Green colonialism

Frank Sejersen

Related terms: Capitalocene, climate justice, extractivism, globalisation, Indigenous rights, political ecology, sustainability transition, uneven development

Green colonialism refers to a contemporary version of imperial practices also conceptualised as part of contemporary coloniality, wherein developed states, corporations, and international bodies enforce environmental policies on developing countries or pursue resource projects legitimised on the idea that such activities are necessary to protect the environment or for the green transition of society.

Hamza Hamouchene proposes the following definition of the term: “the extension of the colonial relations of plunder and dispossession (as well as the dehumanisation of the other) in the era of the so-called green transition. Green colonialism pushes costs onto peripheral countries and communities and prioritises the energy and environmental needs…of one region of the world over another” (Hamouchene 2023, 1).

’Green’ has two dimensions. First, it refers to initiatives that focus on environmental protection to protect biodiversity, wildlife, nature, and landscapes. Examples are national parks, nature reserves, anti-use policies (e.g. limits/bans on logging, trapping, whaling, or trade in products stemming from such activities) as well as environmental initiatives that aim to reduce forest emissions and enhance forest carbon stocks (e.g. UNREDD+) (Cabello and Gilbertson 2012; Gray 1991). Second, it refers to initiatives that focus on:

1. The production of non/low-carbon based energy (like parks for wind turbines and solar panels, hydro-electric dam constructions in rivers, and wave energy technologies, as well as production areas for biofuel ingredients)
2. The production of minerals needed for technology is labelled as ‘green’ (often referred to as critical minerals to be used in the production of e.g. batteries and magnets for electric cars and turbines)
3. Climate change mitigation via technological installations (e.g. geoengineering schemes that modify solar radiation (SRM))
4. Dumping grounds for toxic waste from renewable energy production.

‘Colonialism’ emphasises that exploitative activities and territorial expansion are perpetuated and pursued by agents within a framework of political and legal domination over an alien society. This creates relations of (destructive) dependence to prioritise the imperial economic and political interests and needs (Hamouchene and Sandwell 2023). Colonial practices are often legitimised by the institutionalisation of inequalities based on (Eurocentric) ideas of racial, cultural, or demographic difference and marginality. Colonialism links the colonial (developed) rich centre with other regions considered the periphery (and undeveloped) from the perspective of the centre. This results in interventions that benefit the centre and marginalise as well as impoverish the periphery, despite the wealth of resources present in the territories. Colonialism produces and is dependent upon the maintenance of uneven development within a global capitalist system.

Rehman (2019) raises the concern that despite their intentions, the ‘green’ initiatives could lead “to a new form of green colonialism that will continue to sacrifice the people of the Global South to maintain our broken economic model.” In this way, the concept of ‘green colonialism’ addresses the asymmetric global structures in the Capitalocene where centres pursue economic, political, or resource interventions considered ‘green’ into territories of what is perceived as the periphery. Hence, the concept points to how imperial reason and coloniality may be built into activities linked to sustainable development, green growth, green transition, and green innovation (Bhambra and Newell 2023). These eco-imperial activities have been conceptualised in a variety of ways (García López and Navas 2019): eco-imperialism, green imperialism, green colonialism, environmental colonialism, green grabbing, toxic colonialism, energy imperialism, and carbon colonialism. Green colonialism as a practice prioritises the ideology and economic advantages of the centre, while disadvantaging the periphery (Manahan, Bringel and Lang 2024). Hence, a global system of injustice between rich and poor is (re)configured and frames a new ‘green’ geopolitical scene (Post and Billon 2024). Frequently, such green initiatives also involve measures that limit local communities’ prior and informed consent and the ability to utilise natural resources, fostering dependence and continuing patterns of exploitation.

Increasingly, the concept has been appropriated by stakeholders and political activists among Indigenous peoples because it speaks to the historical and contemporary colonial practices of interventions and extractivism in Indigenous peoples’ territories (Dunlap, Verweijen, and Tornel 2024; Normann 2021). Worldwide, Indigenous peoples experience ‘green’ activities and intervention into their territories by outside powers, resulting in dispossession, suffering, impoverishment, and the erosion of their way of life. Their territories are often cast as ‘sacrifice zones’ for extracting ‘green’ minerals and energy (Zografos and Robbins 2020; Zografos 2022; Össbo 2023). Hence, ‘green colonialism’ relates to territorial intervention by outsiders, in the name of green energy transition or sustainability/nature protection, with the violation of Indigenous peoples’ fundamental rights. The concept demonstrates significant potential to address Indigenous rights violations disguised as ‘doing good’ for the planet, the environment, and future generations.

Worldwide, colonial, neocolonial, and post-colonial practices have positioned Indigenous peoples in an oppressed, marginal, and discriminated position where their inherent rights to territories, culture, and self-determination have only been acknowledged to a very limited extent. Even in cases where Indigenous peoples have established more elaborate governance institutions and have gained certain rights to determine livelihood and land-use, structures of coloniality continue to push Indigenous peoples into asymmetrical and unjust relations with the dominating society (Altamirano-Jiménez 2013). This means that governmental or corporate decisions are made that by-pass Indigenous rights, visions, priorities, and practices as well as the legal rights to participate, give consent, and to benefit. The commercial value of the land and resources of Indigenous peoples has always played a pivotal role in the legitimation of colonial practices of oppression and processes of othering. In addition to resource wealth projects, geopolitical and state-building projects have appropriated Indigenous people’s territories (Lang, Manahan and Bringe 2024). Even though most Indigenous communities are situated in resourceful homelands, the colonial structures have managed to underpin the unilateral flow of resources from these homelands to global centers, often leaving the Indigenous owners of the resources in an economic poor condition and many cases also with a deteriorated and polluted environment (Hanaček et al. 2024).

The practices which are legitimised by logics of green transition mimic the paradigms of extractivism, where large territories are exploited. Zografos and Robbins (2020) and Juskus (2023) even speak of “Green Sacrifice Zones.” Extractivism indeed comes at a cost, and for many Indigenous peoples, this intervention into their territories is perceived as a (post)colonial infringement of their rights. Sámi political activist Gunn-Britt Retter has the following formulation when addressing the territorial invasion by wind turbines in Sapmi: “The green shift is nothing more than a continued extraction of resources in Sámi areas (...) The difference is that resource utilization has been given a nice color, green; we call it ‘green colonization’” (Retter 2021, 1). Hence, Retter points directly to how ‘green’ activities extend the trajectory of centuries-old colonial exploitative projects, now disguised in the language of sustainability.

Because of a perceived urgent need to electrify society, and because few people want to have huge extractivist projects in their backyard, Indigenous peoples are now met with resentment, mistrust, and anger when they oppose new territorial invasions without their consent and involvement (Fjellheim 2023). Othering is often a process inherent in green colonialism, structured around shaming and disrespect (Sejersen and Thisted 2021). This may take the form of claiming the rights to facts and data, linking indigenous concerns and claims to emotions, ignorance, and hearsay (Bjørst, Thisted and Sejersen 2022). Former colonial governmentalities constructed on ideas of civilisation, modernisation, and capital accumulation are now frequently exchanged with ‘green’ rationalities, which shame and exclude Indigenous peoples for not willingly giving up their territories, livelihoods, and self-determination. They are thought of as standing in the way of the ‘green’ progress that may benefit the world outside the Indigenous territories. Contemporary colonial governmentalities normally work with rationalities linked to ‘the good’ of the state (and the interests of companies it wants to underpin), whereas ‘green colonialism’ often evokes an up-scaled framework (like future generations and the planet) and discourses of urgency which seem to transcend the immediate interests of the state. When Indigenous peoples are understood as unwilling to help and cooperate, ‘green colonialism’ seems to construct a regime of legitimisation in which they become stigmatised and marginalised even further.

In the context of the environmental humanities, ‘green colonialism’ directs analytical attention towards environmental injustice produced by power structures that reproduce or establish uneven development and relations between global centres and peripheries based on ‘green’ arguments and needs. This concept encourages critical scrutiny of the exploitative, unjust, and oppressive activities that may be done in the name of ‘environmental good,’ ‘green transition,’ or ‘green energy production.’ The analytical focus is on questions of imperial logics and colonial attitudes that are established by such activities, and to see these relations as part of larger structural dynamics between the Global North and South in a historical perspective (Grove 1995).

Activities labelled ‘green colonialism’ can be closely linked to other concepts such as ‘climate justice’ (Sultana 2022). This can be done, for example, by attending to how procedural, distributive, intergenerational, and restorative justice are distributed globally (Abram et al. 2022).

‘Green colonialism’ also permits putting increased research focus on social resistance and political activist movements among Indigenous Peoples and marginalised people in the Global South. This attention not only translates structural dynamics into everyday consequences but also puts indigenous epistemologies as well as epistemic and testimonial injustice to the fore. Doing so, the concept also offers potential insights into other and alternative ways of being, caring, and thinking.

References

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Altamirano-Jiménez, Isabel. 2013. Indigenous Encounters with Neoliberalism. Vancouver: UBC Press.

Bhambra, Gurminder K., and Peter Newell. 2023. “More than a Metaphor: ‘Climate Colonialism’ in Perspective.” Global Social Challenges Journal 2 (2): 179-187. Retrieved June 4, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1332/EIEM6688.

Bjørst, Lill Rastad, Kirsten Thisted, and Frank Sejersen. 2022. “Affective Approaches: Rethinking Emotions in Resource Extraction.” In Resource Extraction and Arctic Communities: The New Extractivist Paradigm, edited by Sverker Sörlin, 145-165. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009110044.

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Dunlap, Alexander, Judith Verweijen, and Carlos Tornel. 2024. “The Political Ecologies of 'Green' Extractivism(s): An Introduction.” Journal of Political Ecology 31 (1): 436–463. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.6131.

Fjellheim, Eva M. 2023. “Wind Energy on Trial in Saepmie: Epistemic Controversies and Strategic Ignorance in Norway’s Green Energy Transition.” Arctic Review on Law and Politics 14: 140–168.

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Hamouchene, Hamza, and Katie Sandwell, eds. 2023. Dismantling Green Colonialism: Energy and Climate Justice in the Arab Region. London: Pluto Press.

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Normann, Susanne. 2021. “Green Colonialism in the Nordic Context: Exploring Southern Saami Representations of Wind Energy Development.” Journal of Community Psychology 49 (1): 77–94. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22422.

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Rehman, Asad. 2019. “The ‘Green New Deal’ Supported by Ocasio-Cortez and Corbyn Is Just a New Form of Colonialism.” The Independent, May 4. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-corbyn-colonialism-climate-change-a8899876.html.

Retter, Gunn-Britt. 2021. “Indigenous Cultures Must Not Be Forced to Bear the Brunt of Global Climate Adaptation.” Arctic Today, November 25.
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Sejersen, Frank, and Kirsten Thisted. 2021. “Mining Emotions: Affective Approaches to Resource Extraction.” In Nordic Perspectives on the Responsible Development of the Arctic, edited by Douglas C. Nord, 369-389. Cham: Springer Polar Series.

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Össbo, Åsa. 2023. “Back to Square One: Green Sacrifice Zones in Sápmi and Swedish Policy Responses to Energy Emergencies.” Arctic Review on Law and Politics 14: 112–134.
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