Life practices in risk areas:

A sociosemiotic reading of neocolonialism and its explorations

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of neocolonialism and its new forms of exploitation in historically marginalized territories, addressing economic, environmental, and political impacts. Grounded in discursive semiotics, the study analyzes how neocolonial practices establish implicit contracts of power and duty that perpetuate social inequality. To this end, we conducted a semiotic reading of these dynamics, making explicit the modal competence of the colonized subject. The analysis shows that neocolonial narratives are sustained by unequal contracts in which the addresser manipulates the addresse through strategies of power, duty, and knowledge. We conclude that discursive semiotics provides a theoretical framework to examine neocolonial discourse, highlighting the need to reconfigure these contracts in order to promote social justice and sustainability in that context.