The chapter resituates the ideas of empire and nation in relation to the category of space. It delineates the centrality of the concept of space for understanding the imperial and contemporary world-system and the development of colonial capitalist modernity. Drawing on theorists that include but are not limited to Karl Marx, Frantz Fanon, Henri Lefebvre, Nikos Poulantzas, Raymond Williams, and Edward Said, the chapter seeks to understand how their works engage with space as a critical concept, and how their theorizations deploy the category of space to illuminate the production of new kinds – and conceptions – of space in colonial capitalist modernity: the metropole and the colony; notions of the core, periphery, and the semiperiphery; and the modern world-system as a concatenation of spaces – that is, a set of contiguous and nominally equal nation-states separated out from each other through the novel spatial form of the border. The chapter also examines theorizations of the nation to underline it as an ideology of space.

Have we left postcolonial globalization behind with the demise of the Third World, the emergence of a global network society, and a shift away from debating fair trade predominantly in relation to South-North relations? This concluding chapter reconsiders the history of humanitarianism in the light of the evolution of the fair trade movement’s repertoire and goals. It argues that even though the legacy of colonialism is still with us, the practices and perspectives of fair trade activism have recently shifted to such an extent that we are indeed entering a new phase of the history of globalization.

The introduction posits the relevance of the history of fair trade activism to the history of postcolonial globalization to highlight three striking transformations: decolonization, the rise of consumer society, and the emergence of the internet. It underlines the importance of studying ‘moderate’ movements as part of a social history of globalization. It goes on to relate the history of fair trade to earlier historiography, demonstrating how the history of third-world movements, consumer activism, and humanitarianism can be combined to better understand the history of this movement. It finally introduces the structure of the book, which takes its cue from the materiality, which was crucial to the development of the fair trade movement by centring five products: handicrafts, sugar, paper, coffee, and textiles.

During the 1950s, civic groups started to sell handicrafts as an act of solidarity with their makers. This fostered a new global outlook amongst producers and potential buyers. This chapter analyses the early history of fair trade history, which revolves around handicrafts which were sold by charitable and solidarity initiatives since the early 1950s. It thus focuses on those actors within the movement which directly import products, first from all over the world, then more pronouncedly from ‘developing’ countries. The chapter tracks the emergence of these importers to demonstrate how the fair trade movement could develop, demonstrating the importance of missionary and solidarity networks and the fluent transition from an approach related to charity to one aiming at structural change.

This chapter interrogates the South–South internationalism of renowned US Nuyorican poet Miguel Algarín. It argues that the abjection in Morocco featured in his poem “Tangiers” reacts to French coloniality. More specifically, Algarín’s Orientalist evocations of underage child prostitution operate under a French hegemony, coming into crisis when a Third World alliance fails. Although his engagement with African self-determination exhibits residues of a French hegemony undergirding and undercutting what I term a poetic Latin-African solidarity, his South–South approach enriches postcolonial studies, in which Latin American – and, by extension, Latinx – identities have been sidelined.

The twentieth-century quest for individual freedom was pursued not merely in Europe proper but also at its boundaries. This had much to do, in the first instance, with a desire for liberation from metropolitan societies that many identified with an excess of constraints and conventions. It also reflected a strong sense of European superiority over both Americans and colonized peoples. But, as the century wore on, uncertainties arose from the growing power of the United States and the increasing criticism and various reforms to which colonial rule was subject. American popular culture appealed to youth across the continent, to the dismay of many adults, while colonized subjects increasingly claimed the status of free individuals, both in overseas colonies and as immigrants to Europe. This chapter discusses whether there was autonomy or conformism in America, at a time when its supposed freedoms were so attractive to many Europeans though they appalled others; how colonial self-reliance was loudly claimed and staunchly defended against indigenous demands and more liberal forms of European rule; and, finally, what colonized subjects’ perspectives were on the individual freedom they were denied but were seeking as part of their efforts to become decolonized.

This chapter examines the papacy’s positioning vis-à-vis colonization and decolonization, defined both as a political changeover from European to African governance and as a longer, subtler, and more complex process of rejecting European influence and authority in both the public and private spheres, including religion. It investigates Vatican approaches to Catholic missions in Africa during the colonial period, how successive popes navigated the political changes of decolonization, and how they sought to make Catholicism more hospitable to Africans. Finally, it underlines how Africans themselves, such as the prominent intellectual Alioune Diop, played a central role in instigating papal action to make the Church less Eurocentric and more welcoming to other peoples and cultures.

This chapter presents a special instance of education reform in which South African students presented a compelling case for curriculum change under decolonization. At first, it appeared that all conditions for successful change were in place – receptive university leadership; compelling educational rationale; pressing political demand; and widespread support among academic teachers. A massive colonial statue was toppled of the imperialist Cecil John Rhodes on the University of Cape Town campus. For a short but powerful moment (2015–2016) academic faculties refocused their energies on critical concepts such as decoloniality, what it might mean and how it could be implemented. Special seminars, invited speakers, funded projects, senate authorizations, and commissioned task teams sprung into action to “decolonize the curriculum.” Five years later, little had changed both for the disciplinary curriculum (e.g., sociology or chemistry) or the institutional curriculum (i.e., the rules and regulations that govern legitimate knowledge). Why? Based on interviews with more than 200 academic teachers across 10 universities, this case study demonstrates how exactly institutions temper radical ideas. This is a specific case of radical reform in a broader struggle to decolonize knowledge from Cape Town and Bristol to Antwerp and South Carolina.

The UN General Assembly, a body including representatives of all UN member governments, serves as the primary forum for defining a better world order through peaceful change. It has endorsed programs of peaceful change at all levels of ambition at different times and on different issues. Much of its activity has focused on the minimalist goal of averting or ending particular wars. On other issues, most notably decolonization, national economic development, and adding environmental concerns to the intergovernmental agenda, it has contributed to incremental change in the states system. Yet the limits on what governments would endorse became clear on issues such as human rights where changes would affect domestic political orders. The end of the Cold War and related domestic-level political changes provided the context for higher ambition, which peaked in 2005 when the General Assembly endorsed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs offered a vision of deep peace in which universal respect for human rights, human development, and human security prevail within ecologically sustainable societies. Yet the subsequent spread of authoritarian rule within states and increased geopolitical tensions between major states have reinforced governments’ traditional approaches to states system, reducing the ambition of programs for peaceful change.