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Colonisation (or colonization) is the act where life forms move into a distant area where their kind is sparse or not yet existing at all and set up new settlements in the area. Colonisation applies to all life forms in a sense though it is most often used in reference to insects and humans. Insect colonisation varies from species to species though it most often involves a queen setting out from its parent colony and establishing a colony of her own at a suitable location.
Human colonisation is not to be confused with colonialism or imperialism, as colonisation is a broader category, encompassing all large-scale immigrations of an established population to a 'new' location, and expansion of their civilisation into this area. This process may or may not victimise an indigenous population (depending first on whether there is any indigenous population to victimise).
Historical Colonisations
Classical Period
In ancient times, maritime nations such as the city-states of Greece often established colonies. These appear to have been more benign, emphasising the farming of uninhabited land. In classical times, land suitable for farming was often claimed by migratory "barbarian tribes" who lived by hunting and gathering. To ancient civilised people, the land simply appeared vacant.
Another great colonisation of ancient times was that of the Romans. The Roman Empire conquered a large part of western Europe, north Africa and west Asia. Though in North Africa and west Asia they were often conquering civilised peoples, as they moved north into Europe they often encountered little more than rural tribes with very little in the way of cities. In these areas, waves of Roman colonisation often followed the conquest of the area.
Many of the current great cities of Europe began as Roman colonies, such as the German city Köln (better known in its French form Cologne), which was originally called Colonia Claudia by the Romans; and the British capital city of London which the Romans began as Londinium.
Middle Ages
The decline and collapse of the Roman Empire saw (and was partly caused by) the large scale movement of people in eastern Europe and Asia. This is largely seen as beginning with nomadic horsemen from Asia moving into the richer pasture land to the west and so forcing the people there to move further west and so on until eventually the Franks and their ilk were forced to invade the Roman Empire beginning the Dark Ages. The dark ages saw the large scale movement of peoples establishing new colonies all over western Europe, the events of this time saw the development of many of the modern day nations of Europe such as the Huns colonising Hungary, the Franks in France and Germany and the Anglo-Saxons in England.
Another great colonising people were the Vikings of Scandinavia. The Vikings are best known as raiders, setting out from their original homes in Denmark, southern Norway and southern Sweden to pillage the coastlines of northern Europe and it is as this they mostly began however as time went by the Vikings moved more onto trade rather then raiding and established colonies again many of which exist as cities today e.g. York, Novogrod and Dublin. It was also the Vikings who first discovered Iceland establishing colonies here before moving onto Greenland where they briefly held colonies before the world's climate took a turn for the worse forcing them out. There is even very strong evidence that the Vikings launched a unsuccessful attempt at colonising a area known as Vinland which is often placed on Newfoundland or the surrounding coastline of Canada.
'Colonial Era'
1492 marked the discovery of the Americas by modern Europeans and it was not long after this that Castile began the conquest of South America and the Caribbean. However, western colonisation has its roots in Portuguese trips, these Portuguese went from Lisbon to the Cape of Good Hope before reaching India in 1498.
Originally there was very little colonisation other then the soldiers and adventurers who had came to these areas seeking wealth (many of whom returned to Europe as rich men) however as time went by and the natives began to die out via the new disease pool of Europe and oppression by cruel landlords leaving a lot of vacant space open for colonisation by Europeans. Despite this the Spanish mode of colonisation still mostly consisted of young men who found native wives leading to the creation of a hybrid native/European culture.
The 17th century saw other European nations beginning to colonise the Americas (mainly the Netherlands, France and England however many other nations attempted colonies) and these Europeans largely saw conventional movements of families into new lands.
The desire for labour in the Americas by the various European nations also led to the booming of the African slave trade leading to black 'colonisation' of the Americas- today this is especially apparent in the Caribbean where the largest ethnic group is of African descent.
The age of Imperialism in the 19th century saw much colonisation by the European powers in Australasia and Africa.
Current debates on colonization and human rights (Falk 2000) raise questions about the notion of benign colonialism. The dominant language, culture and values of colonizers imposed on colonised peoples is often narrated as salutary. Dominant social and cultural institutions contributed to faciliating the entry of indigenous peoples trapped in unsustainable subsistence economies into a more progressive socio-economic reality. Previously colonised peoples claim that the colonization process resulted in a parallel process of the colonization of the minds of indigenous peoples. The process of decolonization of memory (Ricoeur 1980), history and the spirit is crucial for the social inclusion (OECD) of indigenous peoples and nations within nations, such as Canada.
Modern colonisation
Modern immigration may be referred to as a new type of colonisation, depending on the extent to which immigrants seek to preserve and extend the habits of the civilisation they have left, rather than adopting those of the civilisation now inhabited. Many countries have legal regimes established with the goal of preventing this.
Science policy colonization (Weingart and Mouton (2004) refers to the rising influence of scientific experts from developed democracies on governance and policy-making in emerging democracies. In this period of mega-science projects such as those examining the impact of bio-engineering and climate change, the role of emerging or developing democracies may be reduced to collectors or harvesters of raw data. Outside researchers are more likely to perform the key roles of processing, analysing, interpreting, drawing conclusions and recommendations. These results are then published, reported and disseminated as unbiased scientific results. There are concerns that these outside (or inside) discipline-specific experts either from or trained in more advanced democracies, may harbour unchallenged assumptions about development policies that run counter to the best interests of emerging democracies such as South Africa (Weingart and Mouton (2004). There are also concerns (UNESCO 1999) that the accountability mechanisms imposed on knowledge experts are inadequate. There is a threat therefore that scientific or knowledge experts may act as the next generation colonizing force using data gathered in developing countries as raw resource to the detriment of the science-policy-colonised peoples and the benefit of more developed nations.
Expatriates
In some cases, expatriate communities do set up permanently in target countries, which is a 'truer' colonisation, though in many cases (especially when not gathered into a community) expatriates do not necessarily seek to 'expand their native civilisation', but rather to integrate into the population of the new civilisation.
Guest workers
Many nations also have large numbers of guest workers. Though they have little power - the guest worker or contractor can be removed at any time for any reason, in most countries - they remain "colonists" in the strict sense of biology. Many human colonists came to colonies as slaves, so the legal power to leave or remain may not be the issue so much as the actual presence of the people in the new country.
Managers
The IMF, World Bank, and commodity markets are often cited as being responsible for a new kind of colonising in which managers, professionals, and marketers may move around from place to place but populations remain in place, helpless to resist movements of valuable goods and capital.
Some consider this use of the term to refer more to forms of colonialism than to actual colonisation, as peoples don't move permanently, but only a small number of people move to a target region temporarily, take what they want, deal for more, and leave. This is more akin to tourism, looting or raiding than it is to actual colonisation.
"Coca-Cola colonisation"
This term is used for the erosion of a country's indigenous culture and its replacement with corporate mass-culture, usually taken to be American in origin (see cultural imperialism). This is more metaphorical usage as people need not move, only cultural signals of various kinds.
Ocean colonization
The hypothetical permanent habitation of locations in Earth's oceans is called ocean colonisation. Related ideas such as the floating city are much less hypothetical - funds are presently being sought to build several large ships that would have permanent populations of up to 50,000 people each.
Space colonisation
In science fiction, space colonisation is sometimes more benign. Humans find an uninhabited planet, and inhabit it. In more recent science fiction, they may create inhabitable space (by terraforming or constructing a space habitat) and call that a "colony."
On the other hand, if the planet is already inhabited, much less benign consequences ensue: indeed, some science fiction authors have used the colonisation of alien planets by humans, or the colonisation of Earth by aliens, to explore the real-world issues surrounding the phenomenon. Such works include those of Mary Doria Russell, Arrow and Children of God.
Space colonisation seems to have become more plausible in today's age, as the process of terraforming could theoretically be used to create a breathable atmosphere.
Galactic colonisation
The ultimate expression of this view is the Kardashev scale which assumes that a single dominant intelligent species is fated to take over all energy on one planet, then one star, then a whole galaxy full of stars.
However, this is not necessarily so if in time other species would be discovered during a galactic expansion which would also require the need for sharing the galactic space with other species.
See also
External links
The Sexual Victimization of Native American Women
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