Though I had thought I could define these words prior to reading Breny Mendoza’s, “Coloniality of Gender and Power: From Postcoloniality to Decoloniality,” this piece definitely helped sharpen those definitions. I will go on to outline each of these terms; ‘colonial, ‘anticolonial’, ‘decolonial’ and ‘postcolonial’; using my own words, but with the help of Mendoza’s. With respect to colonialism around the world, in this context, I understand ‘colonial’ as a descriptive word for the power held over western concepts of gender(as well as other things; race, class, ethnicity, ability, etc). Essentially, ‘colonial’ implies power relations between and control of certain peoples and bodies; usually one ‘category’ of people other other ‘categories’ of people, whether systematically(which it always is), or individually(which it usually is). Here, the word ‘anticolonial,’ is used to counter and challenge the ‘colonial’. Though she arguably compares most of these words with ‘intersectional,’ she first compares ‘anticolonial,’ with the perspective of ‘intersectional.’ She writes that to be ‘anticolonial,’ is to take intersectionality’s, “critiques of state-based legal practices,” and go further into the understanding of, “mutually constituting systems of power that exist in and through contradictory and conflicting relations,” focusing particularly on gender, if I’m correct. (2016) Moving on to ‘decolonial’ and ‘postcolonial,’ I struggled to separate the two. From what Mendoza says on page 15, I understand ‘decolonial’ as the understanding that colonialism not only created/allowed for capitalism, but “…decolonial theorists argue that colonialism is what made capitalism possible.” (2016) Therefore, capitalism has always thrives and continues to live on the shoulders of colonialism. As for ‘postcolonial,’ my definition mirrors much of how I described ‘anticolonial’ and ‘decolonial,’ however with the focus on race, the construction of race and how racial relations benefit both colonialism and capitalism. These concepts are all intertwined, and defined similarly, but are not interchangeable.