Political Modernity in the Postcolony.pdf (original) (raw)
Postmodern politics and the battle for the future
New Political Science, 1998
The postmodern turn which has so marked social and cultural theory also involves conflicts between modern and postmodern politics. In this study, we articulate the differences between modern and postmodern politics and argue against one-sided positions which dogmatically reject one tradition or the other in favor of partisanship for either the modern or the postmodern. Arguing for a politics of alliance and solidarity, we claim that this project is best served by drawing on the most progressive elements of both the modern and postmodern traditions. Developing a new politics involves overcoming the limitations of certain versions of modern politics and postmodern identity politics in order to develop a politics of alliance and solidarity equal to the challenges of the coming millennium. ******* In the past two decades, the foundational claims of modern politics have been challenged by postmodern perspectives. The grand visions of emancipation in liberalism, Marxism, and other political perspectives of the modern era have been deemed excessively totalizing and grandiose, occluding differences and neglecting more specific oppressions of individuals and disparate groups. The liberal project of providing universal rights and freedoms for all has been challenged by specific groups struggling for their own rights, advancing their own specific interests, and championing the construction of their own cultures and identities. The Marxian project of revolution, worldwide and global in scope, has been replaced in some quarters by more localized struggles and more modest and reformist goals. The result is a variety of new forms of postmodern politics whose discourses, practices, and effects we shall interrogate in this study. In our view, the contemporary world is undergoing major transformations and the discourse of the postmodern serves to call attention to the changes and novelties of the present moment. In this context, the postmodern turn in politics describes the new forms of political conflict and struggle. The present conjuncture is highly ambiguous, positioning those in the overdeveloped Western and Northern areas between the era of modernity and a new epoch for which the term postmodernity has been coined, while people in other parts of the world are still living in premodern social and cultural forms, and on the whole the developing world exists in a contradictory matrix of premodern, modern, and postmodern forms. The rapid transformation of the world and development of novel cultural forms generates new dangers, such as the potential loss of the modern traditions of humanism, the Enlightenment, and radical social traditions, as well as innovative possibilities, such as emerge from new technologies, new identities, and new political struggles. The old theories, concepts, modes of thought and analysis, will only go so far in theorizing, analyzing, and mapping the emerging constellations, thus requiring novel modes of thought, strategies, discourses, and practices. Accordingly, in addition to the transformations in
Academia Letters, 2021
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the concept of postsocialism became prominent in various academic discourses. Postsocialism, as a term, was used in relation to the former members of the USSR and other socialist countries in Europe and Asia. These public utterances arose amid a new naming and analysis of a 'neoliberalism after socialism in Europe and Asia' and 'decolonialism in the postsocialist and capitalist Europe and Asia'. How did all these constructions, practices, and discourses intersect? To put it differently, was postsocialism only associated with Europe and Asia, and how were neoliberalism and decolonialism analysed under the auspices of the term 'postsocialist'? As I write, the contemporary debates on postsocialism redefine the concept from multiple perspectives. Instead of re-evaluating postsocialism within the monolithic framework which is to associate postsocialism with the former members of the USSR and other socialist countries in Europe and Asia, contemporary debates reshape the concept around the diversity of socialisms and postsocialisms. This is the broader context for 'Postsocialist Politics and the Ends of Revolution', published by the journal-Social Identities in 2018. In the 'Introduction', editors, Atanasoski and Vora explore postsocialism as an analytic term that has the capacity to reshape "teleological narratives of oppositional consciousness tangled to a need for a change or revolution" (p. 141). Their focus is well taken. One part of the conclusion and agreement in these elusive articles is this: postsocialism is not a monolith of solid, unified knowledge, and therefore, postsocialism allows for space to collaborate through current legacies of different socialisms in the present. By applying di
Political Geography, 2006
failure. The future points to more complex Islamic identities, and that requires a leap of faith, but it does not mean the end of Muslim civilization'' (p. 209). In general, the author succeeds in his stated objectives, although themes such as the politics of paralysis may obscure the broader view he presents. The book provides a valuable synthesis of issues influencing the Middle East. Its best use may be as a supplemental text for graduate and upper-division undergraduate courses in Middle East studies and other thematic disciplines.
The Postcolonial and the Postsocialist: A Deferred Coalition?
2018
The article addresses the reasons for the asymmetrical relations that have emerged between the postcolonial and the postsocialist researchers and sensibilities. The author argues that this asymmetry should be seen as a deferred but potentially possible coalition whose realization is prevented by the contrapuntal temporal-spatial co-positionality of the two discourses. The article tackles the more pronounced interest of the postsocialist scholars and activists in the postcolonial paradigm and the relative lack of a reciprocal interest on the part of their postcolonial peers who refuse to see any affinities between these two human conditions. Among the reasons discussed in the article the most important are the successful Soviet internationalist rhetoric hiding the colonialist logic, the propagandistic representation of the soviet empire as a decolonizing state, the nostalgia of the global south for the unrealized socialist ideals, the crucial differences in the interpretations of rac...
The postmodern and political agency
2015
SoPhi pubhshes social sciences at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and it is located at the Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy It provides a forum for innovative studies in social pohcy, sociology, pohtical science and philosophy SoPhi pubhshes 10-15 titles per year, both in Finnish and in Enghsh. Manuscripts are selected for pubhcation on the basis of expert opin ion.
The becoming-other of politics: A post-liberal archipelago (Contemporary Poticial Theory, 2003)
Contemporary Political Theory, 2003
The discussion about the double inscription of the political is a familiar trope among progressive thinkers, whose discussions have focused primarily on the ontological presuppositions of the political at the expense of a theoretical reflection on politics. This article shifts the emphasis to the latter. It develops an image of thought of our political actuality that moves beyond the commonplace observation that politics exceeds electoral representation. Its underlying assumption is that modernity is characterised by a continual process of political territorialization and re-territorialization whereby the political frontier has experienced a series of displacements along a migratory arc that goes from the sovereign state to liberal party democracies. But it does not stop there, for as politics colonizes new domains and carves up novel places of enunciation, the cartography we inherited from democratic liberalism experiences a Copernican de-centring that throws us into a scenario best described as an archipelago of political domains. This announces the becoming-other of politics, the post-liberal setting of our political actuality.