Era Of Decolonization Research Articles

Monuments of Country, Climate and Culture: Michel Écochard and the Design of the Postcolonial Tropolis

The French architect and urban designer Écochard, was one of the numerous architects that designed buildings and cities for newly independent nations in the post-war era of decolonization. Many of these young nation states were in search for urban and architectural projects that would explicitate a “proper” model of modernization that differed from that of the former colonizer. This essay argues that the principles of tropical architecture would play a key role in representing and monumentalizing such an alternative model of modernization.

International Law as Insulation – The Case of the World Bank in the Decolonization Era

Abstract This article maps out how (international) legal concepts and norms were employed during the inter-institutional struggle between the United Nations and the World Bank in the decolonization era. The first contribution is historiographical. Drawing on material from the Bank’s (oral) archives, the article gives an original account of the ways in which the organization bypassed the universalist aspirations that were gaining a foothold in the UN’s democratic bodies. Secondly, the paper retraces how this particular event gave rise to a clash between opposing imaginaries of international legal order, where axiological aspirations voiced by states from the Global South were ultimately frustrated by a functionalist understanding of international (institutional) law that justified the Bank’s institutional insulation. Finally, the paper aims to provide a modest methodological contribution to the field of international institutional law – a doctrinal discipline that traditionally pays little empirical attention to the historical and sociological performativity of concrete legal interventions.

Emancipation within Empire: an Algerian Alternative during the Era of Decolonization

Abstract This article aims at shedding new light on the salience of empire as a political idea even at the height of decolonization. It discusses why and how colonial subjects – here Muslim Algerians – would continue, when faced with a choice, to look to empires rather than nation-states. The article focuses on six women and men who, during Algeria’s war of independence, rejected the nation-state as their political horizon and imagined a decolonized empire in which they could pursue their emancipation and that of their people. These individuals pursued various political projects that would reconcile their claims for equality and cultural distinctiveness. Though a great number of pro-French supporters fought with arms alongside the French army, others fought with ideas, producing laws that would establish civil and economic equality. While historians have conventionally focused on materialist reasons to explain the loyalty of colonized peoples to imperial polities, this article considers instead the ideas and ideals that inspired the claims expressed by Muslim Algerians. Only a focus on ideas allows us to understand why people could continue to support the French imperial state despite its being disastrous for their material circumstances.

Ideational and Normative Regionalism: The Case of ASEAN

ASEAN, which was established for achieving stability, developing economic, political and cultural cooperation in the region, was evaluated a sui generis pattern of regionalism. Especially after 1997 The Asia Financial Crisis, countries of the region who give importance to strength the economic interdependence, increased normative and ideational integration activities besides economic integration. Both creating the region and sustaining activities, the emphasize of independence, nonintervention, respect to sovereignty, culture and history constitutes common norms and it can be seen that the policies of organization’s in international summits and platforms are complementary of its normative and ideational regionalism. One of the motivations behind ASEAN’s regionalism which has formed by formerly colonized countries is the idea of the joint action which may constitute by countries that share common valuesto the threats,which is identified as “security communities” by Karl Deutsch. Beside having differences, Southeast Asian countries have a lot of common norms and their cluster is rooted by this similar values and the organization sees these norms as a tool to protect themselves from outer threats and championed them in international platforms. Like other organizations, ASEAN modeled its structure from European integration. However, with including regions own cultural characteristics and values, it can be argued that the organization operates as a normative actor which unites local, regional and globalfeatures. This research is prepared to make a contribution to ideational and normative regionalism literature and aimed to take attention to the third dimension of regionalism that differs from economic or security regionalism studies. Additionally, although there is a remarkable increase in attention to non-European regionalism researches recently, the Euro-centrism on regionalism analysis remains dominant in the international relations field and it causes to ignore the other regions own structures and characteristics. In the first chapter of the research, old, new and comparative regionalism studies in international relations literature will be examined on the ideational and normative regionalism framework and different from economic, political and security dimensions, the impact of norms and ideas to constructing regions will be evaluated. In this context, researches on the norm, common values, culture and history of constructive theory and English School will be used. After this section, South East Asian regionalism studies will be expressed by examining ASEAN on the historical process and after the era of decolonization the dimensions of political, economic and security relations of region’s states will be explained. In the final chapter, as distinct from topics of the previous chapter the ideational and normative regionalism stands as one of the key features of the organization’s which is so-called ASEAN Way will be shown and it will be reached as a result that the norms and rules that organizations have developed have influence on region building and international initiatives.

Emma Hunter, Political Thought and the Public Sphere in Tanzania: freedom, democracy and citizenship in the era of decolonization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (hb £64.99 – 978 1 107 08817 7; pb £21.99 – 978 1 107 45862 8). 2015, 259 pp.

Emma Hunter, Political Thought and the Public Sphere in Tanzania: freedom, democracy and citizenship in the era of decolonization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (hb £64.99 – 978 1 107 08817 7; pb £21.99 – 978 1 107 45862 8). 2015, 259 pp.

Pathways to Reconciliation: the Kitcisakik Land-Based Education Initiative

ABSTRACTGrounded in settler colonialism and resurgence, this paper presents multiple accounts gleaned from students who underwent experiential ways of learning about Indigenous cultures and sociopolitical issues through a land-based education experience considered as a contribution to building reconciliation. For over 8 years, the semi-nomadic community of Kitcisakik in Western Québec has received non-Indigenous students to experience living ‘off the land’ and share Anicinape ways. Originally inspired by a community desire to share and transmit Anicinape culture while re-appropriating wider territories of their ‘occupied’ ancestral land, this became a grassroots social economy initiative, offering 4- to 10- day educational trips for students. In addition to encouraging cultural dialogue and mutual respect, the initiative exemplifies the benefits of Indigenous learning pedagogies that are both experiential and land-based. Students describe how they physically and spiritually encounter Indigenous resilience via a confrontation of the neocolonial intricacies evident in contemporary Canada. Such critical self-reflection is necessary in Canada’s nascent era of decolonization.

Socialism or Neoliberal Barbarism

Over the past sixty years, contemporary Arab political history has witnessed two significant shifts, each of which has resulted in enormous social, economic, cultural, and ideological transformations. The experience of the Arab world is not unique; rather, it is part of the contemporary “world story” in general, and experience of “the societies of the South” in particular, despite the uniqueness of the Arab experience, in general, and the experience of individual country. This review reconstructs the Arab experience since the early 1950s and distinguishes two historical stages economically, politically, and ideologically. The first stage is the era of decolonization and the rise of Arab socialism (1952–70); the second stage is the era of globalization of colonialism or neoliberal capitalism (1980–2011), which in the opinion of the author is responsible for the unfolding of events in the Arab world since the end of 2010. The goal of this comparison is intended as political and historical criticism of the current Arab condition. Comparing and contrasting both stages, and reconsidering the model and experience presented by President Gamal Abdel Nasser, it is concluded that the Arab nation is facing the choice between two critical options: socialism or neoliberal barbarism.

Cultural Diplomacy with North Korean Characteristics: Pyongyang’s Exportation of the Mass Games to the Third World, 1972–1996

During the 1970s and 1980s, the communist government in Pyongyang sent Mass Games instructors to the Third World in order to improve the image of North Korea abroad and promote its version of socialist modernity. The Mass Games, a huge choreographic gymnastics event of 100,000 performers, artistically exhibited the North Korean idea of ‘ilsim-dangyeol (single-minded unity).’ In the era of decolonization, postcolonial leaders in the emerging Third World turned to East Asia for developmental inspirations and some leaders, notably Idi Amin of Uganda, admired the North Korean model of collectivism and discipline. The Mass Games, epitomized the communalistic values of North Korean political culture, and Pyongyang soon spread the exercises all over Africa via the exportation of instructors. Using U.S. diplomatic reports, South Korean archival documents, and North Korean press reports, this article argues that the dissemination of the North Korean Mass Games to the Third World circulated ideas of self-reliance, national harmony, and patriotism but also introduced Pyongyang’s mechanisms of social control, such as state-run cultural performances and involuntary mass participation in artistic events.

Referendum as a Legal Tool for Achieving Self-Determination: The Case of Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Referendums on the right to achieve self-determination has become a significant tool used in attaining collective political, economic, social and cultural aspiration since the decolonization era. On 25 September 2017, the people in the Kurdish controlled area of Iraq decided overwhelmingly to submit a Referendum to attain self-determination. This paper seeks to examine the use of referendum as a legal tool to achieve self-determination. The literature on the use of referendum as a tool for attaining the goal has been scarce. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq, like its counterparts in other countries, has long been in the struggle to have their own sovereign state. The paper explores and utilizes secondary source materials to cross-examine arguments and draw conclusions. It is found that referendum is an acceptable tool for achieving self-determination as demonstrated in many similar situations across the world. Submissions from our findings will impact meaningfully on the Iraqi government policymaking, the KRG and the international community. It will also add to the pool of existing works on the subject matter.

Legacy of empires: academic expertise and USA policy in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001-2014

The heritage of the European colonial empires should be perceived as missing dimension while studying the history of the USA foreign policy at the beginning of the XXI century. The comparative-historical analysis as well as transfers of colonial experience of the European powers should be discussed. It promotes making a fuller picture of imperialism as a phenomenon in the history of international relations as well as a certain style of thinking during a decolonization era. At the same time the American case became the most striking example of reception of the European powers colonial experience in political practice of the 2000th. The main characteristic feature of the USA foreign policy decisions examination was its realization in the form of historical modeling of the asymmetric conflicts - the analysis of Washington policy prospects in Afghanistan and Iraq in a wide context of experience of global colonial empires. While working with such researches a constant methodological reflection caused by their political involvement as well as restrictions of disciplinary character is necessary. At the same time a special role in this case belonged to the academic world representatives who professionally studied colonial experience of the European. It is them who were the most serious competitors to the Pentagon representatives with academic degrees as well as to think tanks analysts who cooperated with the military in fight for their own expert opinion domination about historical modeling of the asymmetric conflicts in the Middle East. It is this aspect of the academic examination of the USA policy in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2001-2014 that the following paper deals with.

Preserving Sacred Space: Mahalia Jackson’s Transnational Song Labor During the Era of Decolonization

American performance traditions and music industry trends have historically denigrated religious practices and spaces that African descended people considered sacred or worthy of regard. This legacy of sacrilege is an extension of colonialism wherein the cultural traditions of those conquered are marked primitive, strange, or laughable. Mahalia Jackson resisted such colonial systems of meaning through her discursive song and narratives incorporating both sacred and vernacular Black American traditions across the United States of America and Europe. It was her European success in the early 1950s that boosted her domestic career and distinguished her from peers with equal or greater talent. This critical hearing of her performance, together with a brief archeology of the term “gospel,” reveals how Jackson’s decolonial song labor disrupted structures that had previously excluded the African descended practices and people, and Negro women in particular, from the realm of the sacred.

Credibility, civility, and the archaeological dig house in mid-1950’s Egypt

This article argues that forms of civility governing who possessed the credibility to carry out archaeological fieldwork in Egypt changed during the post-Second World War era of decolonization. Incorporating Arabic sources, the article focuses on the preparation of a dig house used during an excavation run by the Egyptian Department of Antiquities and the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania at the site of Mit Rahina, Egypt, in the mid-1950s. The study demonstrates how the colonial genealogies of such structures converged with political changes heralded by the rise of Egypt's President Nasser. Preparing the dig house, Euro-American archaeologists involved with the excavation had to abide by social norms practiced by the Egyptians who had recently taken charge of the Department of Antiquities. Given that these norms often perpetuated older hierarchies of race, gender, and class, however, the article questions what the end of colonialism actually meant for archaeology in Egypt and elsewhere.

The World Bank in the Battles of the 'Decolonization Era'

This paper studies the story of the World Bank, the development system and the battle over financial support for the ‘newly independent states’ in the 1950s and 60s, a story full of tragic turns. Much of what might have been perceived as victories of the Third World (TW) governments at the time, turned into ambivalence and problems: With IDA a new branch of the Bank was created and the Bank turned into a development agency initially against strong Western resistance – but power in the Bank was not shared and the financial engagement became increasingly linked to substantive influence, foreshadowing conditionality. Ultimately, I argue, a certain dynamic and strategy of the Bank and Northern governments comes to the fore when looking at those years that is reminiscent of classic hegemonic moves. Southern demands here were not simply rejected or blocked but rather redirected, diverted and ultimately subverted. Almost like in the far-Eastern fighting technique of Aikido, where the energy and dynamic of an attack is not absorbed but returned and redirected against the attacker, the demands of the Third World here were responded to by creating IDA, thereby transforming the World Bank and turning it into the agency that later became ‘the symbolic antagonist for a vast array of social movements’. This article will look at this Aikido-move of Northern governments and the larger battle from three perspectives. First, it will describe the political battle to institutionalize more development financing, placing the evolution of the Bank and in particular the creation of IDA in the broader context of the battle between North and South over institutional structures of redistribution and financial support (I.). Second, it will look at the discursive turn and rhetorical recognition but also placation and pacification of the South undertaken by the Bank mainly in the 1960s (II.). Finally, it will look at the role of institutional law in this battle and argue that law played an important role in deflecting Southern demands and actually shielding the Bank even more (III.).

Introduction: student activism in an era of decolonization

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Decolonization: The Black Box of Human Rights?

Decolonization: The Black Box of Human Rights? Steven L. B. Jensen (bio) In 2007, Reza Afshari published a remarkable article in Human Rights Quarterly. It marked a turning point for the new human rights historiography that has emerged over the last decade, but it has not been fully recognized for this contribution. The article “On Historiography of Human Rights” was at a first glance a sixty-seven-page reflection on Paul Gordon Lauren’s Pulitzer-nominated book The Evolution of Human Rights: Visions Seen. In reality, it was so much more. What Afshari achieved was to write a piece that addressed not only historiography, but also historical method and managed to present an alternative history of human rights. He painted on a large canvas while paying considerable attention to detail at the same time. The article brought human rights historiography down to earth—away from the centuries-long narratives that was veering towards teleological explanations and overly normative approaches and brought the wider research field towards a more self-reflexive, critical, and complex reckoning with human rights in history. For this, his article remains an inspiration and a piece still worth returning to and learning from—even if the field of human rights history has significantly expanded in scope and depth since then. Despite its many merits, I want to engage with one aspect of the article where I believe the historiography over the last few years has proved him wrong in important ways, namely on the relationship between the era of decolonization and human rights. Afshari goes far in discarding the relevance of this connection. In my view, this connection is one of the most important, [End Page 200] fruitful, and challenging research topics currently in human rights history and the research on this has ramifications for the wider cross-disciplinary field of human rights research. It is difficult in this short space to give justice to Afshari’s discussion about the anti-colonial and human rights. There certainly are worthwhile insights, but I would argue that this is the one place in the article that he himself veers close towards the teleological that he otherwise so convincingly deconstructs in Lauren’s book. First of all, Afshari too readily reduces the Third World agendas on human rights during the era of decolonization to questions of “Western colonialism and racism.” He loses sight of what the historian Nico Slate has labeled “colored cosmopolitanism”—a term Slate uses to capture the global visions and outlooks of Global South actors—which is relevant in this historical context as it brings more nuance and complexity to the historical processes in question.1 We should also be careful when describing anti-colonial movements as “single issue” or “single-cause.”2 There was always more at stake and wider questions involved and, perhaps most importantly, considerable variation between actors that constituted the term “The Third World.” Besides this point about allowing for variation, we should also not necessarily let “anti-colonial movements” serve as a representative proxy for the much broader historical phenomenon of the decolonization process.3 The former focuses on specific actors, the latter on a wider structural transformation of global politics. There is a category difference here that we must observe and adequately address—in both method and interpretation. The point where Afshari veers towards teleology is the following: “[T] he expectation that prevailed at the time must be reevaluated in the light of what awaited the ex-colonized countries and their long suffering citizens in the hands of their own independent states.”4 Now many may well agree with this observation and it is not without merit. However, it raises the question: To what extent should we allow human rights outcomes appearing later to determine the histories that we explore and write? To be fair, Afshari may have been expressing a word of caution concerning Lauren’s interpretations. However, this question has for a long time had wider salience in human rights discourse. It has kept researchers and practitioners from exploring the deeper histories of the emergence of international human rights during the first decades after 1945—where on a world-wide scale the [End Page 201] colonial, the anti-colonial...

‘This outcome gives me no pleasure. It is extremely painful for me to be the instrument of their fate’: White House Policy on Rhodesia during the UDI Era (1965–1979)

This article offers an insightful analysis of presidential policy towards Rhodesia during the UDI era of 1965 to 1979. I provide an informative account of the stance adopted by the differing presidential administrations towards Salisbury and highlight the shifting alignment of the global and domestic dynamics that shaped decision-making. I also explore the complex relationship between pragmatism and morality in formulating policy and consider intriguing questions over the competing visions within Washington of what constituted pragmatism or morality during the era of decolonisation.

Political Thought and the Public Sphere in Tanzania: Freedom, Democracy and Citizenship in the Era of Decolonization

Political Thought and the Public Sphere in Tanzania: Freedom, Democracy and Citizenship in the Era of Decolonization

Introduction

In April 1966 thousands of artists, musicians, performers, and writers from across Africa and its diaspora gathered in the Senegalese capital, Dakar, to take part in the First World Festival of Black and African Culture (Premier Festival Mondial des arts nègres). The festival constituted a highly symbolic moment both in the era of decolonization and the push for civil rights for African Americans in the United States. In essence, the festival sought to perform an emerging Pan-African culture, to give concrete cultural expression to the ties that would bind the African “homeland” to black people in the diaspora. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the 1966 event, the editors of this special issue held a conference at Florida State University that sought to examine the festival and its multiple legacies, with the aim of promoting a better understanding of both the utopianism of the period following World War II and the “festivalization” of Africa that has occurred in recent decades.

Inheritance and the Idea of ‘the East’ in Banglaphone Thought in the Era of Decolonisation

Recent research on intellectual histories of the Global South explore the nature of inheritance and the incorporation of ideas from diverse places into colonial and post-colonial histories. Though research into the histories of science, liberalism and nationalism have multifaceted reference points in the discipline of history, histories of intellectuals in conversation with the history of decolonisation remain a missing link in the history of the twentieth century. Through engagement with the ‘Bengali Intellectuals Oral History Project’ (BIOHP), this paper argues that intellectuals from West Bengal, India, maintained a complex vector of inheritance with Western social thought when contrasted with their East Bengali/Pakistani/Bangladeshi counterparts. The primary interlocutors of eastern Bengali intellectuals were not ‘the West’, but were western Bengal, inside a regional, as opposed to an increasingly global, audience and marketplace of Indian intellectuals.

The movers of the text: Monénembo's nomad subjects

AbstractTransnational African author Tierno Monénembo is known for his unstable narratives and travelling storytellers. In this article I will discuss two of his novels,Pelourinho(1995) andLes Coqs cubains chantent à minuit(2015). Drawing on nomadic thought, the article will argue that Monénembo's lesser-seen subjects are figures of mobiledébrouillardisewho embody and play out a collective nomadic thinking with which they mediate unstable space. Translation is indirectly addressed here as part of thatdébrouillardpractice, whereby stories, situations, and agency are mediated by these secondary characters. Monénembo translates their wily movement and flexibility into French by keeping mobility at the centre of his structural and linguistic choices. This reading will be framed in an understanding of subjectivity as always conditioned by mobility (after Braidotti), an essential lens for viewing postcolonial African subjects in the era of ongoing decolonization (Mbembe). Though written 20 years apart, the novels are remarkably similar in their depiction of space and character. Mirrored journeys westwards across the Atlantic seek to draw out the African heritage of lost relations in Latin America. Encounters with multiple, unfamiliar faces are reflected linguistically in the collision of several languages, and I will suggest that where such translingual environments are hostile for some, there is a simultaneous emergence of creativity. This happens both at character level and with the author's own negotiation of different languages and styles. Monénembo demotes protagonists and place to emphasize secondary characters who shape their own space. Drawing on the work of Rosi Braidotti, I use nomad thought to frame these figures as always mobile, savvy, and innovative. This is a positive vision of subjects as dynamic entities, ready to transform, and to translate.