Postcolonial Theory and International Relations

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to encourage legal scholars to engage more actively with postcolonial discourse. To this end, the article will outline key concepts in postcolonial theory-such as colonialism, imperialism, decolonisation and neo-colonialism, and will also trace the work of major theorists in this area-Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, and Edward Said. As this article presents itself as a contribution to the study of postcolonial theory and the law, it will focus on contemporary developments in Australian law reform. Specifically, the article will discuss the Law Reform Commission of Western Australia's Final Report on Aboriginal Customary Laws.

Postcolonial theories as global critical theories

“…For my take on the relation of postcolonial feminism and intersectionality in a more general sense, see Kerner (2017). 12 For an overview, see Ling (2002), Persram (2007), Reuter and Villa (2010), Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Costa and Boatcȃ (2010), Seth (2013b) and Ziai (2016); for US political science, Bruyneel (2007). 13 It must be noted that in sociology and social theory, ethnographic methods have a longer tradition than in political theory.…”

Interrogating Western Modernity: Postcolonial Reflections on Occidental Claims and Action

“…First, that global capitalism was started in the colonial Americas; and second, that from the beginning of European colonialism on these continents, class, ethnic and racial relations were closely entangled. Right from its beginning, European colonialism established a 1 For general overviews of postcolonial theories, see, among numerous others, the classical reader by Ashcroft, Griffin and Tiffin (1995) as well as Loomba (2005); with a focus on social theory Bhambra (2014) and Go (2016); with a focus on politics and political theory Persram (2007), Seth (2013) and Kerner (2012). For an overview of the growing field of decolonial theories, see, among others, Moraña et al (2008).…”

The Discursive Turn Arrives in Turtle Bay: The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons’ Operationalization of CriticalIRTheories

“…The more poststructuralist (e.g. Der Derian and Shapiro, ; Paolini, ; Campbell, ; Der Derian, ) and postcolonial (Ling ; Seth, ;) varieties of post‐positivist IR theory have challenged the mechanistic understandings of power that undergird traditional realist, liberal and even Marxist theory, which ‘regard power as … something that is divided between those who have it and hold it exclusively, and those who do not have it and are subject to it’ (Foucault , p. 29). Instead, drawing on Foucault (, p. 29), for poststructuralist IR theorists, power is ‘exercised through networks’ and ‘reaches into the very grain of individuals’ and their ‘everyday lives’.…”

“…The more poststructuralist (e.g. Der Derian and Shapiro, 1989;Paolini, 1993;Campbell, 1998;Der Derian, 2008) and postcolonial (Ling 2002;Seth, 2013;) varieties of post-positivist IR theory have challenged the mechanistic understandings of power that undergird traditional realist, liberal and even Marxist theory, which 'regard power as . .…”