Colonial Continuities and Colonial Technologies of Difference

Abstract

In this chapter, specific attention is directed to colonial practices and technologies of violence and difference at work at the confluence of mental health, criminal justice, and immigration systems. Here the intricate processes required for Orientalism are recognized as dividing practices and gendered discourses at our confluence. Also, the colonial practices and violence of erasure (the elimination of voice or aspects relevant to any consideration of a person including his/her history and circumstances), of appropriation (of acts of resistance as “evidence” used for the constructing of identities worthy of violence, and for the rationalization of positions that legitimize violence) and the processes of dehumanization are explored for their use value in colonial and imperial projects. The establishment and implementation of professional hierarchies and disciplinary hegemonies at the confluence of immigration, criminal justice, and mental health are interrogated for their imbrication with and reflection on the establishment, and reproduction of human hierarchies and hegemonies of knowledge and authority. These practices, policies, and technologies are also challenged for their complicity in the remaking of North-South division, their participation in the reinforcement of ideas of nationalism and the utilization of moral and ethical arguments for the justification of atrocities.