ABSTRACT
Imperialism continues to be associated with direct physical power. However, a range of so-called postmodern, as well as, postcolonial interpretations and critiques have demonstrated that hegemonic epistemological orientations, dominant languages, and privileged discourse practices generate power for particular groups of people over others. This power is constructed as intellectual, as an expectation for ways of being, as privileging particular emotions, and as disciplinary desires. We agree with academic theorists and cultural workers who suggest that (although we should never forget that violent physical colonization still exists in locations around the world) contemporary forms of Empire are much less direct, more seductive, and invoke the mask of progress by using notions of “cultural enlightenment and reform” (Gandhi, 1998, p. 14). This power does not necessarily require direct physical control. The power is netlike and is always everywhere (Foucault, 1980, p. 98), in the construction of colonizing discourses, institutional structures, and unquestioned technologies. Contemporary methods that are used to construct these less obvious, but no less dangerous, forms of Empire require revelation, critique, and resistance.
