To me, the word colonial denotes the imperial paradigm as it is centered around white, privileged bodies. Coloniality is, in terms of a global Earth history, eurocentric. It reflects more than a history of stolen land and erasure and genocide. Coloniality even shows up, for example, in the clothes worn and the languages defaulted to in international discourse. It shows up in the names we give to places and non-human creatures, particularly those encountered on stolen land.
Anticolonial seems like a broad term to describe theory and knowledge that criticizes colonialism and is generated by scholars from colonized groups or echoes, while following the lead of, scholars from colonized groups. The word “anticolonial” itself feels like an umbrella encompassing within it all theory that is oppositional in relation to colonialism, especially that which we might call “decolonial” and “postcolonial.”
The word decolonial reads (to me) more like a verb than either anti- or postcolonial does. It seems to have more to do with the action and work that is called for in anticolonial feminist discourse. The decolonial demands restorative justice and will do what it takes to achieve it. Decolonialism’s status as an action word makes it the natural birthplace for coalition.
We don’t live in a postcolonial world yet, but I see postcolonialism as the end goal of anti- and decolonialism, and I think what is important to remember about all of these terms but especially “postcolonial” is that it might validly mean something slightly different to each person. To me, postcoloniality is a utopian concept. What seems to me like the most universal definition I can give is that in a postcolonial society, the horrors of the past will no longer be hidden, but openly acknowledged. Genocide, slavery, land theft, capitalism and the prison industrial complex, racism, and all that is uncomfortable but necessary to talk about will no longer be erased, though they won’t happen anymore. A postcolonial world is a world without these evils. We have to fight to get there, even if we never do quite get there, because imagining that world causes us to work to improve this one. For instance, environmental justice will be the law of this stolen, ravaged continent. A postcolonial world would be another step toward a world that doesn’t privilege one group over another. There wouldn’t be eurocentrism because all spaces would exist for everyone.
Environmental Justice Button Design by Ricardo Levins Morales
