Decolonization first referred to the process by which colonies won independence from European empires, especially after World War II. Between the late 1940s and the 1970s, dozens of countries in Africa and Asia became independent. In 1960, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 1514, declaring that colonialism should be brought to a speedy end.
The US still administers territories. Guam, American Samoa and the US Virgin Islands remain on the UN's list of non-self-governing territories. Puerto Rico was removed from that list in 1953 after adopting its commonwealth status, but its residents still lack voting representation in Congress, and its political status remains debated.
The word is now also used for undoing colonial thinking in institutions, such as decolonizing a school curriculum, museum or medical practice. That can mean returning sacred objects to Native nations under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990, or teaching history from Indigenous perspectives. In a widely cited 2012 article, "Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor," scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang warned that using the word loosely can erase its core meaning in settler nations like the US: the return of land and sovereignty to Indigenous peoples.