Chapter 12: Postcolonialism by Siba N' Grovogui

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Chapter 12 Postcolonialism by Siba N. Grovogui
International Relations Theories Discipline and
Diversity
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Learning outcomes

• After this lecture you should be able to
• Understand the key principles of
  postcolonial writing
• Understand the key principles of Saids
  Orientalism
• Understand the applications of postcolonial
  thinking in international relations theory and
  international politics

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Postcolonialsm

• Postcolonialism
• Highlights that in celebrating reason, science
  and technology, the Europeans have degraded the
  culture, arts and science in non-European
  societies
• Implicates academic disciplines with this process
  and contests the Western rationalist, humanist
  and universalist modes of thinking
• Draws on a multiplicity of perspectives from
  different regions, historical contexts and
  academic disciplines

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Knowledge and power

• Postcolonialism notes that knowledge and power
  are intertwined
• knowledge power
• Postcolonialism is sceptical of everyday
  knowledge, expert knowledge as well as Western
  efforts to save the underprivileged as hiding
  colonial categories and tendencies

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Challenging the Western canon

• Postcolonialists challenge classical Western
  canon and draw three conclusions
• We must note the political effects of categories
  such as international order, society or ethics
  derivative from colonial history
• There are double movements of presence and
  erasure in Western moral debates
• 3) Postcolonialism is sceptical of the
  objectivism and neutrality implied by Western
  disciplinary narratives

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Postcolonialism and International Relations

• Postcolonialism points to the forms of violence
  that went with the European creation of
  international order
• In International Relations, postcolonialism
  harbours a suspicion of the universalisms and
  rationalizations of the liberals and the
  mutuality and co-constitutions of norms
  emphasised by the constructivists
• Postcolonialism is associated with the study of
  identity and culture in their fluid contexts.
  They see both dangers and opportunities in their
  transformation

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Said and Orientalism

• Saids Orientalism emphasised the techniques of
  power at work in Western language and
  representations of the Middle East
• One can utilise Saids framework in analysing
  todays images of the Middle East as well as
  those from the past
• The war on terror can be seen to embody
  particular definitions and discourses of
  terrorism that arise from Orientalism
• existence of separate hierarchical spheres of
  civilisations,
• need to defend Western values against corrupt
  ones and
• necessity of moderate Arabs to join the Western
  framework
• These, however, present a particular view of
  history and present that distorts historical
  co-dependencies and cultural nuances

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Postcolonialsim on imperial legacy

• Postcolonial thinking requires that one is able
  to challenge the disciplinary common sense.
• The notion of Pax Britannica expresses British
  empire in a positive light. Postcolonialism notes
  that the experiences of the colonized differ
  substantially from those of the colonisers
• A postcolonial understanding of nuclear
  non-proliferation treaties reveals that the
  treaties, while inhibiting the ability of weaker
  post-colonial states to gain arms, allow the
  proliferation of nuclear arms in the possession
  of the western states to go unnoticed.

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Case study Suez Canal

• The accounts of the Suez Canal War still read as
  stories of superpower balance of power and
  recklessness of third world nationalism
• To postcolonialists the decision of Britain,
  France and Israel to wage war on Egypt was
  illogical, and reckless in its own way Nasser
  was right that the internationalization of Suez
  was a throwback to European notions of imperial
  sovereignty and went against the post-war notion
  of self-determination

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Conclusion

• Postcolonialism
• Seeks contingent and empathic
  understandings of human trajectories and favours
  egalitarianism, social justice and solidarity
• Advances a different kind of universalism
  based on deliberation and contestation amongst
  diverse political entities
• Notes the failure of the international
  system to fully include postcolonial nations in
  decision-making and is sceptical of hegemony,
  unilateral rules and memory of international
  relations
• Recognises the fluidity and hybridity of
  culture and identity