Nationalism, Development, and Welfare Colonialism

Much has been written on multiple aspects of gender and empire since the 1980s, but its importance in the ending of empires has, however, been accorded less attention, although gender continued to be highly significant in understanding the dynamics of decolonization. Decolonization was, and still is, represented as a process where the key actors were male development experts, politicians, and colonial officials who negotiated the post-colonial future with male nationalist leaders. This resulted in policies to shore up masculine authority and exclude women from the public realm obscuring their active agency in nationalist protest and politics. This chapter focuses on the relationship between gender, welfare, and colonial modernization as fundemental to managing and containing nationalism, i.e., the potential of development ‘to serve purposes of control’. A gender perspective enhances understanding of decolonization via three key themes: welfare colonialism, nationalism and resistance, and gendered initiatives to ensure a smooth transition to independence.

Agency (philosophy) · Colonialism · Decolonization · Empire · Independence (probability theory) · Modernization theory · Nationalism · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Gender Politics and Representation · Gender Studies · Law

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