Colonial Re-Collections

Colonial Re-Collections is a critical response to a range of theoretical and empirical problems that shape individuals' multifaceted engagements with colonial pasts.Among these engagements there is a remarkable fascination with the colonial, visibly present since at least the 1990s, both in formerly colonized and formerly colonizing societies.Scholars have defined this fascination as nostalgia that is 'colonial' (Werbner 1998;Bissell 2005), 'imperial' (Rosaldo 1989), or 'structural' (Herzfeld 2005).While these scholarly definitions differ, in a broad sense they all refer to a diverse range of material and immaterial phenomenanot only memories of times passed, but also an apparent desire, visible in the private and the public sphere, expressed by people of different generations or promoted by the consumer industry, for things, styles, and notions associated with the colonial era: from the recycling of colonial postcards to the wealth of movies addressing the colonial past; the rise of grand, colonial hotels to nostalgic colonial travel tours; the return of colonial-design advertisements to colonial furniture at home; and the laments about lost, colonial city quarters to memories of colonial quietness and peace.