Number of results to display per page
Search Results
12. Frantz Fanon: The Brightness of Metal
- Author:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Publication Date:
- 03-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research
- Abstract:
- This dossier offers a sparkling introduction to Fanon’s life and work, stressing the contemporary political traction of his radical humanism, and noting that his work carries an ‘irrepressible openness to the universal’ and an axiomatic commitment to ‘recognize the open door of every consciousness’. It examines, in particular, Fanon’s contribution as a theorist of praxis committed to move beyond the ontological and spatial ordering of oppression and undertake a form of insurgent and democratic praxis in which ‘a mutual current of enlightenment and enrichment’ is developed between protagonists from different social locations.
- Topic:
- Political Theory, Social Order, and Biography
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
13. The Political Import of Deconstruction—Derrida’s Limits?: A Forum on Jacques Derrida’s Specters of Marx after 25 Years, Part I
- Author:
- Maja Zehfuss, Antonio Y. Vázquez-Arroyo, Dan Bulley, and Bal Sokhi-Bulley
- Publication Date:
- 12-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Contexto Internacional
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
- Abstract:
- Jacques Derrida delivered the basis of The Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International as a plenary address at the conference ‘Whither Marxism?’ hosted by the University of California, Riverside, in 1993. The longer book version was published in French the same year and appeared in English and Portuguese the following year. In the decade after the publication of Specters, Derrida’s analyses provoked a large critical literature and invited both consternation and celebration by figures such as Antonio Negri, Wendy Brown and Frederic Jameson. This forum seeks to stimulate new reflections on Derrida, deconstruction and Specters of Marx by considering how the futures past announced by the book have fared after an eventful quarter century. Maja Zehfuss, Antonio Vázquez-Arroyo and Dan Bulley and Bal Sokhi-Bulley offer sharp, occasionally exasperated, meditations on the political import of deconstruction and the limits of Derrida’s diagnoses in Specters of Marx but also identify possible paths forward for a global politics taking inspiration in Derrida’s work of the 1990s.
- Topic:
- Post Colonialism, Political Theory, Philosophy, Decolonization, and Deconstruction
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
14. Building Transnational Feminist Alliances: Reflections on the Post-2015 Development Agenda
- Author:
- Awino Okech and Dinah Musindarwezo
- Publication Date:
- 08-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Contexto Internacional
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
- Abstract:
- This article reflects on transnational feminist organising by drawing on the experiences of the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) during the consultations leading up to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. First, we re-examine some of the debates that have shaped the field of women’s rights, feminist activism and gender justice in Africa, and the enduring legacies of these discourses for policy advocacy. Second, we analyse the politics of movement-building and the influence of development funding, and how they shape policy discourses and praxis in respect of women’s rights and gender justice. Third, we problematise the nature of transnational feminist solidarity. Finally, drawing on scholarship about transnational feminist praxis as well as activism, we distil some lessons for feminist policy advocacy across geo-political divides.
- Topic:
- Globalization, International Cooperation, Regional Cooperation, Political Theory, Women, Sustainable Development Goals, International Relations Theory, and Alliance
- Political Geography:
- Africa and Global Focus
15. From Binary to Intersectional to Imbricated Approaches: Gender in a Decolonial and Diasporic Perspective
- Author:
- Andréa Gill and Thula Pires
- Publication Date:
- 08-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Contexto Internacional
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
- Abstract:
- This article proposes a re-reading of the problem of gender, or as it has been put, more often than not, ‘the woman problem,’ that resists the reproduction of modern/colonial systems of governance and their political norms, standards, ideals and pacts. In turn, it seeks to open pathways to dialogue with, rather than import, conceptions of gender that respond to the terms through which modern/colonial societies have been forged on the continent of Abya Yala, drawing inspiration from decolonial and diasporic perspectives. To this end, the article maps some of the available channels of the gender debate in what has come to be known as the global South from an array of perspectives that highlight the ways in which the relations between categories of oppression and privilege (such as race, class, sexuality and gender) are reflected and positioned so as to grapple with the coloniality of knowledge, power and being. More specifically, it focuses on three ways of dealing with power dynamics in the context of Abya Yala that have influenced how we conceive and respond to questions of gender. Its primary objective is to investigate the politico-epistemic conditions that structure gender thinking in binary and intersectional ways, and, in turn, open space for imbricated approaches forged from within (post-)colonial histories that do not take as their starting point the importation of theoretical references from places otherwise situated within a global political economy of knowledge/power/being. More than a critique of theoretical standpoints from the global North, in and of themselves, which regardless were not thought to respond to our realities, here we analyse the terms through which gender and feminisms have been put up for debate. Without effectively decentring the Eurocentred references that preoccupy gender thinking in our respective disputes, we risk continued distraction from what is at stake when gender is put on the table: the (im)possibilities of living one’s full humanity on one’s own terms.
- Topic:
- Gender Issues, Political Theory, Diaspora, Women, and International Relations Theory
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Latin America, and Global Focus
16. Gender and Feminisms in IR: Reviewing Theory and Practice: Interview with Marysia Zalewski
- Author:
- Amanda Álvares Ferreira
- Publication Date:
- 08-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Contexto Internacional
- Institution:
- Institute of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
- Abstract:
- Marysia Zalewski is a Professor at Cardiff University, in Wales, and a renowned International Relations (IR) scholar. She has become a reference for her work with feminism and gender since the 1990s. She has published several books including The ‘Man’ Question in International Relations (edited with Jane Parpart, re-released in 2019 by Routledge), Feminist International Relations: Exquisite Corpse (2013) and Sexual Violence against Men in Global Politics edited with Paula Drumond, Elisabeth Prügl and Maria Stern (2018), among many other books and articles. Her work has brought important contributions in thinking feminist critical methodologies, as well as looking at everyday life as a productive site for empirical and theoretical analysis of how gender is implicated in international politics. She was in Rio de Janeiro for an event at the International Relations Institute of the Pontifical Catholic University (PUC-Rio), where she was part of two panels called ‘Rethinking the Borders between Gender and Sexuality’ and ‘The Rise of Conservatisms and the Challenges to the Women, Gender and Sexuality Agendas.
- Topic:
- International Relations, Gender Issues, Political Theory, International Relations Theory, and Feminism
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
17. Bad World: The Negativity Bias in International Politics
- Author:
- Dominic D.P. Johnson and Dominic Tierney
- Publication Date:
- 02-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- International Security
- Institution:
- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
- Abstract:
- A major puzzle in international relations is why states privilege negative over positive information. States tend to inflate threats, exhibit loss aversion, and learn more from failures than from successes. Rationalist accounts fail to explain this phenomenon, because systematically overweighting bad over good may in fact undermine state interests. New research in psychology, however, offers an explanation. The “negativity bias” has emerged as a fundamental principle of the human mind, in which people's response to positive and negative information is asymmetric. Negative factors have greater effects than positive factors across a wide range of psychological phenomena, including cognition, motivation, emotion, information processing, decision-making, learning, and memory. Put simply, bad is stronger than good. Scholars have long pointed to the role of positive biases, such as overconfidence, in causing war, but negative biases are actually more pervasive and may represent a core explanation for patterns of conflict. Positive and negative dispositions apply in different contexts. People privilege negative information about the external environment and other actors, but positive information about themselves. The coexistence of biases can increase the potential for conflict. Decisionmakers simultaneously exaggerate the severity of threats and exhibit overconfidence about their capacity to deal with them. Overall, the negativity bias is a potent force in human judgment and decisionmaking, with important implications for international relations theory and practice.
- Topic:
- Political Theory, Emotions, International Relations Theory, and Psychology
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
18. A Few Problems with Mouffe’s Agonistic Political Theory
- Author:
- Monika Mazur-Bubak
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Polish Political Science Yearbook
- Institution:
- Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
- Abstract:
- The main goal of examining a single philosophical theory, connected with social and political disciplines, is not just to identify its incoherence or to restate the theory in a more elegant way. More important in that kind of investigation is to show its possible impact on people’s lives and the functioning of communities. Thus, it seems more reasonable to conduct a critical analysis of the possible consequences for a real society than to undertake a simple study of the argument’s logical consistency. The main aim of this paper is to introduce doubts about the thesis of Chantal Mouffe presented by her in Agonistics. Thinking the World Politically and Passion and Politics. Main hypothesis is that thinking about the “political” and “politics” with reference to enmity as well as claiming that the source of every political and social activity is antagonism, can provoke an attitude that social and political scenes are battlefields rather than an agora or the space of human interactions. First of all, the author provides the critical analysis and reconstruction of the most important claims connected with the “political”, which can have strong negative effects-i.e. brutalization and creating a negative basis for social relation. Then presents a few possible sources of thinking of “political” as a “competition” or rather “enmity”. The last part it is the critic of what Mouffe claims about reason why people get involve into politics, based on the psychological experiments and in result of this the author shows the importance of validity the high standards in politics, diplomacy and relation on the social level.
- Topic:
- Politics, Political Theory, Democracy, and Liberalization
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
19. Local Self-Government as a Problem of Political Theory
- Author:
- Łukasz Swieciki
- Publication Date:
- 01-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Polish Political Science Yearbook
- Institution:
- Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
- Abstract:
- The article aims at restoring local self-government as a research problem of political theory. In contemporary political science literature, local self-government is not treated as one of its normal, standard research problems. The main obstacle of its ambiguous position within political theory is, as I argue, the forced and imposed apolitical character of local self-government considered as a part of public administration. Despite some degree of organizational, especially institutional and legal, self-determination, the local self-government is not a political, i.e. sovereign entity. However, its non-sovereign status, which is legally established, does not exclude the existence of political potency in it.
- Topic:
- Sovereignty, Political Theory, Governance, Legitimacy, and Local
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
20. Disrupted: The Post-Colonial Issue
- Author:
- Katie Washington
- Publication Date:
- 07-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy
- Abstract:
- The aim of this journal is to disrupt the ‘single-story’ of mainstream foreign policy. Through highlighting both experienced and emerging voices from across the globe, we seek to understand, challenge, and critique foreign policy. This issue focuses on the theme of post-colonialism and foreign policy, which was chosen by our members and supporters. Through a post-colonial analytical lens, our contributors challenge the unquestioned objectivity of elitist, Western-centric foreign policy, and unpack the complex connections between gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality that are embedded in the everyday actions and politics of people from across the world. Alongside our written contributions, you will find artwork and poetry engaging with this theme. A feminist foreign policy brings all voices to the table, through whichever medium they choose to express themselves, challenging the academic and un-inclusive paradigm it is embedded in. Thank you for supporting this publication. CFFP is a non-profit volunteer-run organisation and we are proud to lead the way in making foreign policy more feminist, more transparent, and more intersectional. With your support, we’re amplifying a different and more nuanced conversation that can better inform policy decisions and begin to alleviate global inequality. We hope you enjoy and learn from this journal, but we also encourage you to consider contributing to our next issue. From articles to artwork, we are always looking for new contributors and we are eager to hear (and see) new voices and fresh perspectives.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, Gender Issues, Post Colonialism, Political Theory, Women, Feminism, LGBT+, and Indigenous
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus