IR2501 week 8 lectures

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IR2501 week 8 lectures
II Postcolonial Studies
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Postcolonial Studies

• Inter-disciplinary field of study involving all
  humanities, arts and social sciences
• Especially prominent in literary and cultural
  studies, but recent impact on IR
• Aim to analyse the postcolonial condition
• Questions that transition to independence is
  smooth, or unproblematic
• Initial questions
• What is the long term legacy of the Imperial era
  (political, cultural, economic)?
• How meaningful is independence?
• Who writes the history of colonialism? have the
  victors created a fantasy of a positive impact
  rather than oppression and exploitation?

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Founding Parents

• Edward Said
• Power-knowledge nexus of Imperialism
• deconstructive critique of techniques of Othering
  
• Gayatri Spivak
• Subjectivity of subaltern subjects
• Debates on the representation of marginalised
  voices in social research
• Homi Bhabha
• conceptions of the nation
• Hybrid identities
• Ranajit Guha and the Subaltern Studies Group
• Rewriting history from the perspective of the
  colonised
• Decentering the production of academic knowledge

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Intellectual agendas in Postcolonial Studies

• How can we re-write history to account for the
  perspective of native populations?
• What would be the impact on contemporary analyses
  and categories?
• How can we have a non-oppressive academic
  discourse?
• Can the Subaltern Speak?
• Does Western scholarship have the tools of speak
  of other cultures?
• Debates on universalism in values
• Why are the concerns and views of Western
  scholars and policy-makers taken more seriously
  than those of thinkers from the margins?
• Agenda-setting by the powerful that excludes
  voices and indigenous concerns of most of the
  world

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Challenges and Debates

• Main debate in postcolonial theory Neo-Marxist
  vs. post-structuralist emphases
• Over-stating the discursive aspects hides the
  material components of neo-imperialism? i.e. too
  stuck with talking about texts?
• Importance of discussing increasingly subtle
  mechanisms for surveillance, control and
  exploitation should not be dismissed discursive
  masks of colonialism change over time
• Resilience of Orientalism as a mechanism for
  Othering
• E.g. civilising mission of the War on Terror?
• Risk of over-emphasising colonialism as a marker
  p/c states vary, and elites should take share of
  the blame for ease of their own corruption

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Implications for International Relations

• Seemingly very focused micro-theory, but the
  implications are fundamental to IR Theorisation
  of power, in terms of Empire, relating to the
  material and discursive aspects of power
• Fundamentally challenges
• Realist Foreign policy and the international
  system as a rational, predictable settingIR is
  full of cultural assumptions and lacks
  objectivity
• E.g. racist US assumptions about Japan shaping
  WWII
• policy and academic discourses on the
  developing world
• Categories chosen and linear, Western-centric,
  scale of development set out ill-suited goals
  which postcolonial societies cannot but fail to
  reach
• Assuming a level playing field of globalisation
  that hides growing inequalities steeped in a long
  history, and structurally reinforced
• Hides ideological underpinnings of good
  governance discourse

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Can there be an IR without Othering?

• Connection to wider post-structuralist agendas
  is exclusion a feature of identity?
• David Campbell the state defines its identity
  through perceived enemies
• Greater regional cooperation maintains boundaries
  e.g. EU even common identities need an
  outside
• Connection to wider neo-Gramscian thought and
  World Systems Theory/Dependencia School
• Is the developed world developed precisely
  because the developing world isnt?
• Discourse of the liberal growth (through free
  trade) and the liberal peace (through
  intervention) imply that everyone is can be a
  winner in IR
• Is this structurally possible?

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Conclusions

• Does Orientalism apply to analyses of the
  contemporary Middle East?
• Does it apply to other parts of the Global
  South?
• What lies behind dominant discourses in IR, and
  IR theory?
• Is IR theory fundamentally Western-centric?
• Does it put a veneer of legitimacy and
  rationality on exclusion and exploitation?
• What opportunities are there for marginalised
  sections of populations, cultures or parts of the
  world to speak for themselves... and to be heard?