Books & ideas

The decolonial continent

Lola Yon-Dominguez — 2025-04-17T07:00:00Z

What does it mean to “decolonize knowledge”? What is the difference between “anticolonial,” “postcolonial,” and “decolonial”? To address the semantic confusion surrounding the term “decolonial,” Lissell Quiroz and Philippe Colin propose a genealogy of this current of thought, which emerged in Latin America in the 1990s.

The Departments of the French Antilles

Justin Daniel — 2024-12-17T14:13:00Z

After 1946, the process of “decolonization by assimilation” ensured that the French Antilles remained part of France. The departmental framework, seen as the source of all the rights associated with citizenship, had a profound influence on Antillean politics and society.

The Cultural Hegemony of Colonialism

Alain Policar — 2024-09-03T07:00:00Z

The decolonial movement is diverse and often highly fragmented. Nevertheless, it remains a major theoretical force, one concerned with tracking down all forms of Eurocentrism and showing how knowledge is always necessarily situated.

Postcolonial Archipelago

Jack Corbett — 2019-10-28T08:00:00Z

Small jurisdictions of the Caribbeans are not only offshore facilities, but also political entities, products of colonial history and local societies. An edited volume explores the different ways in which non-sovereign territories of the archipelago have maintained ties with their former European colonisers.

Should the Enlightenment be Provincialised?

Guillaume Bridet — 2015-03-05T06:30:00Z

The Age of Enlightenment was not the fruit of European inspiration alone, and should also be considered in the context of a much wider space. A collection of articles reveals all the intensity of the French tradition of the critique of Orientalism.

The Anthropology of Violence in the Colonial Context

Benoît Trépied — 2015-01-29T06:30:00Z

How can we produce a history of power and violence in the colonial context that is not confined to the discourse of the State, but takes full measure of the historicity of ethnographic and archival sources? Michel Naepels answers this question on the basis of extensive research in New Caledonia.

The Anti-Establishment Impact of Postcolonial Studies

Jules Naudet — 2013-12-09T08:30:00Z

What are the challenges and limitations of postcolonial theory? The historian Jacques Pouchepadass reminds us that postcolonial studies do not constitute an academic discipline, but rather a critical school of thought, that calls on historians to stop celebrating the odyssey of Western modernity throughout the world.

The Fascination for India

Jules Naudet — 2013-03-11T09:00:00Z

Since the 18^th century, India has been portrayed in contradictory ways. While scholarly knowledge is based on the philological study of texts, literary Orientalism expresses its fascination for a society well-known to preserve the values of order and hierarchy. For Roland Lardinois the anthropology of Louis Dumont illustrates the ambiguity of these discourses.

Doing Democracy Differently

Pierre Sauvêtre — 2011-04-01T07:46:58Z

Partha Chatterjee looks at the political mobilization of the governed in former colonies, lacking access to the modes of traditional citizenship. He argues that these people are not powerless and that they engage in a kind of democratic politics that differs from the democracy of national sovereignty.

Ambedkar and the Critique of Caste Society

Jules Naudet — 2010-11-05T10:51:45Z

Although less well known than Gandhi and Nehru, Ambedkar occupies a unique position in India's collective imagination. Father of the Constitution and virulent critic of the caste system, he remains today a key figure for the Dalits, who have a hard time finding their way into the official narratives of the struggle for independence.