Empire At Home - Internal Colonies and the End of Britain

Modern Britain is forged through the redeployment of structures that facilitated and legitimized slavery, exploitation and extermination. This is the 'empire at home' and it is inseparable from the strategies of neo-colonial extraction and oppression of subjects abroad.

Here, James Trafford develops the notion of internal colonies, arguing that methods and structures used in colonial rule are re-deployed internally in contemporary Britain in order to recreate and solidify imperial power relations. Using examples including housing segregation, targeted surveillance and counter-insurgency techniques used in the fight against terrorism, Trafford reveals Britain's internal colonialism to be a reactive mechanism to retain British sovereignty.

As politics appears limited by nationalism and protectionism, The Empire at Home issues a powerful challenge to contemporary politics, demanding that Britain as an imperial structure must end.

List of contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

1. The Mouth of a Shark

2. Extractive Entanglements Across Alien Territories

3. Policing Empire after Empire

4. Homeland Warfare and Differential Racism

5. Extinction Politics

6. The End of Britain

Notes

Indicative Bibliography

Index

About the author

James Trafford is Reader in Philosophy and Design in the school of Communication Design at the University for the Creative Arts. He is the author of Meaning in Dialogue (Springer, 2017), and co-editor of Alien Vectors (Routledge, 2019), and Speculative Aesthetics (MIT Press, 2016).

Summary

How is Britain enacting colonialism at home?

Product details

• Authors: James Trafford, Trafford James
• Publisher: Pluto
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 28.02.2021
• EAN: 9780745341002
• ISBN: 978-0-7453-4100-2
• No. of pages: 224
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Imperialism, Colonialism & imperialism, Political science & theory, Colonialism and imperialism, Political science and theory, National liberation & independence, post-colonialism, National liberation and independence