Redeeming the universal: Postcolonialism and the inner life of Eurocentrism

Abstract

This article investigates the limits of postcolonial International Relations’ anti-Eurocentrism through an interrogation of its ambivalent relation with the category of ‘the universal.’ It argues that a decisive defeat of Eurocentrism, within and beyond International Relations, requires the formulation of a non-ethnocentric international social theory which postcolonial approaches, à la poststructuralism, reject on the grounds that it involves the idea of the universal equated with socio-cultural homogeneity. Yet, postcolonial approaches also theorize colonial modernity through deploying forms of methodological internationalism that broach the universal. Through a critical engagement with the wider field of postcolonial theory, and an anatomy of the notion of the universal in Hegel and Trotsky, this article argues that homogeneity is not an intrinsic quality of the concept of the universal, but a result of its specifically internalist mode of construction. Supplanting Eurocentrism therefore requires an explicit theoretical incorporation of the universal. But one which is fundamentally rethought away from being an immanent self-transcendence of the particular, and re-comprehended as a radical amenability to, and constitutiveness of, alterity. This is, the article argues, a defining feature of Trotsky’s idea of uneven and combined development.

Russia's Postcolonial Identity

“…While there is no consensus among postcolonial scholars about how to handle the universal (for an argument affirming postcolonial universality, see Matin 2013b), what remains unchanged is the insistence on the need to foreground concrete experiences. For Epstein, situatedness of research does not preclude generalisation, with a crucial precondition that one be aware of the limits of one's perspective (see also Haraway 1988).…”

“…It originates in the Marxian critique of capitalism, but has incorporated insights from a range of scholarly fields as diverse as structural linguistics, psychoanalysis and, of course, cultural anthropology. Most decisively, it was shaped by an uneasy accommodation between neo-Marxist and poststructuralist critiques (Gandhi 1998, McEwan 2009: 27, Sajed 2012, Matin 2013b.…”

Book review: Beyond Globalization: Capitalism, Territoriality and the International Relations of Modernity, written by Hannes LacherBook review: Marxism and World Politics: Contesting Global Capitalism, written by Alexander Anievas

“…Despite this, Marxist i r scholarship is in rude health at the moment, a thousand flowers of historical materialism blooming on the fringes of the field. Within the sub field of International Political Economy, scholarship drawing upon Gramsci has been influential, at least in English-speaking countries outside the United States.6 Initially concerned primarily with epistemological debates, Gramscian i p e has in recent years emphasised the centrality of ideology and hegemony in sustaining the dominance of an American capitalist class in the global economy, the role of class and hegemony in the politics of Mexico and the European Union, and the politics of international merchant law, among other 3 For recent examples see Matin 2012;Bruff 2010;Rawson Green 2011. 4 Maclean 1988.…”

Reframing development theory: the significance of the idea of uneven and combined development

“…69-116;and Castree 2009). More specifically, this article is part of a wider ongoing discussion on the contemporary relevance of the idea of Buneven and combined development.^See for instance(Allinson and Anievas 2009;Rosenberg 2006Rosenberg , 2010Rosenberg , 2013Matin 2012;Shilliam 2009). …”