This essay asks why the Third World has become a symbol of poverty and failed infrastructure while the political imperative towards decolonization has gained popularity. By examining histories of decolonization in mid-twentieth century and the subsequent establishment of postcolonial nation-states that often ignored, suppressed, or actively participated in settler colonial occupations both globally and internally, I argue that there needs to be a widespread reckoning with what constitutes anti-colonial liberation.
Articles by Jessica Namakkal
Jessica Namakkal is Associate Professor of the Practice in International Comparative Studies, History, Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, and Asian American and Diaspora Studies at Duke University. She is the author of numerous articles and the monograph Unsettling Utopia: The Making and Unmaking of French India (Columbia University Press, 2021). In addition, she is a member of the Radical History Review editorial collective and also an editor on The Abusable Past.