The Rubik’s cube of postcolonialism: Theory's syncretism and challenges in postcolonial studies

Abstract

The paper examines the genesis of postcolonialism in various (mutually conditioned) forms: at the conceptual, humanistic, theoretical and disciplinary level. With the contextualization of the work of the first authors who put the question mark on the established and dominant western-centric perception of global divisions, we will (de)construct various historical and paradigmatic influences on the development of postcolonialism. A special emphasis is put on the position of postcolonialism within the so-called Great Debates in the academic discipline of International Relations. Also, we consider the possibility of development of postcolonialism as a theory on the medium level that has a multiple utility for International Relations. A critical examination of the initial assumptions of postcolonialism as inherently processual, reflexive and subversive, will open up the issues of the contemporary challenges of the social life of former colonies and their relationships with other actors on the international scene. One of the major issues (which can be set as a hypothesis) is how to use the advantage of the epistemological and theoretical postulates of postcolonialism in the research of the modern world in which the orientalist rhetoric largely survives, but due to the rise of terrorism and large-scale migration from the Middle East, the political and social reality is changed?