Questioning the (bad) question

Was Ireland a colony

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8071712
AutoresHowe (0000-0001-8677-6958, University of Bristol, autor correspondente), Stephen Howe (0000-0002-9562-3619)
Ano2008
Volume36
Fascículo142
Páginas138-152
Data de publicação2008-11-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoIrish Historical Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0021-1214 • E-ISSN: 2056-4139
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0021121400007008
OpenAlexW2333197774
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas7
Referências citadas19

The title of this article is consciously provocative, and thus cries out for immediate explanation and perhaps, in some sense, for the provocation to be disarmed. Why, then, is ‘Was Ireland a colony?’ a bad question - or rather, a question often badly posed? Reasons include the fact that the question is so intertwined with other disputes, including directly political ones, and because there are problems with the term ‘colony’ itself, which has in so many varied contexts been overworked, under-theorised and even under-defined. The oversimplified, stark ‘either/or’ nature of the question is also problematic, when it would be more productive, and perhaps more precise, to think in terms of colonial features in combination with others, if not, indeed, of graduations and degrees of coloniality

Aesthetics · Colonialism · Epistemology · Genealogy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Term (time · Historical Studies of British Isles · History · Irish and British Studies · Law · Philosophy · Scottish History and National Identity