Postcolonial international relations
[4] Many scholars have attempted to bridge the studies of postcolonialism and international relations, and have often taken interdisciplinary approaches that consider various social aspects such as race, gender, and class.
[2] Additionally, scholars of postcolonial IR have also critically analyzed systems such as capitalism, patriarchy, and militarism as modes in which colonization has impacted political issues such as governance and sovereignty.
[6] This concept is also highlighted by Rudyard Kipling in their conceptualization of "The White Man's Burden" to bring Western ideologies in order to enlighten morally "primitive" colonized peoples.
[7][8] As such, the labeling of the "Third World" in the economic and political sense during the Cold War can be viewed from a postcolonial IR perspective to embody racialized and colonial meanings instead.
For instance, a group of scholars at Howard University including Ralph Bunche, Alain Locke, and Merze Tate among others, considered race, empire, and decolonization in the context of global colonial dynamics.
[9] These scholars, active in the first half of the 20th century, challenged dominant theoretical assumptions about global racial hierarchies that informed the early mainstream developments of International Relations.
[9] This school of thought developed parallel to and in response to early mainstream international relations in North America that evolved based on perceived threats to the white supremacist system through the increased spatial concentration of Black people, culture, and intellectualism.
[14] Postcolonial IR is an evolving academic approach that has diverse methodologies, usually addressing the hierarchies and structures of power between (post-) colonial states and colonized regions, sometimes described as the North–South divide.
[16] Postcolonial IR compares global colonial power dynamics to critique the subjectivity of the cultural and ideological "Other" of international relations, which is embodied by the portrayal of colonized countries and their people as subordinate to European nations.
[18] Said argues that taking a political stance of those experiencing ongoing victimization from colonial, capitalist, and patriarchal world order is essential to disrupt European hegemonic power.
Proponents of this approach argue that a marginal disciplinary position for postcolonial thought provides advantages to pointing out academic and cultural erasure in knowledge production and the field of international relations.
[8] The postcolonial critique requires scholars to investigate and confront the IR scientific knowledge structures that reflect and replicate the power dynamics that characterize the colonial experience.
The international society of locally sovereign states based on the principles of equal sovereignty, territorial integrity, and non‐intervention can be understood as a practical institutional response to that problem.
[24] Postcolonial IR scholars argue that colonialism and its processes were necessary to the historic development of global capitalism, which largely defines our economic and political world today.
[4] They emphasize the forced integration of colonized societies into a hegemonic, capitalist world system, and the destruction of existing ways of life as being central to the story of colonialism.
The colonization of the Americas by Spain, Portugal, Britain, and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries created a new Atlantic economic system which rested on the violent capture and transport of over 13 million Africans.
Despite Europe and the United States experiencing declining power in the world economy as nation-states, they continue to maintain domination through the hegemonic capitalist culture which is based on Eurocentric values.
Fanon grew disgusted with the oppressive regime of the occupation, describing the soldiers of the Vichy French occupiers as having shed their masks and behaving like proper, "authentic racists.
In borrowing from Western classical music, contrapuntal reading refers to the re-reading of literature from the perspective of the colonized to highlight the submerged voices within canonical texts.
Du Bois's early works such as The Philadelphia Negro showcased his thought process of having a small group of educated, middle-class individuals, the Talented Tenth[45] to be the leaders to lift black people towards success in a White world.
Du Bois was a part of a select group of scholars that author Charisse Burden-Stelly would say are embracing "Radical Black Peace Activism"[47] during the era of the Cold War.
[49] Through his devotion to pan-Africanism and socialism,[50][51] Nkrumah's works and principles substantially contributed to the development of Postcolonialism (international relations) emphasizing the continuation of Neo-colonialism as the 'Last Stage of Imperialism' where the economies of independent states remain directed and exploited by former colonizers.
Postcolonialism centralizes colonial and imperial structures in the formation of academic knowledge and practices, including the dominant theoretical framework of political ideals, such as the liberal nation-state and citizenship.
[57] Here, it is clear that such notions contributes to postcolonial IR as it dives deeper into the cultural and psychological effects of colonialism in the mis-shaping of a nation-state identity, left in the hands of former colonisers to complete.
With postcolonialism emerging as a theoretical approach that aimed to provide a discourse for those who had been 'stripped of their authority, culture, and history',[58] its lens on overcoming relations of domination is also evident in Nkrumah's vision of pan-Africanism.
Founding pan-Africanism ideology in the unity and oneness of the African people, Nkrumah believed that the only way to overcome false consciousness of the oppressed was to unite against neocolonialism.
[52] Developed during the Cold War environment, Nkrumah believed that the major political weapon of the capitalist–imperialist was the false consciousness, his work reflected the ongoing transformations to the traditional structures of imperialism and territorial colonialization in the West.
[63] Since the 'dangers of Communist subversion' became a growing concern in affecting former colonized nations, Nkrumah describes the West's realization of this occurring as 'two-edged',[64] as it brought notice to the possibility of a change in regime to socialism.
Nkrumah intended to fend off imperialist influence through a 'scientific socialist' form of unity,[65] acting as a further reaction along with postcolonialism IR against global capitalism's dominance of economic modernity.
He also saw strains of Western racial dominance reflected in the modernization and reform programs initiated by the Pahlavi regime, particularly in their emphasis on Aryan purity and untainted Persian history.
