Colonization

For the historic phenomenon of colonisation and imperialism, see colonialism.

For the computer game by Sid Meier, see Sid Meier's Colonization.

Colonisation or colonization occurs whenever any one or more species populates a new area. The term, which is derived from the

World Colonization 1492-2007

Latin colere, "to inhabit, cultivate, frequent, practice, tend, guard, respect," originally related to humans. However, 19th century biogeographers borrowed the term to describe the activities of birds or bacteria, or plant species. Human colonisation is a broader category than the related sub-concept of colonialism, because whereas colonialism refers to the establishment of settler colonies, trading posts, and plantations, colonisation encompasses all large-scale emigrations of an established population to a 'new' location, such as immigration, the establishment of expatriate communities, and the use of guest workers.

Historical Colonisations

Classical Period

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]]]] times, maritime nations such as the city-states of Greece and Phoenicia 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. However this does not mean that conflict did not exist between the colonisers and native peoples.

Another period of colonisation in Ancient times was from the Romans. The Roman Empire conquered a large part of Western Europe, North Africa and West Asia. In North Africa and west Asia they were often conquering civilised peoples, but as they moved north into Europe they mostly encountered 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 cities around 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 started 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. It was this period that 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, the Franks in France and Germany and the Anglo-Saxons in England.

The Vikings of Scandinavia also carried out a large scale colonisation. The Vikings are best known as raiders, setting out from their original homelands in Denmark, southern Norway and southern Sweden, to pillage the coastlines of northern Europe. In time, the Vikings began trading, rather than raiding, and established colonies. The Vikings discovered Iceland and establishing colonies before moving onto Greenland, where they briefly held some colonies. The Vikings also launched an unsuccessful attempt at colonising an area they called Vinland which probably on the rocky coast of Newfoundland, on the eastern coastline of Canada.

'Colonial Era', colonialism and imperialism

Main article: Colonialism

Colonialism in this sense refers to Western European countries' colonisation of land in the Americas, Africa, South-East Asia and the South Pacific.

Modern Colonisation

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.

Many nations also have large numbers of guest workers who are brought in to do seasonal work such as harvesting or to do low-paid manual labor. Guest workers or contractors have a lower status than workers with visas, because guest workers can be removed at any time for any reason. 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.

In the 1980s and 1990s, an elite class of well-educated, highly-paid managers, lawyers, professionals, and business people began a new type of colonising. Since they had highly-sought after skills that were needed in many different countries, they treated the world as their playing field. They moved between countries to seek better jobs and opportunities. In the event of a downturn, they had the resources to pack up and leave to a different country.

However, unlike this elite professional caste, people with lower-paying jobs do not have international mobility. International professional mobility may also be considered a type of colonialism (rather than colonisation) since these professionals do not move permanently. Instead, they move to a target region temporarily and leave.

Neo-Colonisation

This term, usually pejorative, refers to a sort of "unofficial" colonisation, in which a country's government is overthrown by larger country and replaced by a government that coincides with the larger country's interests. In effect, this makes the country a colony, dealing with the problem of a revolutionary uprising by delivering the impression that the colony is still self-governed.

Other ways of using the term

The theory of Science policy colonisation (Weingart and Mouton (2004)) argues that science policy is increasingly being dominated by scientific experts from developed, industrialised democracies. Scientists from poorer, emerging or developing democracies may mainly be given the role of collecting raw data. Experts from developed, industrialised democracies may have biases unchallenged 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.

The term "cocacolonisation" is used to describe cases where a country's indigenous culture is eroded by a corporate mass-culture, usually from a powerful, industrialised country such as the United States (see cultural imperialism). This is more metaphorical usage as people need not move, to the colonised country; only cultural signals, symbols, forms of entertainment, and values move need to move to the colonised country.

Hypothetical or fictional types of Colonisation

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.

In science fiction, space colonisation is sometimes more benign. Humans find an uninhabited planet, and inhabit it. The colonisation of Mars is an often-used example of this type of space colonisation. In more recent science fiction, humans 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, The Sparrow and Children of God.

The ultimate form of space colonisation is the Kardashev scale which assumes that a single dominant intelligent species will take over all energy on one planet, then one star, then a whole galaxy full of stars. However, this would not necessarily be so if other species were to be discovered during a galactic expansion. This may require more than one species to share the galactic space with each other as they both develop.

See also

• Colonialism