This thesis explores the ways in which the legacy of colonialism continues to shape the material and non-material conditions of rural indigenous communities in Bangladesh. This research examines the complex confluence of power, politics, economics, and identities in rural Bangladesh; it explores the web of local, national, and global mechanisms that (re)create and maintain oppressive systems and structures. Adopting an anti-colonial discursive framework and a case study approach, this research incorporates data from semi-structured and informal, in-depth individual interviews, focus-group interviews, an observational journal, and a review of relevant literature to study a remote Santal village in the Rajshahi division of Bangladesh. This study focuses on the voices of the local people, their experiences and narratives, and analyzes the data within the wider contexts of history, politics, and culture. The anti-colonial discursive framework that guides this study acknowledges the material and intellectual agency of local people and the value of their knowledge and lived experiences; it contributes to understanding local history and culture and the saliency of local resistance to oppressive practices. The research findings reveal that colonial structures of oppression are perpetuated by the devaluation of indigenous peoples’ mother tongue, education, culture, and religion and by distancing them from the land that has belonged to them for centuries. The findings present a shift from the ritual-based, cultural matrix of the rural indigenous community and its tradition-oriented socio-political and education systems. Exclusionary policies and practices of the nation state and Christian aggression have fragmented the Santal community, devalued their collectivist mode of living, and alienated them from their traditional ways of life. The process of land alienation has perpetuated the colonial legacy of terra nullius and displaced the indigenous Santal community’s sense of belonging and its inherent connection to Mother Earth, the bongas , and the spirits of their ancestors. This dissertation suggests that there is urgent need for activism to resist colonial structures of oppression that continue to this day. This study contributes to literature on anti-colonial struggles across the globe and offers a framework for understanding other colonial and indigenous contexts.

This thesis explores the ways in which the legacy of colonialism continues to shape the material and non-material conditions of rural indigenous communities in Bangladesh. This research examines the complex confluence of power, politics, economics, and identities in rural Bangladesh; it explores the web of local, national, and global mechanisms that (re)create and maintain oppressive systems and structures. Adopting an anti-colonial discursive framework and a case study approach, this research incorporates data from semi-structured and informal, in-depth individual interviews, focus-group interviews, an observational journal, and a review of relevant literature to study a remote Santal village in the Rajshahi division of Bangladesh. This study focuses on the voices of the local people, their experiences and narratives, and analyzes the data within the wider contexts of history, politics, and culture. The anti-colonial discursive framework that guides this study acknowledges the material and intellectual agency of local people and the value of their knowledge and lived experiences; it contributes to understanding local history and culture and the saliency of local resistance to oppressive practices. The research findings reveal that colonial structures of oppression are perpetuated by the devaluation of indigenous peoples’ mother tongue, education, culture, and religion and by distancing them from the land that has belonged to them for centuries. The findings present a shift from the ritual-based, cultural matrix of the rural indigenous community and its tradition-oriented socio-political and education systems. Exclusionary policies and practices of the nation state and Christian aggression have fragmented the Santal community, devalued their collectivist mode of living, and alienated them from their traditional ways of life. The process of land alienation has perpetuated the colonial legacy of terra nullius and displaced the indigenous Santal community’s sense of belonging and its inherent connection to Mother Earth, the bongas , and the spirits of their ancestors. This dissertation suggests that there is urgent need for activism to resist colonial structures of oppression that continue to this day. This study contributes to literature on anti-colonial struggles across the globe and offers a framework for understanding other colonial and indigenous contexts.

My dissertation, Wixárika Art and Artists: Resisting Neocolonialism While Crossing Visible and Invisible Borders is an ethnographic study of the Wixáritari who have lived in the region of Northern Central Mexico known as El Gran Nayar or the Sierra Madre Occidental, with a specific focus on the Wixáritari who live in Huejuquilla el Alto, Guadalajara, and Zacatecas, Mexico. This dissertation examines the legal, cultural and historical influences as well as the sociopolitical and economic circumstances that have pushed Wixárika (Huichol) art and artists out of their original homeland in Mexico. This dissertation concentrates on the historical construction of race in Mexico to illustrate that Wixáritari have been pushed outside of their territories either willingly or unwillingly. I analyze and interpret this concept through historical events and the process of colonialism through which politics, policy and laws have shaped and created hierarchies of race. Through ethnography I illustrate that the Mexican government's neoliberal policies and laws have adversely affected Wixáritari artists and non-artists in the Sierra Madre, and also those who work in the large cities where half the population now resides. Furthermore, this work illustrates that the Wixáritari are organizing against the Mexican laws and policies that served to exclude and marginalize them. Wixáritari activism is thus creating powerful social change. By using the theoretical framework ethnoexodus, I demonstrate that Wixáritari cannot be put in a box or be stereotyped as a homogenous pan-ethnic group.The second half of my dissertation is devoted to "voluntary" or involuntary im(migration) processes that take place. I specifically explore these forms of dislocation through the use of oral history, oral narratives, and testimonios. I have found that the Wixáritari have a desire to reproduce their traditions and resist modernity. They have experienced cultural changes and in the process they have been integrated into their surrounding society by forming new relationships and learning to adapt on their own terms to the capitalist system and "modern" way of life. In these spaces, I argue that their homeland and geographic space in and outside of the Sierra Madre Occidental along with their spirituality is part of their identity, which crosses many borders that are both visible and invisible. / text

This thesis presents a secondary analysis of findings from a larger community-based participatory research (CBPR) project with the Battleford Agency Tribal Chiefs (BATC) First Nations reserves in Northern Saskatchewan. Initiated at the request of BATC, a three year CBPR project, entitled: “Resilience to Offending: Listening to Youth On-Reserve,” aimed to identify, analyze and disseminate local knowledge about on-reserve youth resilience. This larger project intended to capture the perspectives of First Nations youth, Elders and community stakeholders who work with youth at risk of offending, by identifying culturally specific aspects of resilience. Using arts-based and mixed methods, the focus of this larger study was on personal, relational and environmental risks faced by the youth and the impact of formal and informal services on reserve on youth resilience. Guided by a postcolonial and anti-oppressive framework, this thesis provides a secondary analysis of the in-depth qualitative interviews with the fourteen stakeholders and Elders who work with youth. Using a constructivist grounded theory, this thesis explores the stakeholder’s and Elders’ perceptions of formal and informal services in First Nations communities as well as issues related to First Nations governance. The emerging framework brought to light the continued impact of the colonization process on the federal government’s interactions with First Nations’ members, communities, Aboriginal leadership and governance structures. The research questions for this thesis were: How is the colonization process at play in the federal government’s interactions with First Nations’ members, communities, Aboriginal leadership, and governance structures?”, “What are the impacts of the colonization process in terms of the lived experience of individual First Nation members?”, and “What are the impacts of the colonization process in terms of community life on reserve?”. With these questions in mind, interpretation of the stakeholder interviews resulted in three general themes including: the continued impact of historical and systemic issues on the wellbeing of youth, adults and entire communities; colonized identities, which stakeholders referred to as the internalization of colonization through experiences of othering, and the resulting loss of self-esteem, lack of sense of belonging, and disconnection from traditional culture; and continued oppression through contemporary institutional means, most notably the relationship of control that exists between First Nations communities and the federal government. This thesis concludes that colonialism and neocolonialism, or the processes of domination and control by one group over another, and the continued control of colonized groups, respectively, are still very prevalent within the lives of Aboriginal people, coming to effect their social environments, their lived realities, and the policies and discourses pertaining to them. The institutionalized racism that constituted the colonial process, and continuing neocolonialism, influences the policies, programming and relations regarding Aboriginal people. This control is solidified through the contriving of Aboriginal identity and governance: the federal government still has the ultimate control over legal Aboriginal identity through delegation of titles (such as status Indian or non-status Indian), and the rights and disadvantages associated with each title. Despite the establishment of Aboriginal self-government, community stakeholders and Elders shed light on ways First Nations people on BATC reserves are still answerable to the federal government while they continue to suffer marginality related to housing, employment, socioeconomics and racialization.

This study conducts a single descriptive analysis of China’s engagement in Angola and has the purpose of examining if there are any features of Neocolonialism in regards to China’s relationship with Angola from 2000-2017. In doing so, it was required to operationalize Neocolonialism into five main dimensions and use them as sorting tools. These dimensions included factors such as, political interference, economic influence, financial dependence, military appearances, and cultural/educational reinforcement. The material that have been used in this study are academic journals, NGO reports, Chinese ministry press releases, policy papers and various types of  other political documents concerning the two countries in question. The end result based on the established theoretical framework indicate that there are some features of neocolonial tendencies mostly within the economic and financial field of area and that the intensity of these are recognized as being extensive. However, the overall presence of Neocolonialism in Angola is considered being low as China’s presence in Angola mainly includes two neocolonial dimensions. Yet, China and Angola’s relationship can today best be understood as being of mutual benefit.

The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons and motivations behind voluntourism in reference to working with children, and how these can be understood and analyzed within the framework of voluntourism research. A qualitative approach was used, and data was collected through semi-structured interviews and then evaluated with the use of a thematic analysis. This data was then analyzed in correlation to previous voluntourism research and through the theoretical frameworks of postcolonialism and neocolonialism. Eight interviews were conducted, with six voluntourists and two representatives from voluntourist organizations. Our findings were that the respondents had well-meaning intentions, along with complex and nuanced thoughts in relation to culture shocks, reflections, relationships with the children and rules and regulations given by the voluntourism organizations they traveled with. The conclusions drawn from these findings were that while intent does not trump impact, this phenomenon should be examined in relation to power dynamics and the privatization of development work.

In 2014, Sweden became the first country in the world to explicitly adopt a feminist foreign policy. Since then many countries have followed their example by putting gender equality, feminism and the rights of women on their agenda for foreign policy. The application of a Westernised perception of feminism on states within a culturally different context has however faced some critique. Taking into account the troubled relationship that Western First world feminism has had with colonialism, alongside the criticism that contemporary international development has faced, there is an academic relevance to the contribution and exploration of the nascent field of feminist foreign policy. This study takes a critical approach towards the Eurocentric Westernized perception of development and feminism, with the objective to see how current development policies could potentially reinforce and reproduce colonial structures through the discourse of Western feminism. By taking a feminist postcolonial approach to deconstructive discourse analysis, this study unveils the reproduction of unequal power structures through the development discourse, Western feminist discourse and neoliberal discourse.

In 2015, the high influx of refugees dispersing throughout Europe was represented as a crisis tocooperation and European security. In contrast, the response to the Russian invasion of Ukrainein February 2022, saw the EU institute the Temporary Protection Order to bypass standardmigration procedures to allow Ukrainian refugees safe access and asylum. This thesis aims tounderstand why the response to refugees varied to such an extent in the 2015 refugee crisis vs the2022 Ukrainian conflict, and to understand the role of EU discourse in influencing member states’ migration policies and attitudes to refugees.Using Critical Discourse Analysis, I analysed EU reports, immigration reports from Sweden andGermany, and a selection of national newspapers from the two states. Within the data selected,codes were isolated and analysed to extract three significant thematic discourses: protection,security, and humanisation. When further expanding and dissecting these themes, I applied aneo-colonial lens of analysis, pursuing instruments such as externalisation methods ordependency.The EU member states represent their own national interest, whilst simultaneously representingthe core values required of their membership. The final line of analysis investigated the role of European Identity in migration policies, and how this reinforces the neo-colonial alienationthrough “us” vs “them”. The thesis concludes that a form of neo-colonialism exists in migrationpolicies through trigger words within discourse. Additionally, there are implications thatcountries that have a higher prioritisation of their European Identity are more likely influencedby EU discourse, which acts as an indicator of national discourse and subsequent policy.

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What is the meaning of Fanonian liberation? That is the question that animates this work, which is (negatively) inspired by the reality of misanthropy, practical and theoretical, and neocolonialism, external and internal. To answer this question, I first situate Frantz Fanon within the larger discourse of liberation, emphasizing the relationship between his liberatory work and the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez, Paulo Freire, and Enrique Dussel. From there, I argue that there is today an unfortunate privileging of ethics, and that this privileging is used to discredit the political as an intersubjective domain. To establish (what I call) the primacy of politics, I carefully analyze Fanon's first book, Black Skin, White Masks, and his sociogenetic conclusions. I then turn to The Wretched of the Earth and to the phenomenon of petrification, which is, I contend, one of the most important features of colonialism and neocolonialism. To fully explain this phenomenon, I consider both its mythopoetic significance and its relationship to Jean-Paul Sartre's conception of seriousness. Finally, I argue that the solution to the problem of petrification can be found in Fanon's second book, A Dying Colonialism, in which there are rich descriptions of political playfulness and (what I call) philosophical archaeology, which can be defined as the descriptive and evaluative analysis of meanings as contingent human artifacts. / Philosophy