Colonialism

Colonialism remains a permanent marker on planet’s habitable surface and has evoked varied emotions and responses about its relevance, utility, and the continued stranglehold on the lives of people in the global South. These debates range from the way colonialism has forever changed the deployment of power, of resources and even people across the globe. At the same time, it has renewed calls to revisit questions of slavery, of exploitation, of human rights in current times. Reparations for the excesses of colonialism and imperialism remain a challenge. This entry seeks to provide a decolonised overview of colonialism, its origins, the complexity of forms of ‘colonialism’ and its deployment across geographical regions. Colonial past continues to be reanimated by the geopolitics of the ‘colonial present’ in this uneven and unequal world of North and South.