “Asia” are more than cardinal reference points. The geographical remoteness and esthetic distance of Asia evoke in Westerners' exotic ideas, romantic echoes, fantastic overtones, and a byword for the marvelous. Asia to the Persians and the Greeks became counterpart entities and divisions, a product of names developed in a blundering fashion but probably one of the first triumphs of scientific geography. Similarly, the term “Indochina,” its mélange of Indian and Chinese elements, stirs French imaginary scaffoldings on which Indochina as a fictional place, a lieu de mémoire, and a vision of an exotic utopia were erected and against which the fantasies of artists, writers, filmmakers, architects, political figures, and others emerged. On the other hand, place names like Casablanca, the French Riviera, and Monaco distill romantic imaginations especially for the Western world, a product no doubt of the movie industry. In France, the names of pays are identified with specific types of cheese (Brie, Normandy) and liquors (wines, brandy, and champagne: Cognac, Champagne, Burgundy, and Medoc). In other cases, place names of pilgrimage cities reveal religious and spiritual connotations: Mecca, Varanasi, Bethlehem, Fatima, and Lourdes. In short, place names can be perpetually manufactured by new traits and cultural identities associated with a country, region, district, or city by an ever changing global community.

These new identities associated with places demonstrate the global identification of places and cities which provide metaphors in cosmopolitan discourses. In a globalizing world, international icons, multiracialism rather than racism, and democratic ideals transcend nationalistic stirrings. Kari Palonen notes how the assassination of the US President John F. Kennedy led to his name being used in streets all over the world. In France Kennedy had become a global icon and his name in 1978 was present in 49 of the 95 prefectures. The shifting global political changes have also led to profound toponym changes in countries like South Africa and the former Yugoslavia. The dismantling of apartheid rule led to what Wade Adebanwi calls an anti-White “re-racialization” of street names and others refer to as “toponymic cleansing.” Cities like Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, and Durban went through a wave of street renaming which underscored the political narrative of the termination of apartheid, the confirmation of black majority rule, and the founding of a new political order. Yet voices like Nelson Mandela were against a renaming exercise based on “petty revenge” or “defensiveness.” The new South Africa as a “Rainbow nation” that preserves the ideal of a multiracial society needs according to Adebanwi, a process of preserving and transforming place names.

Singapore was one of the few colonial states where nationalization of place names did not take place as a result of decolonization. Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew scoffed at the idea of replacing colonial place names with indigenous ones on the grounds the city-state should be proud of its history and place name changes do not change its independent status. He was of the view Singapore should improve on our colonial heritage to demonstrate Singaporean abilities in nation-building; place name changes do not change Singapore automatically to a developed state.

Gentlemanly Capitalism

Interconnections between colonialism and imperialism and the development of the capitalist system have attracted considerable academic attention. London and, to a lesser extent, Paris became the preeminent centers of colonial finance, investment, and marketing. The twin iconic symbols of London's dominance were the Royal Exchange (founded in 1565 by Sir Thomas Gresham at the junction of Cornhill and Threadneedle Street) and the Bank of England (set up by Scots-born William Paterson in 1694) (Figs. 1 and 2). European manufactured goods were traded for primary products and for the outputs of plantation agriculture such as sugar, cotton, rice, and tobacco. Plantation agriculture depended on slave labor drawn from West Africa. By 1750, as a result of the impetus of capitalism, nearly 4 million Africans had already been taken to the Americas, thereby creating both new colonial economic geographies and a permanent reconfiguration in the cultural geography of two continents.

The notion of gentlemanly capitalism recognizes the pivotal role of economic drivers in European colonialism and imperialism. The term describes the small elite group of influential, London-based individuals who managed investment in, and the running of, Britain's colonial economy from the late-17th Century until the interwar years of the 20th Century. Gentlemanly capitalists controlled the finance and services sector, which are seen as the vital focal point of British imperial power and were the crucial underpinnings that linked the United Kingdom with the rest of the globe. Comprising a blend of the old landed elite and the nouveaux riches of the City of London, cemented by marriage connections, old-school-tie links, and later by membership of the same social and sporting clubs, the gentlemanly capitalists exerted immense power and influence across the rest of the world. As a radical revisionist theory of imperialism and capitalism, the thesis has proved highly controversial, but its importance lies in the emphasis it places on finance capitalism as the key motivation for, and determinant of, imperialism.

Colonialism and Ethnicity

The legacy of colonialism provides a number of instructive lessons for understanding the emergence and timing of nationalist movements. Territorial boundaries drawn during periods of colonialist rule (especially in Africa and the Middle East) provide examples of how colonialism encouraged ethnic cleavages that subsequently form the basis of independence movements based upon ethnic nationalism. During periods of state-formation, outcomes depend upon complicated negotiations between opponents, nation-builders, and external participants. As norms of self-determination gained momentum internationally, colonialist regimes became perceived as wielding illegitimate power over the indigenous population. As a result, nationalist movements of independence often adopted an ethnic character, often in contradistinction to colonialist racial/ethnic identities.

E/R/N movements are fundamentally embedded in (often contradictory) legends and myths about various group identities and actions that have shaped their histories. Language, religion, immigration, and migration histories all play a role in building the defining characteristics of a region. However, periods of nation-building that coincide with independence movements apparently play a central role in determining the nature of identity of an imagined ‘nation.’

Introduction

Public health and colonialism have strongly linked histories. In part this is because of the historical period in which they both consolidated. As European nation-states emerged over the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the health and welfare of the population became both of more interest, and gradually a responsibility of the state. Counting, assessing, and promoting longevity, morbidity, and mortality, and the impact of infectious diseases, became increasingly central to the work of many modern governments. At the same time, European interests were being consolidated around the globe, both formally and informally. The first ‘Age of Empires’ – sixteenth and seventeenth century commerce, exploration, and slave trading in the Atlantic world, settlement in the Americas, in India, and in the East Indies – was succeeded by the second ‘Age.’ In the eighteenth century, the Pacific and Australasia were explored and gradually colonized by European powers and later the United States, and by the end of the nineteenth century, much of the continent of Africa was legally owned if not actually occupied by Europeans. While not all of these ventures were government-led – some were missionary initiatives, others were commercially driven – the increasing interest in health and welfare of the domestic population (as a labor force, as a citizenry, as a military force, as a reproductive entity) extended to most colonial locations, such that by the early twentieth century collecting public health data and implementing public health programs were common.

Whenever and wherever masses of people have moved, microbes have traveled with them, infecting otherwise nonimmune populations. Conversely, groups of people have sometimes moved to foreign locations and succumbed to diseases to which they themselves had no resistance. The history of colonialism is fundamentally a history of movement of populations, sometimes forced, sometimes voluntary. And in this way, it has almost always involved transfer and exchange of infectious disease, as well as efforts to minimize and manage disease. This is discussed in the first section.

In the second section, tropical medicine is analyzed. More than any other branch of modern biomedicine and public health, tropical medicine is connected to the history of colonialism. European people's susceptibility to exotic diseases was the initial rationale for the development of ‘diseases of warm climates,’ which became tropical medicine in the very late nineteenth century. In the third section, the close relationship between mission, colonialism, and health care is introduced, in which the humanitarian care of women and children was foregrounded. What was charitable or mission work in the nineteenth century, however, largely became government work into the twentieth century. This was particularly the case in the field of maternal and infant health, introduced in the fifth section. Finally, colonial interests in health education and promotion are discussed, with specific reference to the promotion of sexual health in the past, and the colonial (and in some cases postcolonial) links between public health and eugenics.