Postcolonialism

Postcolonialism constitutes a longstanding tradition within the arts and humanities. Over recent decades, it has also gained traction within the behavioral sciences, including the field of international relations. The postcolonial tradition challenges the systematic underestimation – and frequent neglect – of the immeasurable impact of colonialism and imperialism on the past, present, and future (Sayed, 2022; Wilkens, 2017).

Somewhat similar to what for example Marx and Gramsci meant for the Marxist and neo-Gramscian theories of international political economy, foundational authors including W.E.B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon (2001), Edward Said (1978/1994) and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1988), among many others, inspired the postcolonial tradition in international relations (IR) theory, for which this chapter provides an introduction. To denote this paradigm, the terms ‘postcolonial’ and ‘decolonial’ can be used interchangeably.

Colonial hierarchies did not vanish with formal decolonization and the emergence of dozens of independent states from the 1940s onward. Instead, former European colonial powers – along with the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War – developed a range of strategies to secure and sustain influence in the Global South, practices commonly described as neocolonialism and neo-imperialism. To this day, a meaningful understanding of international politics requires serious consideration of the lasting relevance of historically constituted structural inequalities between the Global North and the Global South, encompassing geopolitical, economic, and cultural dimensions (Bhambra, 2020). Colonialism lived on in the form of coloniality (Grosfoguel, 2009; Maldonado-Torres, 2007; Mignolo, 2007; Quijano, 2007).

Societies that have experienced discrimination or colonial oppression tend to retain collective memories of these injustices far longer than the descendants of their oppressors and colonizers. These experiences also continue to shape contemporary international relations.

Just as class is central to Marxism and gender to feminism, race occupies a central position within postcolonialism. In multiple contexts and forms, racism is pervasive in foreign policy and international politics. Through processes of discrimination and dehumanization, racism has facilitated colonial expansion, capitalist exploitation, war, genocide, and brutality against refugees. Moreover, racism enables double standards and political hypocrisy in today’s international relations.

A core concern of the postcolonial tradition is making visible the agency and resistance of subaltern – i.e., racially discriminated and colonized – individuals, groups, and peoples, acknowledging them as key actors in international politics. Postcolonial scholars are significantly inspired by, and continue to study, the anticolonial struggles of peoples, as well as transnational instances of resistance such as the 1955 Bandung Conference, the pan-African and pan-Arabic projects, the 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana, the creation of the G77, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD, a permanent UN body), or the 1974 UN General Assembly resolution for a New International Economic Order (NIEO).

Closely related to this focus is the analysis of how the West, the East, and the Global South have co-constituted one another throughout history. The West has not merely shaped the non-West – often through violence, destruction, and restructuring – but has itself been profoundly influenced by the agency and actions of other regions of the world. In general, most postcolonial scholars adhere to a holistic and relational approach in terms of levels of analysis. According to this global history perspective, domestic societies and international relations are closely intertwined across time and space.

Postcolonialism is difficult to categorize as a ‘theory’ in the conventional sense of providing clear-cut causal explanations of phenomena in international politics. Rather, it is best understood as a distinct perspective that foregrounds colonial legacies and racialized power hierarchies in the analysis of global politics. It also challenges Eurocentric historiographies and epistemologies that, due to their limited scope, are insufficient for understanding both the historical development and contemporary realities of the world. In sum, postcolonialism makes both important empirical and epistemological contributions and, as such, is compatible with other critical approaches, notably Marxism, feminism, and poststructuralism.