How does globalization relate to colonialism?

Many scholars argue that globalization extends colonial patterns of inequality and cultural dominance, while also creating new flows and hybrid cultures that exceed the old colonial map.

What is the 'coloniality of power'?

It is the idea, developed by Anibal Quijano, that the racial and economic hierarchies established under colonialism persist as a structuring logic of the modern global system even after independence.

Globalization and the Postcolonial

This area studies how globalization extends, transforms, and is contested by the legacies of colonialism, from cultural flows and world literature to enduring structures of neocolonial power.

Definition

The study of how globalization interacts with colonial legacies, analyzing global cultural flows, literary circulation, and the persistence of colonial power relations in a putatively postcolonial world.

Scope

This area examines the relationship between globalization and the postcolonial condition: the cultural dynamics of global flows and hybridization, the circulation and unequal valuation of world literature, theories of neocolonialism and the coloniality of power that link present global inequality to colonial history, and debates over cosmopolitanism and global citizenship. It draws on cultural studies, decolonial theory, and literary world-systems analysis.

Sub-topics

Core questions

How do global cultural flows produce homogenization, hybridization, or both?
How does the global literary market value and translate non-Western writing?
How do colonial power structures persist within contemporary globalization?
Can cosmopolitanism be reconciled with postcolonial critique?

Key theories

Global cultural flows and scapes: Arjun Appadurai analyzed globalization through disjunctive 'scapes' of people, media, technology, finance, and ideas, stressing cultural flow and imagination over simple homogenization.
Coloniality of power: Anibal Quijano and Walter Mignolo argued that the colonial matrix of racial and economic hierarchy outlived formal colonialism and structures the modern global order.
The world republic of letters: Pascale Casanova described world literature as a hierarchical and unequal space in which consecration and value are distributed from dominant literary centers.

History

Anticolonial thinkers such as Nkrumah named neocolonialism in the 1960s, anticipating later critiques of global inequality. From the 1990s, Appadurai's cultural-flows model, the Latin American decolonial school's 'coloniality of power', and world-literature debates reframed postcolonial studies around globalization, even as some argued globalization had displaced the postcolonial as the dominant paradigm.

Debates

Homogenization versus hybridization: Scholars dispute whether global culture flattens difference under Western dominance or generates new hybrid forms, as Appadurai emphasizes.
Has globalization superseded the postcolonial?: Some argue globalization is the proper frame for present inequality, while decolonial theorists insist colonial structures persist within it.

Key figures

Arjun Appadurai
Anibal Quijano
Walter Mignolo
Pascale Casanova
Kwame Nkrumah

Seminal works

appadurai1996
quijano2000
casanova2004

Frequently asked questions

How does globalization relate to colonialism?: Many scholars argue that globalization extends colonial patterns of inequality and cultural dominance, while also creating new flows and hybrid cultures that exceed the old colonial map.
What is the 'coloniality of power'?: It is the idea, developed by Anibal Quijano, that the racial and economic hierarchies established under colonialism persist as a structuring logic of the modern global system even after independence.