Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, was the mastermind behind the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 that ended the War of the Spanish Succession, and a lifelong rival of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. He is also known for his political use of history based on the saying of Dionysius of Halicarnassus: ‘history is a philosophy teaching by examples’. While much scholarly attention has been paid to Bolingbroke’s historical criticism of Walpole’s Whig oligarchy, his discussion of European international history (...) has been treated as a mere vindication of the Treaty of Utrecht, thus not meriting further investigation. This article reconstructs Bolingbroke’s writings on European politics as a history of British foreign policy. Arguing that his focus was on Britain’s role in maintaining the balance of power, this article demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Bolingbroke attacked the Hanoverian government not for its involvement in European politics per se but for its abandonment of the Old System of William III against France. Bolingbroke believed history was repeating itself. As the Stuarts had helped France achieve hegemony half a century ago, the Hanoverians enabled France to regain supremacy in their pursuit of private interests, re-disrupting the European balance of power. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The Portuguese and Spanish empires were both global and long lasting. This essay focuses on colonial Spanish America, particularly on the practices of natural history. It also suggests that chivalric‐epic ideologies permeated early modern epistemologies, including those of the French and the British. The essay criticizes the application of nineteenth‐century models of empire to the understanding of the early modern composite monarchies in the New World. Finally, it explores the ways metropolitan natural philosophy was transformed in (...) the New World kingdoms to bolster patriotic identities. (shrink)

This article examines the British colonial theft of Indigenous sovereignty and the particular obstacles that it presents to establishing just social relations between the colonizer and the colonized in settler states. In the first half, I argue that the particular nature of the crime of sovereign theft makes apologies and reparations unsuitable policy tools for reconciliation because Settler societies owe their very existence to the abrogation of Indigenous sovereignties. Instead, Settler states ought to return sovereignty to the (...) land’s Indigenous peoples. In the second half of this paper, I take up some of the practical questions of how this might be done and anticipate a number of objections. Giving up sovereignty would not mean dispossessing the millions of colonists who currently reside in these countries of their homes and property – but it does mean rethinking the constitutional makeup of a country and how that serves to benefit the different peoples who make their homes there. (shrink)

In the aftermath of World War II, U.S. policy toward the Asian colonies of the European powers followed a simple rule: where the nationalists in a territory were leftist (as in Vietnam), Washington would support the reimposition of European colonial rule, while in those places where the nationalist movement was safely nonleftist (India, for example), Washington would support their independence as a way to remove them from the exclusive jurisdiction of a rival power. At first, Indonesian nationalists were (...) not deemed sufficiently pliable, so U.S.-armed British troops (assisted by Japanese soldiers) went into action against the Indonesians to pave the way for the return of Dutch troops, also armed by the United States. In 1948, however, moderate Indonesian nationalists under Sukarno crushed a left-wing coup attempt, and Washington then decided that the Dutch should be encouraged to settle with Sukarno, accepting Indonesian independence. (shrink)

Derrida always stressed the importance of his engagement with Heidegger and often returned throughout his life to different aspects of Heidegger’s thought. With the recent publication of his 1964-65 course, Heidegger: The Question of Being and History greater insight is now possible into the exact terms of Derrida’s early engagement with Heidegger and the significance he would accord it in the major works of 1967 and beyond. With the reception of this text just beginning, many lines of interpretation are being (...) unfolded. However, one aspect not yet addressed in this early reception which will be crucial for approaching and orienting this work is the theme of auto-affection. The concept of auto-affection is important for assessing Derrida’s Heidegger course for two reasons. Firstly, Derrida understands auto-affection to be Heidegger’s most radical figuration of temporality in the period of Being and Time. Secondly, tracing Derrida’s early focus on auto-affection in Heidegger can provide an important context for understanding the initial development of what would become a prominent theme in Derrida’s own work. My argument in this paper is structured in three sections. In the first, I give a brief introduction to Derrida’s course. I then present the theme of auto-affection in this course and demonstrate its central importance. In conclusion, I show how Derrida’s treatment of this theme in the context of his early Heidegger engagement can be seen to look forward to his employment of auto-affection in Speech and Phenomena. (shrink)

For centuries, herbarium specimens were the focus of exchange in global botanical networks. The aim was the ‘complete’ registration of the flora, for which ‘complete’ collections in botanical institutions worldwide were considered to be a necessary basis, although this ardently sought-after ideal was never achieved. The study of colonial plants became a special priority of botanical research in the metropolises. With knowledge of the many treasures of the plant world considered the key to securing wealth and power, political and (...) economic interests influenced both the organization and the subject matter of scientific research. After the German Reich began annexing colonies in the 1880s, legal regulations established Berlin's botanical institutions as the research centre on colonial flora. They also became a clearing house for plant material from overseas. Berlin-based curators selected duplicates of herbarium specimens from the German colonies, distributing them to other botanical institutions throughout Germany. More importantly, duplicates became a form of currency in trans-imperial networks, which relied on reciprocity. In exchange for duplicate German colonial herbarium specimens, the Berlin institutions received vast quantities of botanical samples from their British, Dutch, French and American counterparts. (shrink)

The literature on the politics of science and on science policy is dominated by information about large and highly industrialized countries. For example, models of the different forms of science policy administration and management tend to derive from French, U.S., and British exemplars. Yet in the mid-1990s there is a growing number of small nations, all of which are seeking to harness research communities to the cause of socioeconomic development, while still extracting "value for money" from (...) science budgets. This article uses the case study approach—focusing on the political economy of the politics of science in the Irish Republic, chiefly since the 1950s-to analyze the problems faced by science policy agencies and the scientific community in small nations. The study offers analogies and possible insights into the politics of research policy in other small nations ; it also aims to throw light on emerging research policy trends even in bigger countries as the "bargain" between the funders and the performers of research becomes more and more explicit and increasingly subject to economic justifications. (shrink)

Marcel Mauss published his essay The Gift in the context of debates about the European sovereign debt crises and the economic growth experienced by the colonies. This article traces the discursive associations between Mauss’ anthropological concepts and the reformist program of French socialists who pushed for an “altruistic” colonial policy in the interwar period. This article demonstrates that the three obligations which Mauss identified as the basis of a customary law of international economic relations served as key (...) references in the French debate about the relationships between metropolises and colonies in the interwar period. Mauss made this relation between colonial policy and the ethnology of the gift explicit in his book, The Nation. Moving beyond Mauss’ interwar writings, the article traces the genealogy of his later reflections to his involvement in prewar debate... (shrink)

In the early 1980s the “welfare state crisis” was a point of reference common to many European countries with advanced public social policy arrangements. In most of them the scope of expansion of social expenditure had already been reigned in after the first oil price shock in the mid-1970s. But it was the impact of the second oil price crisis, with low or negative economic growth rates and another steep rise in unemployment in the early 1980s which provided considerable (...) ammunition for critics of the welfare state in many European countries and which triggered off the crisis debate. The latter was particularly pronounced in countries with centre-right and neo-liberal governments at the time and probably most outspoken in the UK. From the start of her first period in office Margaret Thatcher was explicit about her ambition to “roll back the frontiers of the state” and to give much more room for individual and private forms of social protection. In her first election manifesto in 1979 the welfare state was singled out as part of the problem rather than part of the solution to economic and social difficulties which Britain faced at the time. In short, it seems entirely appropriate to take the early 1980s as a starting point and to focus on the UK as the country in which there was arguably more pressure on traditional social policy structures than anywhere else in Europe. (shrink)

Although a great deal of attention has been paid to the history of intellectual property in Great Britain, very little has been said about the history of intellectual property law in the British colonies. This Article attempts an overview, focusing on the nineteenth century. The author argues that there was no apparent imperial strategy as to the development of colonial intellectual property laws, and that, as a consequence wide variations existed between the laws operative in Britain and the (...) colonies. One exception to this picture existed in relation to literary copyright, where, for reasons that were never clearly articulated, British law had been extended to its colonies from 1814. The overall picture was otherwise one of "legal fecundity," with capacity for variation and experiment by the colonial legislatures constrained more by internalized notions of what was appropriate than by formal, external, limitations imposed from Britain. However, towards the end of the nineteenth century, there appeared a growing desire both in Great Britain, and amongst many of the colonies and self-governing dominions, for a greater level of uniformity. (shrink)

Since 2023, the UK government's response to the “migrant crisis” has revolved around two controversial flagship policies: the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda, and the detention of migrants aboard a giant barge. In this short article, I examine the colonial and gendered dimensions of the two policies, finding them to be examples of the coloniality of gender. What this indicates, I suggest, is that the purpose of these policies is not merely to deter potential migrants—particularly LGBTQIA+ migrants—but also (...) to create a political narrative that allows the Conservative Party to garner right-wing votes by participating in high-profile culture wars; namely, the debate over transgender rights and the debate over how the UK should reckon with its imperial past. (shrink)

Character education is a specific approach to morals or values education, which is consistently linked with citizenship education. But how is it possible for a heterogeneous society that disagrees about basic values to reach a consensus on what constitutes character education? This article explores how character education has returned to the agenda of British education policy, having been largely neglected since the 1960s in response to unsatisfactory attempts at character education going back to the nineteenth century. Between 1979 (...) and 1997 Conservative governments attempted to reverse a perceived decline in moral standards, established State control of the schools curriculum, imposed on State schools the duty to provide for moral and other development, and established a National Forum which attempted to articulate a set of consensus values in education. Labour has extended these developments in the curriculum, introduced compulsory citizenship education, and its White Paper of September 2001 speaks of 'education with character'. The character and virtues Labour seeks to promote through schools are pragmatic and instrumental in intention, linked to raising pupil school performance, meeting the needs of the new economy, and promoting democratic participation. Otherwise the vision is pluralistic and evades explicit directives, and there is no explanation or analysis of its theoretical basis. The question of how agreement can be reached on what counts as character education may benefit from Sunstein's analysis of how law is possible in a heterogeneous society - 'incompletely theorized agreements on particular cases' allow for common laws without agreement on fundamental principles. Many schools in fact operate in this way, but such a consensus is not entirely stable and runs the danger of teaching character education as a series of behaviour outcomes taught in a behaviourist fashion. (shrink)

This article shows that longstanding connections established through inclusion in the British Empire were maintained in significant ways after individual countries became independent, but remained within the Commonwealth. Although Britain declined as an international power, and largely lost its empire, it reveals ongoing British soft-power in academic cultures. The article provides a new scholarly analysis, moving away from presumptions about the anglicised university ideal in the Global South. How did British ideas transfer themselves to former colonial (...) universities? Who was involved in the process? To answer to these questions, this research focuses on the transnational activities of the Inter-University Council, the University of London and African and Caribbean universities during the late and post-colonial eras. Liberal, elite and residential education, a balance of teaching and research schemes were combined; institutional autonomy was a further added important elements in the classic British university cultures. However, the notion of Britain’s institutional autonomy differed in colonial universities, but functioned well for protecting their academic freedom. The circulation of British ideas for universities was a means of anglicising overseas universities at the end of empire. Britain succeeded in keeping alive the bonds of the Commonwealth universities across the wider world. (shrink)

The complicated colonial history of the Philippines impacts notions of gender in the Islands. Specifically, institutions with strong foreign roots, such as universities, maintain and challenge gender relations. The Philippines sees multiple gender issues in universities despite government-mandated gender mainstreaming policies for education (CMO-1), yet the influence of colonial values remains overlooked. This article contributes to philosophising Philippine education by providing the history of the country’s universities and their role in shaping gender relations. A threefold model of gender (...) structures, relations of power, production and cathexis (emotional attachment), frames historical literature during the Philippines’ Spanish and American colonial periods and contextualises the country’s gender order. The interplay of religion and higher education during the Philippines’ Spanish colonial period reveals why sexuality remains policed by education institutions. The gendering of courses during the American Colonial period details the feminisation of certain disciplines and occupations. Harmful manhood practices adopted during this period continue to affect men in university systems through Philippine fraternities. Lastly, private education perpetuates and maintains power among the elite. The evolution of the Philippine university provides points for analysis for gender issues. These become building blocks to the discourse surrounding the Filipino philosophy of education, by understanding facets of Filipino identity construction, and proposing avenues to explore when decolonising the university. (shrink)

This is the first anthology to take a theoretical look at violence against women. Each essay shows how philosophy provides a powerful tool for examining a difficult and deep-rooted social problem. Stanley G. French, Wanda Teays, and Laura M. Purdy, all philosophers, present a familiar phenomenon in a new and striking fashion. The editors employ a two-tiered approach to this vital issue. Contributors consider both interpersonal violence, such as rape and battering; and also systemic violence, such as sexual harassment, (...) pornography, prostitution, and violence in a medical context. The editors have further broadened the discussion to include such cross-cultural issues as rape in war, dowry deaths, female genital mutilation, and international policies on violence against women. Against this wide range of topics, which integrate personal perspectives with the philosophical, the contributors offer powerful analyses of the causes and effects of violence against women, as well as potential policies for effecting change. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on white colonial emigration and the settlement of the British and Irish following the loss of the first British Empire. In particular, it examines the British imaginative engagement with the figure of the colonial settler as a casualty of war, industrialization, and poverty, as well as an economic migrant who nevertheless appeared to signify the potential for the recuperation of British society in the future. The chapter is also concerned with the (...) role of the Romantic writers and literature in the new national imaginative investment in colonial settlement. It furthermore discusses Tory arguments and policy making, which encouraged state involvement and planning of the colonization of the white-settler territories in New South Wales, Canada, the Cape, and New Zealand. This Tory strain of British imperialism was issued out from the Romantic critique of classical political economy and the Romantic assault on Malthus’s non-interventionist stance on poverty. In contrast to the liberal economists, proponents of the Tory arguments advocated the active involvement of the state in managing poverty, and the export of the excess of the population to the overseas colonies. By focusing on the Tory outlook and its implications for the settler colonies, including the imaginative dimension of the literary writers, the chapter gives a profound understanding on the strand of imperialism that evolved together with the nineteenth-century imperial liberalism, yet substantially differed from it. (shrink)

By drawing on testimonies gathered in rural Vietnam, this article focuses on the violence to which local inhabitants were subjected when Vietnam was under French rule. On a self-imposed ‘civilizing mission’, the control of local bodies was critical for the colonial powers and they became the subject of brutal abuse. Violence was exercised with impunity in the occupied areas and rendered ‘logic’ in accordance with western imaginations about racial superiority. While such ideas informed colonial terror in general, (...) the differentiated registers of terror implemented in regard to women and men disclose how sovereign attempts of reducing local inhabitants to bare life were designed, in addition to race, along the lines of gender and sexuality. Vietnamese testimonies from the French colonial period reveal experiences of a reality of horror which in the article is considered through the prism of four different body typologies; typologies which elucidate the symbolic, physical, and imaginary metamorphoses through which women and men in differentiated ways were being increasingly dehumanized in the encounter with the colonial power. (shrink)

The ontological status of theories themselves has recently re-emerged as a live topic in the philosophy of science. We consider whether a recent approach within the philosophy of art can shed some light on this issue. For many years philosophers of aesthetics have debated a paradox in the (meta)ontology of musical works (e.g. Levinson [1980]). Taken individually, there are good reasons to accept each of the following three propositions: (i) musical works are created; (ii) musical works are abstract objects; (iii) (...) abstract objects cannot be created. However it seems clear that, if one wants to avoid inconsistency, one cannot commit to all three. Following up recent developments courtesy of Cameron ([2008a]), we consider how one might respond to the corresponding set of propositions in the (meta)ontology of scientific theories. 1 Introduction2 Setting up the Problem3 What to Reject? 3.1 Scientific theories are not created? 3.2 Scientific theories are not abstract objects? 3.3 Abstract objects can be created?4 A Fourth Way: Truth-maker Theory5 Objections and Replies 5.1 What are the truth-makers? 5.2 Objections from World 3 5.3 Fictionalism 5.4 Concrete/abstract6 Conclusion. (shrink)

This essay explores the possibilities and limits of decentering Europe by examining the Haitian Revolution and contemporary invocations of its legacy among political theorists and historians. Recent accounts of the Haitian Revolution have celebrated its universalism as a realization of French revolutionary ideals. As I argue in the essay, this interpretation undermines the Haitian Revolution’s specificity as the first and only successful revolution against colonial slavery. I offer an alternative interpretation that begins from the specificity of colonial (...) slavery and explores how Haitian revolutionaries inaugurated another universalism linked to individual and collective autonomy. Haitian revolutionaries offered a radical account of black citizenship and envisioned a world order in which both slavery and colonial rule would be transcended. This reinterpretation of the Haitian Revolution offers an alternative approach to what it might mean to decenter Europe—one that begins from the specific political problems subaltern actors encountered and illustrates how ideals are remade in diverse contexts. (shrink)

This paper explores how João de Andrade Corvo and José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage, two nineteenth-century Portuguese naturalists, were able to reach prominent political positions in their country by means of their work in, respectively, botany and agriculture, and zoology. The authority they derived from their scientific activities and the knowledge they acquired in the process, favored by their proximity to particular political quarters, elevated them to important governmental offices, in the context of which they implemented policies that reinforced Portugal’s (...) identity as an imperial nation. The colonial policies and agreements signed by Corvo and Bocage aimed at securing Portuguese colonial territories, which, aside from their economic relevance, constituted a symbol of power that reinforced the sovereignty of a small nation in a Europe dominated by the rule of increasingly vaster and stronger states. In spite of their different scientific careers and personal interests, both naturalists played key roles in Portuguese foreign affairs and colonial negotiations of the late nineteenth century, especially during the Scramble for Africa. (shrink)

Following Kenya’s independence in 1963, scientists converged on an ecologically sensitive area in southern Kenya on the northern slope of Mt. Kilimanjaro called Amboseli. This region is the homeland of the Ilkisongo Maasai who grazed this ecosystem along with the wildlife of interest to the scientists. Biologists saw opportunities to study this complex community, an environment rich in biological diversity. The Amboseli landscape proved to be fertile ground for testing new methods and lines of inquiry in the biological sciences that (...) were generalizable and important for shaping natural resource management policies in Kenya. However, the local community was in the midst of its own transformation from a primarily transhumant lifestyle to a largely sedentary one, a complex political situation between local and national authorities, and the introduction of a newly educated generation. This article examines the intersection of African history and field science through the post-colonial Africanization of Kenyan politics, the broadening of scientific practices in Amboseli in previously Western-occupied spaces to include Kenyan participants, and an increasing awareness of the role of local African contexts in the results, methods, and implications of biological research. “Africanization” as an idea in the history of science is multifaceted encompassing not just Africans in the scientific process, but it needs an examination of the larger political and social context on both a local and national level. (shrink)

Given how thoroughly the history of quantum physics has been excavated, it might be wondered what these two hefty volumes by a physicist (Duncan) and a historian (Janssen) bring to the table. Aside from their inclusion of a wide range of recent work in this area, including some notable publications by themselves, the answer is twofold: first, as they state explicitly in the preface to the first volume, derivations of the key results are presented ‘at a level that a reader (...) with a command of physics and mathematics comparable to that of an undergraduate in physics should be able to follow without having to take out pencil and paper’ (vol. 1, p. vi). In response to those who might raise Whiggish eyebrows, I shall simply play the ‘you-try-reading-Pascual-Jordan's-groundbreaking-work-in-the-original’ card. As the authors suggest, by using modern notation and streamlining derivations whilst also, they maintain, remaining conceptually faithful to the original sources (ibid.), the book is rendered suitable for classroom use, albeit at the higher undergraduate or graduate levels. (shrink)

The correctness of application of orientalist discourse of E. Said to the colonial policy of the Russian Empire is analyzed in the article on the example of P. I. Rychkov research. By studying integration of Bashkirs in the structure of the Russian state, the author came to the conclusion that Russia’s policy in the East was based on the experience of the management of non-Russian peoples, which was developed in the 16-17th centuries. The establishment of ‘cultural distance‘ (...) is typical only for a small group of educated administrators of past-Petrine era. Most of the officials of the region, as in the preceding period, and during the time of Rychkov and Tatishchev preferred to rely on traditional methods of Bashkir management, which was developed in the period of their voluntary accession. Managerial stereotypes of 16-17th centuries, had significant influence on policy towards South-Eastern peoples of Russia even in the 19th century. The Russian administration inherent in the desire to integrate the non-Russian peoples in the General class structure of the state on the basis of analogies or correspondences, the objective of which was social and cultural rapprochement of the two societies. (shrink)

This article continues the themes developed in a previous paper looking at reparations for past wrongs in post-colonial Australia. It narrows the focus to examine the scope of the law of tort to provide reparations suffered as a result of colonisation and dispossession, with particular emphasis on the assimilation policies whose legacy is now known emphatically, although it ought not be exclusively, as the Stolen Generations. The search for more than just words is particularly topical in light of the (...) Australian Prime Minister's formal apology in early 2008. This highly symbolic step must not lose momentum. That momentum could be both political and legal. In the latter context, we explore here the concept of alien tort, in the light of current Australian tort jurisprudence, which has thus far proved inadequate to achieve compensation for the harms suffered. Taking a comparative approach, procedural and substantive developments are to better deliver justice consistent with community values. In particular, the greater acceptance of psychological harm as actionable tortious conduct in Canada and the United States is examined. The article further examines the scope for stolen children to bring suit under the US Alien Tort Claims Act 1789. While the Australian government enjoys sovereign immunity in the courts of the United States, non-state organisations such as churches that were complicit in the forcible removals may be subject to United States jurisdiction wherever they have a presence in that country. The procedural and substantive elements of such a claim are discussed. In particular, the relevant cause of action, the issue of forum non conveniens and the statute of limitations will be analysed to map out whether a claim could be developed and successfully prosecuted. © Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2009. (shrink)

The decolonization of France is not over yet. Blind to what was coming , France is now badly hit by the boomerang : linguistic isolation, postcolonial studies in slumber, deafness towards the boys and girls of the suburbs : words are cruelly lacking for institutions to make sense of what’s happening. At a loss, the media can only multiply distortions in media coverage and the authorities produce repression/selection at the borders. In this paper, the author develops the apparent differences between (...) English and French as colonial and postcolonial languages, as well as the difference between the language and politics of young boys and girls from the suburbia in France. (shrink)

An account of scientific representation in terms of partial structures and partial morphisms is further developed. It is argued that the account addresses a variety of difficulties and challenges that have recently been raised against such formal accounts of representation. This allows some useful parallels between representation in science and art to be drawn, particularly with regard to apparently inconsistent representations. These parallels suggest that a unitary account of scientific and artistic representation is possible, and our article can be viewed (...) as laying the groundwork for such an account—although, as we shall acknowledge, significant differences exist between these two forms of representation. (shrink)

The American Philosophers contains papers by current leading philosophers and political theorists that explore the work of the major American philosophers from the colonial period to the present, from Jonathan Edwards to David Kaplan. Contains a philosophically and historically broad exploration of the major schools of American philosophy Examines both the pragmatists and the later Twentieth Century analytic philosophers, as well as such shapers of the political and philosophical American scene as Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Emerson, and Jane Addams.

The globalization of modern chemistry through European colonialism resulted, by the end of the nineteenth century, in the emergence of a number of parachemical knowledges. Parachemistries were bodies of non-European knowledge which came to be related to modern chemistry within particular historical milieux. Their relationship with modern chemistry was not necessarily epistemic and structural, but historical and performative. Actual historically located intellectuals posited their relationship. Such relationships were not merely abstract intellectual exercises; at a time when the practical uses of (...) modern chemistry in statecraft were growing, the existence of these rival, competing parachemical knowledges challenged modern chemistry’s regulatory deployments. Colonial locations emerged then not as mere ‘contact zones’, but as ‘zones of conflict’ where colonial chemopolitics was interrupted by the continued legitimacy and practice of parachemistries such as rasayana, kimiya, and neidan. (shrink)

Recension de Magali Bessone, Faire justice de l’irréparable. Esclavage colonial et responsabilité contemporaine.

Batterman raises a number of concerns for the inferential conception of the applicability of mathematics advocated by Bueno and Colyvan. Here, we distinguish the various concerns, and indicate how they can be assuaged by paying attention to the nature of the mappings involved and emphasizing the significance of interpretation in this context. We also indicate how this conception can accommodate the examples that Batterman draws upon in his critique. Our conclusion is that ‘asymptotic reasoning’ can be straightforwardly accommodated within the (...) inferential conception. 1 Introduction2 Immersion, Inference and Partial Structures3 Idealization and Surplus Structure4 Renormalization and the Stability of Mathematical Representations5 Explanation and Eliminability6 Requirements for Explanation7 Interpretation and Idealization8 Explanation, Empirical Regularities and the Inferential Conception9 Conclusion. (shrink)

Abstract:“Colonial Connections” explores historical connections and patterns between Iberian and British colonialism that have been ignored by conventional anti-Eurocentric and postcolonial narratives. At issue are the erasure of inter-imperial linkages and the omission of the Iberian empires of Spain and Portugal and the colonization Abya Yala/Latin America as well as the importance that Iberian colonialism and indigenous civilizations had in the shaping of the modern world such as capitalism, racism and the coloniality of gender. The article provides a (...) brief examination of anti-Eurocentric literature that rescues Asia, foremost China, from the dustbin of history while ignoring the importance of Iberian colonialism in the fall of China and the role that indigenous and African slave labor played in the development of capitalism and the triumph of the West. It also explores the artificial separation between Iberian and British colonialism that minimizes the role of religion in British colonialism and the commonalities that emerge once religion is accounted for. Finally, the article addresses the coloniality of democracy or the expulsion of the colony from the polity that emerges from conquest and the dehumanization of indigenous women and men of Abya Yala and notes the unevenness and divergences that surface when British and Iberian colonialisms are compared. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay analyses French literature on protectorates that was published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Firstly, I examine French understanding of protectorates with a focus on contrasting views about whether or not a protectorate treaty warrants the intervention of the protector in the internal affairs of the protected. In doing so, I attempt to delineate specific ways legal scholarship engaged with the ideological construction of a supposedly uncivilized other. Then I move on to trace (...) the development of a type of argument employed by the French to justify their colonialism that had to do with protectorate treaties. In the discussion, I explain the particular role the ‘violation’ argument played within French colonial discourse, both in the absence of the ‘territorium nullius’ argument, and in the face of critics of empire. Lastly, I place under scrutiny the relationship between the ‘violation’ argument and the distinction of two kinds of coercion – coercion of a state, and coercion of its representative. (shrink)

This essay provides a critical analysis of early-20th-century American postcards, focusing on the portrayal of black and white children as an aesthetic tool of white supremacy and pedophilic racist pleasures. These representations not only reflected but also perpetuated colonial ideologies and racial stereotypes, directly influencing educational practices and policies, and contributing to a social environment where discrimination and sexualization of children was normalized. The article begins with the contrast in the depiction of white and black children, revealing a pattern (...) in which white children were often fetishized as embodiments of innocence and purity, while black children were subjected to pornified portrayals that reinforced negative stereotypes and sought to ensure the continued intergenerational subjugation of African Americans in the afterlife of slavery. A significant aspect of this analysis delves into the role of the zealous purity crusader Anthony Comstock in shaping societal views on childhood innocence and obscenity during the Progressive Era. As a U.S. postal inspector, Comstock wielded influence over public discourse and policy, particularly through his campaigns against the distribution of what he considered morally objectionable representations. This examination extends to the racial implications of Comstock’s adult-centric actions, exploring how they contributed to the differential treatment of black and white children in both media representations and broader societal contexts. The article argues that these images were not merely passive reflections of societal beliefs; rather, they were active tools used to shape and influence the educational and socialization processes of children, and they contributed to the perpetuation of Jim Crow violence, which was manifested through the sexual assault, castration, and lynching of black youth. Furthermore, this essay examines the broader socio-historical context in which racist and pedophilic images were produced and circulated. These postcards are still trafficked today under the false designation of ‘Black Memorabilia,’ reaching significant prices as vintage collector’s items, but the article reframes them as a genre of child pornography. This perspective critically challenges prevailing narratives that may sanitize or downplay the exploitative and violent nature of these images. This essay urges a reconsideration of these consumer items’ historical significance as instruments intricately complicit in sustaining colonial structures and ideologies surrounding childhood innocence in North America. Within this analytical framework, the dehumanization of black children through pedophilic pornography reflects a long heritage of anti-child violence in Western traditions and the colonial strategy of exploiting children of color as a lucrative mechanism for profit and libidinal pleasure. (shrink)

This study conducts a corpus-assisted discourse study of the representations of post-colonial Hong Kong in The Times over the past 20 years. The primary purpose is to reveal its preferential ways of representing Hong Kong and explicate the intricate relations between language use and the historical and socio-political contexts. Through an integration of the methods and theories associated with critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, this study conducts both synchronic and diachronic analyses of the representations of Hong Kong from (...) 1997 to 2017. The findings suggest that The Times’ representations of Hong Kong tend to be crisis- and conflict-oriented. While evoking constant fear about the future of Hong Kong, it still suggests that it is Britain’s duty and moral obligation to protect the former British colony. The same trend can also be identified in The Times’ representations of the mass protests against the proposed extradition bill in 2019. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An Appreciation of Arvind Mandair's Sikh Philosophy:Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing WorldJeffery D. Long (bio)"Sikhism," the Colonial Project, and Modernity1I do not use this adjective lightly, but in his brilliant volume Sikh Philosophy: Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing World (Bloomsbury, 2022) Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair goes a considerable distance toward liberating sikhī—known more widely in the academic world as Sikhism—from the conceptual constraints that have kept it (...) from engaging with and informing global issues. In so doing, he does a service not only to the Sikh community and to sikhī itself, but to the world, for there is indeed much in Sikh thought from which the wider human community can benefit. By liberating sikhī from the constraining concept of religion, Mandair facilitates a process by which persons of any background can engage with gurmat ideas—that is, ideas drawn from the system of thought based upon the teachings of the Gurus of the Sikh tradition—and learn from their wisdom.Mandair skillfully deconstructs the concept of religion, building upon earlier work in which he demonstrates the colonial functionalities of this concept.2 When, through colonial knowledge-production processes, sikhī came to be conceived as a religion, Sikh thought was relegated to the realm of theology. This was a relegation, not an elevation, because under the dominant paradigm of modernity, theology is seen as a discourse that is relevant only to a specific religious community. It is thus perceived as lacking the universality [End Page 353] that is taken to inhere in the discourses of philosophy or science. When combined with the colonial situation of Sikhs under British rule, this relegation of Sikh thought to the realm of theology becomes a way of exerting power over the community. As Mandair explains,Once theology had become the primary regime of cultural translation, Sikh thinking was inevitably tethered to the social and political project of religious identification which was required primarily to facilitate governance of cultural differences or heterogeneity that characterized the indigenous populations [of India]. By doing so, it effectively locked Sikh activity within the confines of identity politics.(p. 10)Integral to British colonial policy in India was a project of defining communities, primarily on the basis of religion, but also deploying concepts such as caste and tribe. Through these definitions, the identities of Indians could be essentialized, and policies applied to them in ways that facilitated British dominance over Indian society.3Much has been written about the ways in which language is used to promote ideologies that serve to advance the power interests of some groups of people over others.4 No less an ideological mechanism than the Oxford English Dictionary has been brought to bear in the process of constraining sikhī and depriving it of the universal relevance that it ought naturally to possess. In Mandair's words, "By defining 'Sikhism' as the beliefs and practices of Sikhs, or as an Indian monotheistic religion founded in fifteenth-century India, the OED turns the Sikh aspect into a cliché—a religious type (monotheism), an ethnic type tied to a geographical location (Punjabi/North India) and a historical type (medieval India)" (p. 11).The damage that has been wrought by the modern colonial concept of religion globally is, of course, not limited exclusively to the Sikh community. It has been integral to the construction of a secular order in which what is regarded as religious thought is, again, relegated to a parochial realm of relevance only to members of specific communities. It further serves to marginalize these same communities, whose discourses come to be seen as lacking the universality of secular thought, which is presented as objective truth. As Mandair continues,The purpose of creating the modern category of 'religion' was to help authorize and naturalize secular rationality as the dominant form of modern consciousness, and as the essential language of conventional thinking, or 'common sense.' It is precisely this common sense which persuades us of the apparent naturalness of oppositions such as religion versus politics or materiality versus ideality, to give two well-known examples.(p. 11)To these two examples, one could add the opposition of religion and... (shrink)

In 1878 two ‘Nightingale’ nurses arrived in the British colony of Ceylon to initiate a training programme for indigenous women in the skills and values of what was then termed ‘scientific nursing’. These two women were the first of a succession of British women who went to the colony to nurse in its hospitals and to train Ceylonese women for the profession. Using the official records of the colonial government held in the National Archives, Kew and the (...) records of the Overseas Nursing Association in the Rhodes House Collection, Oxford, this paper explores both the professional and social experiences of these women. This paper also analyses the role that these representatives of the colonial state played in the development of an indigenous nursing profession and concludes that their presence in the colony ultimately left an ambiguous legacy. In their role as trainers of indigenous women, they furthered the development and spread of a Western nursing profession in the colony's hospitals. At the same time, however, their continuing dominance of training and the positions of responsibility was an inhibiting factor in the ability of indigenous nurses to organise and professionalise. Whereas the doctors, trained in the colony's Medical College, achieved registration as early as 1905, the nurses had to wait until 1949, a year after independence, before their qualification was recognised and protected. Nursing remained throughout the colonial period therefore, even more so than at the metropolitan centre, the ‘Cinderella’ of the medical professions. (shrink)

Un texte n’existe que dans la mesure où il est lu et ses différentes lectures contribuent à en montrer la richesse et l’intérêt. En France on a longtemps lu et on continue encore à lire Fanon, en particulier Les damnés de la terre , à la lumière de la préface que Sartre avait rédigée, à la demande de Fanon lui-même, après une rencontre et d’intenses discussions entre les deux hommes au printemps 1961 à Rome. Le premier chapitre des Damnés de (...) la terre , intitulé “De la violence” avait été publié séparément dans les Temps Modernes , la revue dirigée par Jean-Paul Sartre, comme s’il s’agissait là de l’essentiel de ce livre. Il y a eu depuis beaucoup d’autres lectures de l’œuvre de Fanon, et en particulier de ce livre difficile et complexe. Je voudrais m’attacher, dans les pages qui vont suivre, à la lecture faite par Edward Said des textes de Fanon tout au long de sa carrière, à partir du moment, où, à la suite de la guerre de 1967 entre Israël et les pays arabes, et l’occupation de la Cisjordanie et de Gaza, ainsi que l’annexion de la partie Est de Jérusalem, Said va mêler intimement élaboration théorique et agir politique. Il est d’autant plus intéressant, d’un point de vue français, de porter attention à cette lecture, que Fanon aussi bien que Said, sont largement marginalisés dans le champ intellectuel et universitaire. Ils sont l’un et l’autre le symptôme d’une tache aveugle dans la pensée française dominante, peu encline à analyser le phénomène colonial. Il ne s’agit pas seulement des lacunes de l’histoire coloniale, qui commence tout juste à se développer. Le regard porté par Frantz Fanon sur la colonisation française en Algérie est difficilement supportable dans un pays qui se veut la “patrie des droits de l’Homme” et des valeurs universelles, tout comme la mise en évidence du racisme dans la France des années 1950. Ce qui semble encore davantage difficile à admettre, c’est que la domination coloniale puisse concerner aussi les catégories intellectuelles, les productions de l’imaginaire, et la construction des subjectivités. Lors de la parution, en 1980, de la traduction française d’ Orientalism , la levée de boucliers contre l’ouvrage fut telle qu’il fallut attendre vingt-cinq ans pour une nouvelle édition du livre qui était devenu introuvable. Entre temps Edward Said était mort, et sa notoriété internationale telle qu’il était impossible de continuer à faire comme si cet ouvrage avait cessé d’exister. On peut naïvement s’étonner d’une telle réaction, en face d’un livre dans lequel il est largement question d’écrivains et de savants français, et qui surtout a été écrit en partie dans le sillage intellectuel de Michel Foucault. Said avait cependant déjà pris, à cette époque, des distances avec la théorie foucaldienne, en s’appuyant sur d’autres théoriciens, au premier rang desquels Fanon. L’importance qu’il accordait à Fanon était antérieure. En effet, dans Beginnings , son premier ouvrage important de théorie littéraire, qui précédait Orientalism , Said avait déjà situé Fanon parmi ceux qui, avec Freud, Orwell, Lévi-Strauss et Foucault, avaient contribué à la production d’un “langage mental commun.&rdquo. (shrink)

The role played by scientists in opposing nuclear weapons policy in Britain has been underestimated or discounted in much of the historical literature on the 1940s and 1950s. In fact an active and vocal section of scientific opinion attempted to organize public opposition to nuclear weapons. This article describes their activities. It also assesses their significance in the wider anti-nuclear weapons movement in the years leading to the foundation of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

This article reevaluates the historical conditions of the concomitant rise of computational systems and DNA-coding in the 1950s and addresses the implementation of behavioral psychology and cybernetic technologies of control after the Second World War. From this historical perspective, this article interrogates the intersectional relation that automatic systems of control share with models of segregation and structures of knowledge oppression. It engages with the work of French philosopher Gilbert Simondon and poses Simondon’s cybernetic theory as an opportunity to question (...) systems of knowledge imposed on ontological domains. Finally, it reveals how cybernetics reproduces a model of cultural understanding based on exclusion/inclusion and addresses the difficulty of creating new critical paradigms from within the informational technologies of neo-colonial episteme. -/- Too often, technologies of scientific knowledge such as machine learning and informational networks are used as alibi for the imple- mentation of neo-colonial values that dictate the epistemological trajectory of societies. Scientific projects that, for example, promote the testing of pharmaceuticals on individuals in third world countries privilege beings based on categorical understandings of race, class, gender, and ability. Such projects not only legitimize structural hierarchies among subjects, as seen in the use of cephalometric technologies in imperial systems of exploration; they also sustain the cultural framework of values that segregate collective beings on a global scale. (shrink)