Lecture 11 - Postcolonialism Flashcards
colonialism
the political control, physical occupation, and domination of people over another people and their land for purposes of extraction and settlement to benefit the occupiers
postcolonialism
highlights the important degree of continuity and persistence of colonial forms of power in contemporary world politics despite the end of juridical practice of controlling territory and peoples
- level of economic and military control of Western interests in the global South = neocolonialism
- social construction of racial, gendered, and class differences uphold relations of power
history of imperialism and colonial rule
postcolonial theories are shaped by and have a
shared understanding of the history of Western empires
colonial phases like transatlantic slave trade
common patterns or practices of imperial and colonial control - political
forced formal recognition of imperial rule in colonies
common patterns or practices of imperial and colonial control - economically
enslavement of indigenous people who had to work and produce for imperial markets / extraction raw materials / establishment trade monopolies on key imports and exports
common patterns or practices of imperial and colonial control - cultural
colonizers imposed their own languages, laws and often religions / enforcement of racial hierarchies
decolonization
Influenced by anti-colonial movements and their political and sometimes military resistance to
imperial systems of control and imperial practices.
a historical event and a critical, philosophical analysis
decolonization: reation and development of the ‘Third World
Decolonialization and New State Priorities –> New states should receive aid from the superpowers, but determine their own national policies
New International Organizations
Non-Aligned Movement
G-77
OPEC
the emergence of postcolonialism
Postcolonial studies evolved in the 1980s and 1990s initially in history, philosophy and literature
Colonialism as psycho-cultural: Frantz Fanon
Colonialism as system of totalizing violence: which operates not only at political and economic level putting colonizers and settlers above ‘natives’ in the colony, but involves their psychological, social and
cultural destruction through racism and linguistic/cultural imperialism
Orientalism
Use of Western literature/media to understand how the West views the East/others
- The role of cultural stereotypes in political/economic relations
- “Othering” and subordination
Orientalism and Otherness as Modes of Representation
Way of imagining and representing the world in ways that justified and supported imperialism
Depiction of Europeans as rational, strong, enlightened and liberal vs. non-Europeans as barbaric, effeminate, weak, dangerous, irrational, yet also exotic and oversexualized Others
Eurocentrism as an intellectual habit
Widespread tendency to treat Europe as primary subject of and reference point of world history, civilization and/or humanity
Treat European injunction as ‘universal standards’ to which others should evolve accordingly or to which other societies’ failures are compared to
Subaltern studies
The way the world looks to those on the bottom: the ways in which power and systems affect individuals
Subjects of subaltern studies
- Victims of war
- Minority groups
- Food insecurity
- Migration of the poor
- Humans as property
- Domestic/sex workers
Modernity/coloniality as overarching historical/philosophical structure
Philosophical and political project of modernity is foundationally premised on coloniality, that is racialized, hierarchical dualities that empowers people
and ideas seen as ‘modern’ over those seen as ’non-modern’.
This hierarchical structure informs modern global
processes such as capitalism, science, state-building and development
Border thinking
Thinking from the ‘underside’ of modernity; think with perspectives of people who are marginalized, undervalued or excluded by the ideals of modernity
–> indigenous people / non-white immigrants / women
Cultural hybridity
the idea that the identities of the colonized and colonizers are constantly in flux and mutually constituted
Postcolonial critique of conventional IR theories
IR its story: its central characters, its setting, its plot line, was narrated by those who emerged victorious from the Second World War and whose anxieties and ambitions would carve out the dominant trajectories for much of world politics in the next few decades
19th century and Cold War are anything but peaceful –> Violence, sometimes genocidal suppression of resistance and imperial control
instead of bipolar stability / hegemonic stability = rather than systemic stability, instability because of foreign policy practices of powerful states
no international law = civilizing force: International law and trade were not developed because West naturally
civilizing but constituted attempts to assert hegemonial rule over non-Western spaces on sea and land. -> Counterterrorism
Postcolonialism - Ontology (what and who is being
studied/what the world consists of)
challenges the idea of a single, universal truth
Cultural hybridity: the idea that the identities of the colonized and colonizers are constantly in flux and mutually constituted
Rejects the assumptions of the foundational theories because they obscure how the world and identities are not fixed and essential but are produced through essentially social processes and practices – anti-foundationalist ontology.
Conventional theories which are concerned with sovereign states, great powers and relations among them obscure Western origination of these theories .
Postcolonialism - Epistemology (the way we generate
knowledge about world)
reject assumption that knowledge is objective or neutral
The way world is represented depends on hierarchies established by colonial attitudes and reflects perspectives of colonially or racially privileged
Postcolonial theories emphasize importance of seeing and knowing the world from perspectives and world views of disempowered or dispossessed by imperial and racial hierarchies –> indigenous epistemologies
Postcolonial Problematization of ‘Sovereign State Equality’
Conventional theories grounded on abstract universality –> they treat state as independent units and theorize only about the Western states
- non-western states are born out of and continue to cooperate in an unequal structure of world politics
- legitimacy of European sovereign states as benefactor and protector of its territory and people implied exploitation of the colonized
- In Africa: boundaries within the postcolonial world are crafted by colonizers; dissolution of social and cultural fabric; internally ruptured and fragile -˃ failed or weak states -˃ tension, violence
Postcolonial Problematization of ‘Liberal Problem Fixing’
Third World perceived as ‘backward’ –> social institutions hamper individual achievement
Third World expected to emulate Western values and institutions to achieve progress
- Europe = normative referent which all states should aspire
- Policies crafted by First World elites (Washington consensus)
- Unequal exchange between South and North which tend to cheapen labour and resources
- Little if any input from affected people and no knowledge of social and cultural milieu
Continued relevance of postcolonialism: cultural dimension
Politics of representation (‘Orientalism’ and ‘othering’) which helped to establish European superiority and Eurocentrism (= tendency to place European experience at centre of analysis and treat as normative referent)
Continued relevance of postcolonialism: psychological dimension
Long-term damage inflicted upon the colonized.
Psychological and intellectual struggle against colonialism through revival of indigenous agency, languages etc. (‘decolonialization of the mind’)
Continued relevance of postcolonialism: discursive dimension
First and Third World, Developed and Underdeveloped not innocent descriptors of geographical regions or facts of economic well-being, but signifiers of worth and value.
Critical projects across social, cultural and scientific fields to interrogate and overturn legacies of colonialism (e.g., decolonizing the curriculum)
Contributions of postcolonialism to IR
Draws attention to some of the absences and erasures in this story of IR as a discipline, with particular attention to the stories of those who were left out of the telling of this dominant narrative.
Opens up space to see and hear IR from other, more marginalized perspectives –˃ new concerns different priorities, and alternative life worlds and practices
Illuminates the damage wrought by the telling of the narrative that has profoundly shaped the infrastructure and dynamics of world politics
Suggests new problem-solving approaches and reveals new problems including Third World inequality and racial (in)equality
