Colonialism

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Colonialism is the practice of exploring new places - with "new" defined as outside of the usual environments of one's civilization - and setting up colonies in the discovered land.

A colony is a location in which a group of people establish permanent residence within an area discovered through colonization whilst retaining ties with the parent civilization they originally came from. Colonists are members of a colony.

This is usually applied within the realm of Geopolitics but it's definition makes it applicable within other contexts as well.

Differences between Colonialism and Migration

Migration differs from colonialism in 3 key aspects:

1. Migration implies cutting ties with one's own civilization.
2. Migration happens solely from an already populated land to another already populated land.
3. Colonization implies permanent residence.

Point 1 requires some nuance: it's implied that it can't happen suddenly. Most migrants will not know the native land's language or culture; however, most migrants will assimilate within a couple of years - with differences based on socioeconomic status. An example of this would be the Korean migration to America during and following the Korean War and Japanese migrants in Brazil.

Point 2 is the most common way to differentiate the two. Though the cases of "real" colonization are few (e.g., not South America but instead Norfolk Island), it's worth mentioning.

Point 3 is debatable but is based on the fact that There exist economic & temporary migrants. Of course, There exist people transiting by a colony or inhabiting it temporarily, but they can't be the whole of the population, whereas it is possible for the whole mass of migrants to be in a select place temporarily - an example of this are the North Korean laborers in the Russian Federation.

the 2015 European Migrant Crisis

. the key difference between most modern migrants towards First World countries and past migrations (whether the Irish or Italian or any other) is the application of Point 1. Because of this difference, it's more accurate to define 2015-Migrant-Crisis-Era Migrants as "Colonizers" rather than immigrants. |