Decolonization And Criminology

Question 1

Colonialism

Answer 1

A practice by which a country controls people or areas, often by establishing colonies

Question 2

Colonialism— external dimension

Answer 2

• External dimension: historical facts and events (documented history)
• colonialism as the political occupation of territories beyond the national territory and domination of “areas of influence”
  → political relationship between colonies and metropolis is based on inequality; colonies dependant on metropolis
• Economic exploitation of the colonies and their natural resources
  → colonies cannot make political decisions for themselves
  → anything economic was controlled by the colonizers

Question 3

First wave of colonialism— external dimension

Answer 3

• European nations searching for new commodities (political/economic domination over external territories and people)
• Spain and Portugal competing for track routes to Asia (seeking sugars and spices)
  → Portugal’s strategy: circumnavigate Africa, wanted to colonize Asia
  → Spain’s strategy: Columbus— sailed west and discovered America (“New world”)
  → new goal of Spain and Portugal: colonize the American continent

Question 4

Second wave of colonialism— external dimension

Answer 4

• Neocolonialism; the scramble for Africa (partition) and the colonization of Asia nations
  → capitalist expansion (new markets)
  → creation of areas of influence with artificial borders
  → colonized territories under the sovereignty of European nations (no independence)
  → imposition of European culture through missionaries
  → support from collaborationists (favoured minorities that supported colonialism)
  → economic dependence: exportation of strategic commocroties, importation of manufactured goods

Question 5

Colonialism— internal dimension

Answer 5

• Internal layer: ideological justifications of colonialism (moral, philosophical, economic, religious, scientific)
• Quijano: colonialism as a complex phenomenon
  → coloniality of power: political and economic exploitation
  → coloniality of knowledge: modern rationality and science
  → coloniality of being: white supremacy, European norms of behaviour
  → coloniality of gender: gender divisions, sexuality, gender roles

Question 6

Racial discourse— internal dimension

Answer 6

• racial discourses: legitimized European supremacy and the inferiority of non-white groups (attempt to establish a hierarchy b/w human groups; racial stratification)
  → European supremacy: religion, morality, scientific progress, and political system
  → otherization: a process of identifying differences in people considered external to society
  → orientalism: Europe looking at Asia as exotic others

Question 7

Social evolution— internal dimension

Answer 7

• Civilization vs. Primitivism
• white man’s burden: Europeans managing the affairs of non-white people whom they believed to be less developed (spread civilization, economic development, social progress, science, Christianity)
• imposition of Eurocentric values and noms
• justification of slavery
• Missionaries: religious conversion of indigenous people to the European faith

Question 8

Colonialism and the rise of criminology

Answer 8

• Criminology as a supplemental support and complicit science for colonialism
  → produced and utilized knowledge about racial differences
  → used to enforce colonial domination (maitenance of domination through punishment)
  → repressive technology
• criminology and the transference of knowledge: colonized nations import Eurocentric criminological theories instead of developing their own
• decolonial criminology: reject imperialism and take into account colonialist expressions of violence (genocide, while-supremacy, land dispossession, slavery etc.)
  → seek reparation and reconciliation by developing technologies of peace and love

Question 9

Criminology and human rights crimes

Answer 9

• Decolonial criminology priorities non-militaristic approaches
  → rather than spending money on military solutions to fight crime, it could be used on reparations for the victims of colonialism and imperialism
• Mainstream criminology promotes confrontation (repression, war) while justifying the violation of human rights
  → focuses on the punishment of offenders rather than dealing with the issues that propel crime and violence