Colonialism

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 suddendly. 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

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)