From Principle to Right

Author(s):  
Adom Getachew

This chapter turns to the United Nations, where anticolonial nationalists staged their reinvention of self-determination, transforming a secondary principle included in the UN Charter into a human right. Through the political thought of Nnamdi Azikiwe, W. E. B. Du Bois, Kwame Nkrumah, and George Padmore, the chapter illustrates that this reinvention drew on a distinctive account of empire as enslavement. The emergence of a right to self-determination is often read as an expansion of an already existing principle in which anticolonial nationalists universalize a Westphalian regime of sovereignty. In contrast to this standard account, the chapter argues that the anticolonial account of self-determination marked a radical break from the Eurocentric model of international society and established nondomination as a central ideal of a postimperial world order.

Author(s):  
Ana Catarina Zema de Resende

Nos últimos 30 anos, a autonomia se tornou um novo paradigma na luta dos povos indígenas por descolonização. Organizações indígenas de todo o continente americano assumiram a autonomia como demanda central. No entanto, o debate em torno das demandas indígenas por autonomia tem gerado muitas polêmicas decorrentes da incompreensão sobre o que querem os movimentos indígenas quando reivindicam seu direito à autodeterminação e autonomia. Para melhor entendimento dessa questão, interessa-nos, aqui, trazer alguns elementos e conceitos que possibilitem apreciar as contribuições de três intelectuais indígenas a esse debate: Taiaiake Alfred, mohawk do Canada; Floriberto Díaz, mixe de Tlahuitoltepec eGersem Baniwa, do povo Baniwa do Alto Rio Negro e das propostas do Exército Zapatista de Libertação Nacional (EZLN). Veremos que a maneira como esses intelectuais e o EZLN vêm construindo suas ideias sobre autonomia funciona como veículo para suas críticas à imposição de controle por parte do Estado, levando esse último a perceber as inconsistências de seus próprios princípios e do tratamento que dá aos povos indígenas.Palavras-Chave: Autonomia Indígena, Pensamento Político, Autodeterminação, Movimento Indígena.Autonomía indígena en el pensamiento político de Taiaiake Alfred, Floriberto Díaz, Gersem Baniwa y en las propuestas del EZLNResumen: En los últimos 30 años, la autonomía se ha convertido en un nuevo paradigma en la lucha de los pueblos indígenas por descolonización. Organizaciones indígenas de todo el continente americano asumieron la autonomía como demanda central. Sin embargo, el debate en torno a las demandas indígenas por autonomía ha generado muchas polémicas derivadas de la incomprensión sobre lo que quieren los movimientos indígenas cuando reivindican su derecho a la autodeterminación y a la autonomía. Para entender mejor esta cuestión, nos interesa, aquí, traer algunos elementos y conceptos que posibiliten apreciar los aportes de tres intelectuales indígenas a ese debate: Taiaiake Alfred, mohawk de Canada; Floriberto Díaz, mixe de Tlahuitoltepec y Gersem Baniwa, del pueblo Baniwa del Alto Río Negro y de las propuestas del Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN). Veremos que la manera como estos intelectuales y el EZLN vienen construyendo sus ideas sobre autonomía funciona como vehículo para sus críticas a la imposición de control por parte del Estado, llevando ese último a percibir las inconsistencias de sus propios principios y del trato que da a los pueblos indígenas.Palabras-clave: Autonomía Indígena, Pensamiento Político, Autodeterminación, Movimiento Indígena.Indigenous autonomy in the political thought of Taiaiake Alfred, Floriberto Díaz, Gersem Baniwa and in the EZLN proposalsAbstract: Over the last 30 years, autonomy has become a new paradigm in the struggle of indigenous peoples for decolonization. Indigenous organizations throughout the Americas assumed autonomy as a central demand. However, the debate over indigenous demands for autonomy has generated many controversies which were derived from the misunderstanding of what indigenous movements want when they claim their right to self-determination and autonomy. To better understand this question, we are interested here in bringing up some elements and concepts that make it possible to appreciate the contributions of three indigenous intellectuals to that debate: Taiaiake Alfred, mohawk from Canada; Floriberto Diaz, mixe of Tlahuitoltepec and Gersem Baniwa, from the Baniwa people of the Alto Rio Negro and of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) proposals. We will see that the way these intellectuals and the EZLN construct their ideas about autonomy functions as a vehicle for their criticism of the imposition of control by the State, leading the latter to perceive the inconsistencies of its own principles and the treatment it gives to indigenous peoples.Keywords: Indigenous Autonomy, Political Thought, Self-Determination, Indigenous Movement.


Author(s):  
Samrita Sinha ◽  

According to John Quintero, “The decolonisation agenda championed by the United Nations is not based exclusively on independence. It is the exercise of the human right of self-determination, rather than independence per se, that the United Nations has continued to push for.” Situated within ontologies of the human right of self-determination, this paper will focus on an analysis of The Legends of Pensam by Mamang Dai, a writer hailing from the Adi tribe of Arunachal Pradesh, to explore the strategies of decolonisation by which she revitalizes her tribe’s cultural enunciations. The project of decolonisation is predicated on the understanding that colonialism has not only displaced communities but also brought about an erasure of their epistemologies. Consequently, one of its major agenda is to recuperate displaced epistemic positions of such communities. In the context of Northeast India, the history of colonial rule and governance has had long lasting political repercussions which has resulted not only in a culture of impunity and secessionist violence but has also led to the reductive homogeneous construction of the Northeast as conflict ridden. In the contemporary context, the polyethnic, socio-cultural fabric of the Northeast borderlands foregrounds it as an evolving post-colonial geopolitical imaginary. In the light of this, the objective of this paper is to arrive at the ramifications of employing autoethnography as a narrative regime by which Mamang Dai reaffirms the Adi community’s epistemic agency and reclaims the human right towards a cultural self-determination.


2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 383-388 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristina Beltrán

Lawrie Balfour and Robert Gooding-Williams have given us powerful new works of scholarship on the political thought of W. E. B. Du Bois. Not only do these publications enrich the field of Du Bois scholarship, they exemplify the exciting possibilities at the intersection of political theory and race politics.


2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 650-666
Author(s):  
Dillon Stone Tatum

Discussions of liberalism as a political ideology often focus on the progressive, civilisational, and triumphalist ideologies of liberal thinkers. Scholarly work on liberal empire situates these issues in the context of colonialism, and contemporary discussions of liberal world order devote much intellectual space to optimism about liberalism. Scholars have spent much less time connecting liberalism to deep cynicism and suspicion. This article, in focusing on what I term a ‘pessimistic liberalism’, fills this gap by examining the ways that the spectre of totalitarianism influenced post-war liberal thought. The mid-20th century was a pivotal moment where both liberalism and its critics proceeded to make arguments about politics that began from similar attitudes about the nature of the political: suspicion, cynicism, resignation, and fear. Specifically, the article analyses historian Jacob Talmon’s genealogy of modern leftist thought to illustrate the shift in liberal thinking from its 19th century optimism to its 20th century pessimism and scepticism. Talmon’s engagement with the issues of political messianism, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism represented a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’ ( pace Paul Ricoeur) that critiqued the triumphalism of previous political projects. The article concludes by connecting this project to the broader development of ‘contemporary political thought’ and reflects on pessimism’s place in politics.


2020 ◽  
pp. 13-33
Author(s):  
Michelle Jurkovich

This chapter examines how hunger evolved from a condition that is understood as an inevitable part of the natural landscape to a problem that is seen as something to be ameliorated. It sets the stage for the emergence of the contemporary international anti-hunger organizations and explores the origins of a human right to food in international law. It also serves to document how responding to global hunger was put on the political agenda as a problem to be solved. The chapter identifies key changes in how the international community has addressed the problem on hunger and highlights the essentials to understanding the contemporary international anti-hunger advocacy. It looks at archival research conducted at the archives of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome, as well as at the UK and U.S. National Archives.


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