SOC354H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: European Colonialism, Economic Nationalism, Nationstates
Document Summary
Europeans felt that non-europeans were backwards in their culture. They viewed their difference as progress as european cultural superiority. Saw natives" land as belonging to nobody legally. European colonization of natural resources converted resources into economic ones, discounting their regenerative capacities and ecological interdependence. Non-europeans were encouraged to live the european way- of development . Colonizers established specialized extraction and production of raw materials and primary products that were unavailable in europe. Primary commodity production at one end (and exporters of sustainability) and industrialization at the other end; relocated resources from colony to metropolis: an unequal ecological exchange. Non-european culture became disorganized (e. g. agriculture reduced to an export monoculture- produced a single type of crop) Export agriculture interrupted old patterns of diet and cultivation; money determined what people ate. Undermining traditional skills for the benefit of mass production with industrial technology.
