Abstract
This essay contributes to the forum by pivoting from three themes in Debrix’s classic text, <em>Re-Envisioning Peacekeeping</em> — visibility, purity, and order. Specifically, it calls attention to ‘world order’ and its hierarchical features. The racial hierarchical features are always embedded both within contemporary Western discourses and more specifically in the US as a political community that was founded upon, and reinforced by, white supremacist violence. This essay examines the transnational manifestations of racial hierarchies. It also explores via Debrix the role of what is visible in upholding (through performative cruelty) but also challenging such racial hierarchical (dis)orders. It therefore points the way towards confronting world order’s racial hierarchical features. A number of contemporary international relations (IR) and global political developments provide a collective springboard for this critical world order studies approach to racial hierarchy, including the contemporary populist ‘moment’. I specifically focus on work in Historical International Relations, and the detailed scholarship by Robbie Shilliam in rediscovering ‘anticolonial antifascist’ responses in global politics.
Highlights
This essay contributes to the forum by pivoting from three themes in Debrix’s classic text, Re-Envisioning Peacekeeping — visibility, purity, and order
When the descriptions of the detention centers first appeared in the US press, the Trump administration tried a curious approach in “a public relations effort to counter some of the damning descriptions of its detention centers.”1 The administration opened up the centers, including the largest one in McAllen, Texas, allowing what had been only described in words to be publicized by those media outlets via images
As Lucian Ashworth noted of the time, this was characterized as a “view of the west as an oasis in a desert of racial barbarians, and the consequent need for solidarity among western powers.”8 Further, institutions of the new field of International Relations (IR) were shaped by racial hierarchy
Summary
This essay contributes to the forum by pivoting from three themes in Debrix’s classic text, Re-Envisioning Peacekeeping — visibility, purity, and order. “Images, Racial Hierarchy, and Critical World Order Studies.” SPECTRA 8, no.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
