Ours is a time of sophisticated empire on high. We need look no further than the US and Canadian military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan to see the blunt end of the colonial encounter. This is but a fraction of the colonial tale. The US invasions of Iraq have produced an extreme, although not unfamiliar, insideroutsider paradigm, one expressed physically in Iraq (by the division between the Green Zone in central Baghdad and the rest of the country) and discursively in the United States (by the division between those “for us” and those “against us”). Naomi Klein has described a “global green zone,” an idea which sees the world and its people divided into binary spaces, thus: those inside the green zone have adequate infrastructure, food, security, water, and other resources; those outside this zone do not (The Possibility of Hope 2007). When extended by the anticolonial approach, this analysis can be applied to discursive as well as physical spaces. All green zones are, of course, contested spaces — spaces constituted as much by that within their borders as by that which is absent therein. Contestation, conflict, resistance, and domination create such spaces be they physical or discursive. While residents of Klein's green zone enjoy food, water, and at least some ability to control their surroundings, residents/members of a discursive green zone enjoy epistemic entitlement and legitimacy as well as the ability to confer normative truths on their mental surroundings. As the child of conflict, the green zone is conflicted; it understands itself by virtue of what it is not, and exists in perpetual opposition to this absence. Further, the green zone and its surroundings are mutually constitutive, thus blurring the binary. The dynamic relations between center and periphery on the one hand, and the overlap of the two spaces on the other makes one impossible without the other and makes the two zones indistinguishable at times (e.g., certain residents of Baghdad's Green Zone face gender and ethnic oppression despite their insider status, while many living outside of the Green Zone enjoy greater material and immaterial comforts than those on the inside). Foundational anticolonial theorist Memmi (1965) as well as contemporary scholar Minh-ha (2000) point out that within each colonizer there is a colonized, and vice versa — the same overlap found in the green zones. Green zones are empty without notions of identity and history, yet they also create both identity and history. The struggles (both military and discursive) of the twenty-first century are colonial in nature. Today's wars are the well-endowed grandchildren of European colonialism — the continuation of the family business. Colonialism has not been alone in its journey through the ages, however; with it has come resistance, refusal, and the agency of the oppressed. With it has come anticolonialism.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Achebe, C. (1994). Things Fall Apart. New York: Anchor Books.
Achebe, C. (2002). The Epic Imagination: A Conversation with Chinua Achebe at Annandale-on-Hudson, October 31, 1998. Callaloo, 2(25), Spring. pp. 505–526.
Appiah, K. (2005). The Ethics of Identity. New York: Princeton University Press.
Aristotle. (1976). The Politics. Translated by Thomas Alan Sinclair. Middlesex: Penguin.
Asante, M. K. (2000). The Egyptian Philosophers: Ancient Voices from Imhotep to Akhenaten. Philadelphia, PA: Temple Press.
Bahri, D. (1995). Once More with Feeling: What is Postcolonialism? Ariel, 1(26), 51–82.
Bhabha, H. (1990). Nation and Narration. New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Bhabha, H. (1995). Signs Taken for Wonders. In Ashcroft, B., Griffiths, G., and Thiophene, H. (eds.), The Post-Colonial Studies Reader (pp. 29–35). New York: Routledge.
Bishop, M. (1983). Maurice Bishop Speaks: The Grenada Revolution and its Overthrow 1979–83. New York: Pathfinder.
Brandt G.L. (1986). The Realization of Anti-Racist Teaching. London: Falmer Press.
Cabral, A. (1970). National liberation and culture. New York: Syracuse University Press.
Césaire, A. (1972). Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., and Thomas, K. (eds.). (1995). Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement. New York: The New Press.
Dei, G. J. S. (1996). Anti-Racism Education in Theory and Practice. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
Dei, G. J. S. (2004). Unpublished draft. Lecture Notes: SES 3914H: Anti-Colonial Thought: Pedagogical Challenges. Toronto: OISE, University of Toronto.
Dei, G. J. S. (2006). Mapping the Terrain: Towards a New Politics of Resistance. In Dei, G. S. and Kempf, A. (eds.), Anti-Colonialism and Education: The Politics of Resistance (pp. 1–23). Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Dei, G. S. and Asgharzadeh, A. (2001). The Power of Social Theory: Towards an Anti-Colonial Discursive Framework. Journal of Educational Thought, 35(3), 297–323.
Delgado, R. and Stefancic, J. (eds.). (1997). Critical White Studies: Looking Behind the Mirror. Philadelphia, PA: Temple Press.
Delgado, R. and Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical Race Theory: An Introduction. New York: NYU Press.
Fanon, F. (1963). The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
Fanon, F. (1967a). Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press.
Fanon, F. (1967b). Toward the African Revolution. New York: Grove Press.
Frankenberg, R. (2004). On Unsteady Ground: Crafting and Engaging in the Critical Study of Whiteness. In Bulmer, M. and Solomos, J. (eds.), Researching Race and Racism (pp. 104–118). London: Routledge.
Freeman, C. (1996). Egypt, Greece and Rome: Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gaine, C. 2000. Anti-Racist Education in ‘White’ Areas: The Limits and Possibilities of Change. Race, Ethnicity and Education, 3(1), 65–79.
Gallagher, C. 2000. White Like Me? Methods, Meaning, and Manipulation in the Field of White Studies. In Twine, F. W. and Warren, J. (eds.), Racing Research, Researching Race: Methodological Dilemmas in Critical Race Studies (pp. 67–92). New York: New York University Press.
Gandhi, M. (1967). Political and National Life and Affairs. Ahmedabad: Navijivan Press.
Gandhi, M. (1997). How Can India Become Free? In Parel, A. J. (ed.), M.K. Gandhi: Hind Swaraj and Other Writings (pp. 72–74). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Guevara, E. C. (1997). The Essence of Guerrilla Struggle. In Deutchmann, D. (ed.), Che Guevara Reader (pp. 66–72). New York: Ocean Press.
Guha, R. (ed.). (1997). Subaltern Studies Reader: 1986–1995. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Guha, R. (2002). History at the Limit of World-History. (Italian Academy Lectures). New York: Columbia University Press.
Hayes, M. T. (2001). A Journey Through Dangerous Places: Reflections on a Theory of White Racial Identity as Political Alliance. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 1(2), 15–30.
Hill, M. (ed.). (1997). Whiteness: A Critical Reader. New York: New York University Press.
Hill-Collins, P. (1990). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman.
hooks, b. (2000).. In Simms, D. S. (ed.), The Greatest Taboo: Homosexuality in Black Communities (pp. 67–73). New York: Alyson Books.
James, C. L. R. (1963). The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ourverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage.
JanMohamed, A. (1992). Worldliness-Without-World, Homelessness-as-Home: Toward a Definition of the Specular Border Intellectual. In Sprinker, M. (ed.), Edward Said: A Critical Reader (pp. 96–120). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
JanMohamed, A. (1995). Refiguring Values, Power, Knowledge or Foucault's Disavowal of Marx. In Magnus, B. and Cullenberg, S. (eds.), Whither Marxism?: Global Crises in International Perspective (pp. 31–64). New York/London: Routledge.
Jensen, R. (2005). The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege. Columbus, OH: City Lights Books.
Kempf, A. 2006. Anti-Colonial Historiography: Interrogating Colonial Education. In G. Dei and A Kempf (eds.) Anti-Colonialism and Education: The Politics of Resistance. Rotterdam: Sense. (pp. 129–158)
Kempf, A. 2008. On The Souls of White Folks: Notes on the White Crash Conversation. In P. Howard and G Dei (eds.) Crash Politics and Anti-Racism: Interrogations of Liberal Race Discourses. New York: Peter Lang. (pp. 91–108)
Kelley, R.D.G. A Poetics of Anti-Colonialism. Introduction to Cesaire, A. (1972) Discourse on Colonialism. New York: Monthly Review Press. (pp. 7–28)
Kincheloe, J. L., Steinberg, S. R., Rodriguez, N. M., et al. (eds.). (1998). White Reign: Deploying Whiteness in America. New York: St Martin's Press.
LaTouche, S. (2003). Would the World Be Happy with Less? Le Monde Diplomatique. December 16.
LaTouche, S. (2005). The Globe Downshifted. Le Monde Diplomatique. January. http:// mondediplo.com/2006/01/13degrowth
Lawrence, S. (1997). Beyond Race Awareness: White Racial Identity and Multicultural Teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 48(2), 108–117.
Leyton-Brown, K. and Cleveland, R. (1992). Alexander the Great: An Exercise in History. New York: High Butte Books.
Loomba, A. (1998). Colonialism/Postcolonialism. London: Routledge.
López, A. (ed). (2005). Post Colonial Whiteness: A Critical Reader on Race and Empire. New York: State University of New York Press.
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister Outsider. New York: The Crossing Press.
Macintosh, P. (1988). White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. Available at: http://www. racismagainstindians.org/whitePrivilege/InvisibleKnapsack.htm. Retrieved April 2, 2007.
McClintock, A. (1992). The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term ‘Post-Colonialism’. Social Text, 31–32(Spring), 1–15.
McClintock, A. (1995). Imperial Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Encounter. New York: Routledge.
Magnaghi, A. (2003). Le Projet Local. Brussels: Mardaga.
Maher, F. and Tetreault, T. (1997). Learning in the Dark: How Assumptions of Whiteness Shape Classroom Knowledge. Harvard Educational Review, 67(2 Summer), 321–349.
Memmi, A. (1969). The Colonizer and the Colonized. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
Miles, R. (1993). Racism After ‘Race Relations’. London: Routledge.
Minh-ha, T. (2000). Not You/Like You: Postcolonial Women and the Interlocking Questions of Identity and Difference. In Brydon, D. (ed.), Postcolonialism: Critical Concepts in Literary and Cultural Studies, Volume III (pp. 1210–1215). London/New York: Routledge.
Mohanty, C. (1991). Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, co-edited with Lourdes Torres and Ann Russo. Bloomington, IA: Indiana University Press.
Mohanty, C. and Alexander, J. M. (eds.). (1997). Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. New York: Routledge.
Mukherjee, A. (1998). Towards an Aesthetic of Opposition: Essays on Literature, Criticism and Cultural Imperialism. New York: Williams-Wallace.
Nkrumah, G. (1999/2000). Past Over Present. Al Ahram, No. 462, 30 Dec–5 Jan 2000.
Omi, M. and Winant, H. (1994). Racial Formation in the United States, 2nd Edition. New York: Routledge.
Parenti. M. (1992). Racism and the Ideology of Slavery. Speech given in Berkeley California, September 25.
Parenti, M. (2003) The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of the Roman Republic. New York: Knopff.
Roediger, D. (1991). The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class. New York: Verso.
Said, E. (1985). Orientalism: Western Representations of the Orient. New York: Penguin.
Said, E. (1993). Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books.
Sangari, K. (1999). Politics of the Possible: Essays on Gender, History, Narrative, Colonial English. New Delhi: Vedams.
Sawchuk, P. (2007). Personal Electronic Correspondence. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, May 19.
Scheurich, J. (1997). Toward a White Discourse on White Racism: An Early Attempt at an Archaeological Approach. In Research Method in the Postmodern (pp. 119–131). London: The Falmer Press.
Silvera, M. (ed). (1992). Piece of My Heart: A Lesbian of Color Anthology. Toronto: Sister Vision Press.
Smith, D. (1990). Texts, Facts, and Femininity: Exploring the Relations of Ruling. London: Routledge.
Spivak, G. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak? In Nelson, C. and Grossberg, L. (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture (pp. 271–313). Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Spivak, G. and Guha, R. (eds.). (1988). Selected Subaltern Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stevenson, B. (1996). Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South. New York: Oxford University Press.
Suleri, S. (1992). Woman Skin Deep: Feminism and the Postcolonial Condition. Critical Inquiry, 18(Summer), 756–769.
Surrealist Group of France (Breton, A., Caillois, R., Char, R., Crevel, R., Eluard, P., Monnerot, J.M., Péret, B., Tanguy, Y., Thirion, A., Unik, P., and Yoyotte, P.) 1934. Murderous Humanitarianism. In Nancy Cunard (ed.), Negro Anthology. Translated by Samuel Beckett. New York: Harper Collins.
Thucydides. (1982). The Peloponnesian War. New York: The Modern Library.
Twine, F. W. (2004). A White Side of Black Britain: The Concept of Racial Literacy. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27(6), 878–907.
Wane, N., Deliovsky, K., and Lawson, E. (eds.). (2001). Back to the Drawing Board: African-Canadian Feminisms. Toronto: Sumach Press.
Wa Thiong'o, N. (1965). The River Between. London: Heinemann.
Wa Thiong'o, N. (1986). Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Oxford: James Currey Publishers.
Wildman, S. M. and Davis, A. D. (2002). Making Systems of Privilege Visible. In Rothenberg, P. (ed.), White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism (pp. 89–95). New York: Worth Publishers.
Wise, T. (2002). White Like Me: Race and Identity Through Majority Eyes. In Singley, B. (ed.), When Race Becomes Real (pp. 225–239). New York: Lawrence Hill Books.
Wright, R. (1993). Stolen Continents: The ‘New World’ Through Indian Eyes. Toronto: Penguin.
Zinn, H. (1999). A People's History of the United States: 1492–Present. New York: Perennial Classics.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2009 Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kempf, A. (2009). Contemporary Anticolonialism: A Transhistorical Perspective. In: Kempf, A. (eds) Breaching the Colonial Contract. Explorations of Educational Purpose, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9944-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9944-1_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-9943-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-9944-1
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)