De-colonialism

Abstract

The entry provides a historically informed overview of the history of Danish Colonialism until 1953 from a postcolonial perspective, with a focus on Race and racialization. The analytical focus on processes of racialization within the Danish empire allows for a perspective that describes Danish colonialism from the perspective of its colonized subjects, tying together the diverse colonial regimes within the Danish empire, from Slavery in the Danish West Indies to the racialized colonial rule over the Inuit and the ambivalent racial status of the populations of Denmark's "white" colonies, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Danish colonial regimes are described in Denmark, India, West Africa, the Caribbean, the Finnmark in Northern Norway, The Faroese Islands, Iceland, and Greenland. The entry ends with sketching postcolonial relations between Denmark and the US Virgin Islands, and Denmark and Greenland, respectively.