Module description
This module is about the connection between international politics and questions of colonialism and racism, including in the realm of culture. Are contemporary conflicts in the so-called ‘Global South’ and interventionist wars manifestations of past and contemporary modes of colonisation and global relations of power? Are race and cultural difference elements that should be taken into account in our understandings of the discourses, practices, and institutions of international politics, including how they relate to matters such as terrorism, climate change, peacebuilding, and migration?
Postcolonial authors highlight the constitutive relationship between colonial domination and modernity. The challenge of a postcolonial reading of the international is its revelation of the Eurocentric particularity of the universal, Western subject of politics, and the relationship between racial and cultural difference and systems of power/knowledge. The aim in this module is to engage with the literature in postcolonial and anti-racist social and political thought, focusing in particular on the continuities of colonial thought and practice in contemporary practices of conflict, structures of domination, and modes of resistance in global politics.
Assessment details
1 x 3000-word essay (100%)
Educational aims & objectives
The module aims to familiarise students with literature devoted to what can be referred to as the ‘colonial legacy’and the ‘postcolonial condition’. In particular, it focuses on how both elements combine to effect conflict,violence, and security in the contemporary postcolonial world.
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the module, students will have:
- The capacity to reflect on questions related to conflict, violence, and security as these relate to the postcolonial condition.
- A capacity to engage critically with a complex and interdisciplinary literature in seeking understanding of the sources, emergence and persistence of conflict and violence in the postcolonial world.
- Become familiar with and confident in utilising core concepts and theoretical perspectives that can be drawn upon in understandings of conflict, violence and security in the postcolonial world.
- An appreciation of how Eurocentric epistemic frameworks can impact on how the postcolonial world is framed and how such framing can have a profound impact on policy, including the conduct of war and militarised intervention into the regions of the postcolonial world.
- A critical understanding of how power operates globally and how hierarchies constitute the international system.
- An understanding of the postcolonial state and politics in the postcolonial world, appreciating the legacies of colonisation on contemporary practices.
- A capacity to explore the place of racialisation and the politics of cultural difference in the generation of conflict and violence and in the framing of security practices.
- An appreciation of the implication of decolonising knowledge systems, theories and concepts in conflict and security studies.