Legacies of Colonialism: Anticolonial and Postcolonial Perspectives

Abstract

In recent years, international political theory has begun to grapple with the legacies of colonialism and their implications for contemporary normative debates in global politics. Understanding these legacies requires engagement with the perspectives of those who struggled against empire and/or theorize in its shadow. This panel brings in ideas from anticolonial and postcolonial thinkers to shed light on a range of pertinent global political issues. First, engaging with Third World proposals of “delinking” from the global economy, Anuja Bose explores an influential but largely neglected alternative paradigm for global justice. Second, Shuk Ying Chan turns to Nehru’s ideas of democratic world union to develop an anticolonial approach to global democracy. Third, Eniola Soyemi traces within Steven Biko’s political thought an account of universalizable freedom in the formation of communal identities. Finally, Kevin Pham draws on Vietnamese anticolonial thought to explore a central question that remains as relevant today as it was at the height of decolonization: how freedom for the post-colony might be attained or thwarted in the wake of empire. Together, these papers place Third World and postcolonial thinking at the center of ongoing debates on global economic justice, cosmopolitan democracy, the idea of freedom and the politics of decolonization.

Title	Details
Nehru, Internationalism, and World Union: An Anticolonial Approach to Global Democracy	View Paper Details
Anticolonial Jubilation and Postcolonial Disenchantment: Vietnamese Political Thought and the Nhan Van Giai Pham Movement	View Paper Details
The Ideal of Educative Communal Utopia: An Integrated View of Steve Biko’s Political Theory	View Paper Details