This document provides an overview of post-colonialism as it relates to international relations. It discusses how post-colonial thinking emerged in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War to challenge mainstream theories. Post-colonialism takes a "bottom-up" approach focused on culture as seen through fiction, poetry and memoir from a post-colonial perspective. It also discusses decolonization after World War II, challenges to concepts of development, voices from former colonies, and influential post-colonial thinkers like Fanon who argued colonialism must be overcome mentally for independence to be meaningful.

1. Baylis, Smith & Owens
The Globalization of World Politics 5e
Chapter 11
Post-colonialism

2. Post-colonial thinking breaks into International
Relations…
• 1990s - End of Cold War, and failure of mainstream theories to
predict this, opens the door for critical theories including
feminism and post-colonialism.
• ‘Bottom-up’ approach used by post-colonialism in stark contrast
to ‘state-down.’
• Fiction, poetry and memoir - relied on heavily by post-colonialists
to analyze culture. This is a lens through which world politics is
then viewed.

3. Former colonies in International Relations
• Decolonization began with Woodrow Wilson and the
League of Nations…
• …Was interrupted by World War Two….
• …Continued apace after 1945…
• …And culminated with the end of the Cold War.

4. ‘Developing’, ‘Third World’, or ‘Global
North/South’?
• Post-colonial theorists challenge the idea of
linear ‘development’ and the language
associated with this.
• The Non-aligned movement: former colonies
delineate their independence.
• The Tri-continental Conference: Che Guevara
speaks.
• Oil:1973, OPEC asserts its power.

5. Revising history, filling the gaps…
• 1980’s India: subaltern studies takes shape by
moving away from Western analysis of
subjects.
• Original fiction and memoir allow the
subalterns own voice to be heard, e.g Ngugi
wa Thiong’o, Chenjerai Hove, Ho Chi Minh
and Chinua Achebe.

6. …But can the subaltern speak?
• Giyatri Spivak invokes intense debate by suggesting
that ‘the subaltern’ will always be presented through
the language and lens of the Western scholar.
• Does ‘the West’ always, then, remain the central
focal point of any subaltern studies?
• ‘World-Travelling’ attempts to overcome this
problem.

7. Becoming postcolonial
• FRANZ FANON: The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin,
White Masks.
- Focus on the power of colonial discourses to colonize the minds of
all involved.
- ‘Culture’ must be reshaped in order for formal independence to
result in an altered national consciousness.

8. Becoming postcolonial cont…
• Edward Said: Orientalism, an eponymous work which some
credit as pre-dating subaltern studies in India as the beginning of
post-colonialist theory.
- An extremely contentious and divisive topic.
- Some charge that Said delineates sharp and incompatible lines
between ‘the west’ and ‘the east’.

9. Conclusions
• Post-colonialism is not a branch of international
relations theory; it challenges the basis upon which
such theory exists.
• Former colonies, and the culture within them, are put
front and centre by post-colonialism.
• Feminism, post-structuralism and development
studies are integral to post-colonialism.
• Heavy use of memoir, literature and ‘the arts’ to
study the subaltern subject.

10. Case study
Zimbabwe: a post-colonial dilemma in International Relations