Talk:Decolonization

Dutch Formosa
If Dutch Formosa was a colony, it was, than it was decolonized in 1662. Dorromikhal (talk) 19:17, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Needs a better lead (summary)
Who's got time and energy to turn the lead into an actual summary of the article? Would be great. I'd do it myself if I had done more work on this article previously. EMsmile (talk) 12:09, 28 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Coming on here to agree with you, this article (two years later) still needs a better lead. If anyone is willing, that would be amazing. It is still pretty sparse and missing a lot of key points. VibrantInsect (talk) 05:51, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Do we need a disambiguation article?
I have added another term to the hatnote (Decolonization of knowledge), which seems to be emerging (I came to this article because I was searching for Decolonization of knowledge) and am just wondering if we should perhaps have a disambiguation page, as there are at least three different meanings of the term? EMsmile (talk) 12:09, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

The Netherlands
A. Lacks sources. B. Written from an American stance, overplaying the USA's role in the independence of Indonesia. C. Have a look at both the Indonesian and Dutch equivalent pages for comparison. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.255.59.216 (talk) 01:20, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

End Result is Utopia?
The lead states that 'The end-result of successful decolonization may equate to a form of Indigenous utopianism'. Is this making a claim about reality, i.e. that if and when indigenous societies are fully decolonised, they will become utopias, or is this simply a statement about decolonisation theory, or what indigenous people think will happen? It is not clear at all. LastDodo (talk) 15:27, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
 * The second paragraph of the lead is so unclear, both in itself and in its effect on the lead in general (i.e. bringing in other meanings of 'decolonization' without explicitly saying so), that I am tempted to remove it. But I won't do that yet, as I would like to give its defenders a chance to either improve it, or defend it here. LastDodo (talk) 19:53, 11 September 2022 (UTC)
 * thanks for drawing attention to this. The lead is pretty bad. I would like to improve the lead with a better summary of the article, but I'm finding that a lot of the article needs work or outright removal, so I will work on that first. Please help if you're inclined. Larataguera (talk) 16:18, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I thank you for the effort and wish you luck! As for help, this is not my area of expertise, but I'll let you know if I see something I think is unclear or potentially wrong. But I'll give you a while to make your changes first. LastDodo (talk) 09:21, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

Recent removals (Ottoman Empire,etc)
Most sources that I see don't apply a colonisation/decolonisation framework to the Ottoman Empire, and some explicitly state that it wasn't a colonial empire. Of all the material I removed, the only source I found that mentions decolonisation was this Phd disseration, which is interesting so I will leave it here, though it doesn't appear to have been published in a journal. Larataguera (talk) 16:39, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * After several other removals, I still think the article needs a lot of trimming. It also needs addition of more contemporary applications of the decolonisation framework. For example, relevance to climate change. The article mostly treats decolonisation as being relevant to independence movements in the late 20th century, but there's a lot more recent developments to include. I don't know if I'll have time for this, but anyway I'll wait in case there are objections to my recent changes Larataguera (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I am sure the European peoples the Ottomans ruled over would disagree with this assessment.--SinoDevonian (talk) 21:00, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

American Independence movement
Does the opening sentence "Beginning with the emergence of the United States in the 1770s" and the third paragrpah stating that "the Thirteen North American colonies were the first colonies to break from their colonial motherland" really belong in a decolonisation article? The subsequent subsections on decolonisation in Spanish and Portuguese America as well as the rest of the British Empire detail the indepenednce movement themselves but no such details are given for the USA.

I get that political independence is a big factor in many countries de-colonization, and that the USA is recognised as the first modern colony to become an independent state, but how does that relate to deconolonisation? It just seems to me that these short editions should be expanded or removed. Cymrogogoch (talk) 19:43, 16 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi, I'm not quite sure what you're asking. For a lot of people, decolonisation is almost synonymous with political independence of the colonies. So in that respect, mentioning the US as sparking that movement is relevant. There is of course a lot more to decolonisation; settler-colonialism in the US after independence is a big part of contemporary decolonisation debates. I think these contemporary interpretations are largely missing from this article.I do think there is a lot that should be trimmed from this article, but I'm not sure the two paragraphs mentioning US independence should be taken out entirely. They could certainly be re-phrased, and there could be more helpful links than Atlantic history, which is relevant, but maybe a niche article? A link to American revolution would make more sense to me. A slight expansion of the way the American revolution influenced later decolonization movements (ie, through enlightenment ideology, etc) might be appropriate. That may be what someone was trying to do with the passage from Rise of the West, but it's unclear.Hope that helps! Larataguera (talk) 03:32, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply, you raise some very interesting points. My issue is that opening of the Independence movements section, it starts with the American Revolution, before a pull quote on post-1945 independence movements and then finishes with a one sentence summary of the early international status of the USA. As you said, it's unclear why the "Rise of the West" quote is here, but the section as a whole seems to lack focus and I wanted more infomation on the Revolution's importance to decolonisation.
 * Obviously most of the discussion relating to decolonization will focus on the 20th and 21st centuries, so how did these early revolutions influence those later movements and decolonisation specifically? It would be nice to have more infomation on some of the points you raised, such as Atlantic history (specific to decolonisation) and the ideology of political revolutions and their contemporary interpretations.
 * I wonder if the best way forward may be to give the American Revolution it's own subsection (before the Hatian Revolution) to expand on the points you've raised and leave the Rise of the West quote where it is (maybe to be expanded also, although I appreciate this may not make the article "trimmer"!).
 * Happy to discuss futher but it's not a subject I personally have the knowledge to tackle, so I wanted to raise it for discussion with people such as yourself. Thanks again for the reply and points.Cymrogogoch (talk) 19:43, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
 * . I re-wrote it. Ended up taking out Rise of the West. It was technically a primary source anyway (cited to the book itself rather than another scholar identifying that quote as the most meaningful quote from the book). This new version introduces with scholarship about independence movements more generally, followed by individual sections on each movement. If you're interested in trimming up some of the following sub-sections, please do. I think this whole section is much too long, and the more detailed information belongs in pages about the independence movements themselves. Hope this looks better to you! Thanks. Larataguera (talk) 01:19, 20 January 2023 (UTC)
 * In my opinion, that's a great edit that really improves the section lead in, thank you for taking the time to do this.
 * I did look for some holistic or specific wiki articles that could be added as a "main article" or "see also", but I really don't think the Independence article would add anything to what you have described so well. I think that adding an explicit reference to Marxist perspectives, contemporary views on individualism and liberalism and especially decolonial scholarship really justifies the Independence movements section as a whole.
 * I also really appreciate the academic journal links (which is essentially what I was looking for in the first place). Again, thank you for all your time, help and infomation on this Lara. Cymrogogoch (talk) 16:15, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Source [49] directly disagrees with the thing it is cited for
the article claims that "Washington pushed hard to accelerate decolonization and bring an end to the colonial empires of its Western allies." and cites 'The United States and the Liquidation of European Colonial Rule in Tropical Africa, 1941-1963.' Not only is this source overly specified for the broad claim being made, but it also disagrees with the claim, saying "Studies of United States diplomacy in Africa reveal no consensus on the role played by the United States in the liquidation of European colonial rule in Africa. Thomas Noer (1985: 17, 64, 60) found that the Second World War image of the United States "as an anti-colonial advocate was inaccurate". Washington, he added, "was not prepared to exert strong pressure on the Europeans to divest themselves of colonies."" I personally would recommend removing that sentence, but failing that, at least give a proper source. More broadly, it seems large parts of the article were written from the inaccurate perspective of America as a staunchly anti-colonial advocate, and those parts should be reexamined for proper citations and accuracy. Hexifi (talk) 18:25, 1 May 2024 (UTC)


 * I have moved forward with the removal of this sentence, I recommend in the future others examine the accuracy of statements throughout this article on the American position on decolonization. Hexifi (talk) 03:52, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

Contradictory paragraphs and weasel words.
From the lede: "Extending the meaning of decolonization beyond political independence has been disputed and received criticism."

From the section on decolonizing global health: "Global health, as a discipline, is widely acknowledged to be of imperial origin and the need for its decolonisation has been widely recognised."

Would the latter not be an example of "extending the meaning?" Or does the former simply mean that some particular extensions are more questionable than others?

In any case, the former sounds trivial as nearly everything involving colonialism has caused arguments at some point. 2603:7081:1603:A300:43F9:FBFF:AEE0:8483 (talk) 03:18, 4 May 2024 (UTC)