Rethinking the Colonial State by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Asian, Southeast Asia
ISBN: 9780822384519
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2003-07-08T04:00:00+00:00

THE ORDERING OF RESISTANCE: ON REPRESSIVE DEVELOPMENTALISM

The formation and transformation of the late imperial and colonial states in the Portuguese colonial empire can, and should, be (comparatively) assessed along these lines (Jerónimo, 2013). The proper understanding of the late colonial state, and of its role in the late colonial shift, is crucial to enhance the study of late colonialism. It is also central to the assessment of the variegated trajectories of disintegration that characterized the imperial endgame. Crucial for the rethinking of late colonialism and its impact, there are several dimensions of late colonial state dynamics that need to be systematically studied (Lodge, 1998; Newitt, 1999). The first of these dynamics needing further examination is the nature and extent of the social penetration of the late colonial state; that is, the dynamics of territorialization and institutionalization of state authority. Understanding the historical transformations of the colonial state’s institutional framework – and its connection to coercive, extractive, and socializing functions – is crucial. Related to this first one, a second dynamic requiring further scrutiny is the varied modalities of imperial and colonial bureaucratic rationality that backed the development of the proactive, planning, and coordinating interventionist drives, which covered political to economic to sociocultural aspects. These drives need to be identified and assessed (Jerónimo & Pinto, 2015). Third, it is fundamental that we evaluate the ways in which transformations of the late colonial state impacted upon the degree of its (relative) autonomy vis-à-vis international, metropolitan and colonial institutions and interests, including in what related to processes of integration of local elites as forms of social pacification and political persuasion (Jerónimo & Pinto, 2013; Keese, 2007). The same goes with the fourth aspect, which related to assessments of the late colonial state’s legitimacy, both in relation to colonial communities and to international organizations and other states, including postcolonial ones (Monteiro, 2017). This last aspect was particularly relevant. The probing of imperial and colonial modus operandi increased dramatically in the postwar years, renovating old processes. Despite efforts of accommodation of, and compliance with, international progressive agendas, namely to developmentalism and to welfarism, the fundamental realities of Portuguese colonialism continued to be critically denounced. For example, the persistent policies of native labor – which enabled legal modalities of forced labor until 1962 – and the endurance of the indigenato system (only abolished in 1961), continued to be at the core of international and local criticism (Jerónimo, 2015; Jerónimo & Monteiro, 2013). Despite the rhetoric of political, economic and cultural (i.e., multiracial) integration (Neto, 1964), comprehensive, and systemic discrimination continued to be revealed (Jerónimo & Monteiro, 2017b). Without aspiring to tackle all these problems, some important episodes and processes in the late colonial state-formation need to be highlighted.

Repressive developmentalism was a distinctive feature of late colonial state-formation. The historical formation and institutionalization of a repressive developmentalism was a crucial strategy to order resistance and to envisage imperial resilience in a context of evolving (anti)colonial and international pressures (Jerónimo, 2017). The ordering of resistance to internal and

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