IR in Dialogue … but Can We Change the Subjects? A Typology of Decolonising Strategies for the Study of World Politics

• Published in: Millennium Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 781 - 803
• Main Author: Sabaratnam, Meera
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.05.2011; Sage Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Academic disciplines; Conceptualization; Decolonization; Discourse; Ethnocentrism; Europe; Historiography; Intellectuals; International Relations; International relations theory; Mozambique; Mythology; Myths; Peace; Pluralism; Politics; Postcolonialism; Professions; Research methodology; Social problems; Social theories; Strategies; Subaltern identities; Subjectivity; Typological analysis; Typology; Values; World politics; Eurocentrism; liberal peace; IR theory; postcolonialism; subjecthood; decolonisation
• DOI: 10.1177/0305829811404270
• ISSN: 0305-8298

In an effort to reconceive the conduct of ‘dialogue’ within world politics, it is necessary for us to find new subject-positions from which to speak. This article develops a typology of six distinctive intellectual strategies through which ‘decolonising’ approaches to social theory can help rethink world politics by bringing alternative ‘subjects’ of inquiry into being. These strategies include pointing out discursive Orientalisms, deconstructing historical myths of European development, challenging Eurocentric historiographies, rearticulating subaltern subjectivities, diversifying political subjecthoods and re-imagining the social-psychological subject of world politics. The value of articulating the project in this way is illustrated in relation to a specific research project on the politics of the liberal peace in Mozambique. The article discusses a number of tensions arising from engaging with plurality and difference as a basis for conducting social inquiry, as well as some structural problems in the profession that inhibit carrying out this kind of research.