Branwen Gruffydd Jones (ed.) - Decolonizing International Relations

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Decolonizing international relations / edited by Branwen Gruffydd Jones.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

9780742576469

1. International relationsCongresses. I. Gruffydd Jones, Branwen, 1972

JZ43.D43 2006
327.101dc22

2006009987

Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.481992.

For my parents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

The origins of this project lie in a panel organized at the 2003 International Studies Association conference in Portland, called International Relations and The Rest of the World, which included papers by Mustapha Kamal Pasha, Sandra Halperin, and Branwen Gruffydd Jones, with Siba Grovogui as discussant. The panel was organized while I was holding an ESRC postdoctoral fellowship (no. T026271069) at the University of Sussex, the support of which is gratefully acknowledged. Thanks to Marc Williams, Cate Eschle, Sandra Halperin, Julian Saurin, Alison Ayers, Mustapha Pasha, Mike Sheehan, Martin Mills, Burak lman, and Muhammed A. Acan for helpful discussions, encouragement, and contributions at various stages of the book project.

The papers contributing to the book were presented at a workshop on Decolonizing International Relations held at the University of Aberdeen in April 2005. The workshop was made possible by a grant from the British Academy, with additional financial support from the University of Aberdeen Visiting Scholars Fund, which were greatly appreciated. I thank Peter Wilkin and Marc Williams for their encouragement and support at that stage of the project. I also thank Grant Jordan and Steve Bruce in the Department of Politics and International Relations, Aberdeen, for their advice and support.

Two of the chapters in this book are revised versions of already published articles. Sankaran Krishnas chapter is revised from Race, Amnesia and the Education of International Relations, originally published in Alternatives: Global, Local, Political (vol. 26, no. 4, OctoberDecember 2001). Copyright 2001 by Lynne Rienner Publishers. James Thuo Gathiis chapter is revised from the original article Foreign and Other Economic Rights upon Conquest and under Occupation: Iraq in Comparative and Historical Context, published in University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law (Volume 25, Number 2, Summer 2004). Copyright by University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Economic Law. Both are used here with permission, which is gratefully acknowledged.

I wish to express warm thanks to Rene Legatt at Rowman & Littlefield. From her initial enthusiastic reception of the book proposal to her enduring patience through various delays and extended deadlines, she has provided a close interest in the project and friendly, helpful support. Thanks to Jessica Gribble and Jehanne Schweitzer for seeing the book to completion. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewer for constructive and encouraging comments.

I offer thanks and also apologies to my family and friends who have had to put up with endless responses of the form Im sorry I havent called for a while, Ive been so busy and who, regardless, have continued to provide invaluable support, which is deeply appreciated. Finally, thanks as ever to Elly Omondi for his loving support and solidarity.

Acronyms

Introduction: International Relations, Eurocentrism, and Imperialism

Branwen Gruffydd Jones

We are at a point in our work when we can no longer ignore the empires and the imperial context in our studies.

Edward Said

Education was so arranged that the young learned not necessarily the truth, but that aspect and interpretation of the truth which the rulers of the world wished them to know and follow.

Has the education of international relations improved since then? This volume is concerned with the education of international relations and world history today. It seeks to expose enduring suppressions in the historical record, to break out of long-fostered habits of distorted Eurocentric thought. International Relations (IR) scholarship and teaching, over the decades since Du Bois was writing, has remained concerned predominantly with relations between and issues of concern to the great powers, the hegemons, the large and powerful in the global political economy. The standard historical reference points of the disciplines rendering of international relations are drawn almost exclusively from Europes internal history. The acknowledged disciplinary canon of modern IR consists of European classical thought. For much of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the field of IR has been dominated by North American, European, and, to a lesser extent, Australian scholars. Thus, the majority of literature in the discipline of IR is written by and about only some of the peoples of the worldpredominantly Americans and Europeans. IR remains guilty of forgetting and detracting from the thought and acts of not only the people of Africa but also the rest of the non-Western world.