Here’s a brief explanation of the distinction.

If colonialism is understood to refer to conquest, subjugation and control of the colonies for the benefit of colonisers, and decolonisation 61 to a formal end to that process, ‘coloniality’ may be understood to signify a continuation of colonialism by different means:

Like colonialism, coloniality involves the expropriation of land and resources. Unlike traditional colonialism in which expropriation primarily takes place through direct forms of conquest of one group over another, under modernity/coloniality expropriation happens also through the logic of the market and of modern nation-states.62

This includes extractive market practices such as protectionism, the creation of monopolies and rent-seeking, which are enabled in the modern era by strong IP protections and abuse of those protections.

That said, this kritik uses the terms somewhat interchangeably, because that’s how the literature uses them as well, but I think the distinction is helpful for thinking through how to explain the argument in debates. I also think it’s useful for distinguishing this kritik from other colonialism kritiks that are common in debate, specifically the settler colonialism kritik, which draws from a relatively distinct literature base and makes somewhat different arguments. Again, there’s certainly overlap, but the arguments and scholarship are different—settler colonial theory is specific to colonial practices of settlement, whereas coloniality theory applies not just to settlement, but to many other forms of colonial conquest and subjugation. I predict non-settler colonialism kritiks to be pretty popular this year, so it’s worth learning the distinctions!