Hi! My name is Kayla and this is my understanding of the following terms I’ve learned so far in Feminist Perspectives on Decolonization 🙂

Colonial:

• Imposition of an imperial force on foreign land that prevents self determination of a region or group of people
• Allows the colonizers to thrive off of the oppression of the colonized
• Not there to benefit the people, only the mother country
• History of using genocide and assimilation to erase the original culture and people
• Intends on keeping those colonized powerless and seen as inferior when compared to colonizers and settlers

Anticolonial:

• Against coloniality and in favor of self determination
• When I think of this word, characteristics opposite of the colonial come to mind (people of color, non binary dichotomies, other cosmologies, non monogamy, queerness, religions other than christianity, etc)
• Highlights the resistance to coloniality

Decolonial:

• Process of deconstructing colonial epistemologies that are assumed to be natural, universal, and superior
• Both physical and mental
• Process of giving reparations to those oppressed under coloniality
• Returning of land and the power of self governance
• Destruction of borders as a means of separating people

Postcolonial:

• Time period after the process of decolonization
• No ongoing or new colonial imposition
• Reparations are made and other ways of living are made known and validated
• Needs of those who were formerly under coloniality are met