User:Will Engle/dakar

Post-colonial theory refers to a wide range of previous scholarship examining the present relationships between populations that have previously been colonized and historical colonial powers, although the term is most often used in contemporary literature to refer to the interactions between a "Global South" and European states. As colonial powers exerted their influence over the populations they aimed to exploit, colonial governance and its accompanying settlers became concentrated within urban contexts and environments. Consequently, institutions such as language, infrastructure, and notions of citizenship have been entrenched within the core of cities that are nominally independent from former colonial powers, shaping the nature and tone of subsequent and present-day interactions. However, there are important distinctions to be made between cities adopted for the purpose of exploitation colonialism and those formed by settler colonialism: the former often suffer from weaker social infrastructure and institutions, denying both access and interactions, while the latter rely on those same institutions that were often used to maintain colonial social control. Dakar belongs to the latter category