ABSTRACT
Not too long ago, in a discussion with colleagues at my home university, I outlined a project that would bring together a range of fields similar to those represented in this volume. One of the first questions I was asked about this project was whether “former colonized people” were amongst the scholars involved. This was another manifestation of the “normalization of the postcolonial perspective” (Göttsche 2012, 185), a normalization that reflexively generates, amongst other things, time and again exactly this kind of question. However, there was no simple “yes” or “no” answer in this case—the case of a project that brought together scholars from Western, East-Central, and South-Eastern Europe. Even though I would not necessarily go so far as to insist on the term “former colonized people” or “colonialism” for that matter, the answer could have been “yes.” Amongst the scholars involved were several whose ancestors have been affected by other types of imperial rule than that of the Western colonial and imperial powers.
