Beyond Borders: Coloniality and the Postcolonial European Nation

Lars Jensen will look at how the Danish-USVI discourses of reconciliation, repressed memory, re-engagement and possible re-enactment (2017) may be examined in the wider context of Postcolonial Europe. There are, as implied in this approach, a number of similar types of historical, ethnographic/anthropological, literary and so forth re-examinations taking place in all former European overseas empires (Britain, Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, France and Germany). How might we situate the specific Danish-US Virgin Islands renegotiations in this wider context? What parallels, similarities and differences could be worthwhile exploring, and why is this not only a fruitful, but perhaps also a necessary exercise? Why is examining the post-imperial nation’s process of agonisingly coming to terms with its own history of colonial violence not enough?