We’re living the colonial present.
Colonial violence and resistance to it has always been transformational. Historical colonialism sowed the seeds from which industrial racism emerged, cultivated on plantation-prisons established by genocide, kidnapping, and settler laws. Today, colonialism takes more democratic forms: land theft is debated in parliaments, white supremacy is disguised through law and order, and grotesque global inequities are normalized. Words like “development” render colonial relations apolitical, inevitable, progressive. To me, living the colonial present means understanding how unearned power limits our collective potential to build freedom — and working to build and maintain it despite everything.
I research and teach about colonial encounters, including postcolonial and decolonial studies, race and structural white supremacy, critical development studies, and global history with regional attention to South Asia, the Caribbean, and North America. Read/watch my latest or explore my primary research areas:
Sovereignty
The history and ethics of “sovereignty,” as a diverse practice that was forced to conform to Eurocentric norms from the 19th century onwards.
Colonial Studies
Colonial studies and decolonial options grounded in life as an immigrant to Mi’kma’ki, or the Canadian Maritimes.
Racial Resilience
The relationship between structural white supremacy and white fragility in a way that builds racial resilience.
Academe
Pedagogy; Racialization of Asian International Students; and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility
About Ajay
Associate Professor, cross-appointed to departments of International Development Studies, History, and Political Science at Dalhousie University in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), unceded Mi’kma’ki. Researches the many ways strings of historical colonial entanglements continue to tighten the limit of political action today, and how those strings might be undone.
Ajay Parasram 