International Relations

Theories

Post-Modernism

Post-Structuralism

Post-Colonialism

Dr VaezadeSepehr Arefmanesh

Spring 2014

Introduction

Postmodernism is a concept which appears in a wide variety of disciplines or areas ofstudy including art, music, film, literature, architecture, and technology andnowadays has burst into popular usage as a term for everything from rock musicto the whole cultural style and mood of recent decades.

ModernismModernism refers to the broad

aesthetic movement in visual

arts, music, literature, and

drama and modernity refers

to a set of philosophical and

ethical ideas which provide

the basis of the aesthetic

aspect of modernism.

Therefore, “modernity” is

older than “modernism.” For

the sake of simplicity the

authors use modernism for

both terms. There has been a

long debate among scholars

on when exactly modernism

starts and how to distinguish

between what is modern and

what is not modern.

Postmoder

nism

No. Modernism Postmodernism

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

objective

rational

scientific

global claims

positivist

utopian

central

the best

linear

generalizing

theoretical

abstract

unification

subjective

irrational

anti-scientific

local claims

constructivist

populist

fragmented

better

non-linear

non-generalizing

practical

concrete

diversity

“truth” is not universal

Postmodernism is preference and truth is a social construct to be eliminated. Truth and persons are given value only as the group values them.

constitutes the postmodern are rendered impossible by postmodernity’s rejection of the

very metanarratives that would be integral to such an analysis. Other than ‘an incredulity towards metanarratives

A commonality of Post-Modern views of IR is an emphasis on how political action is affected by language, ideas, abstract concepts, and norms.

Actors are missing: women, MNCs, poor countries, classes, etc.

States are not unitary and thus not rational –states are abstractions

Thus, no such thing as national interest.

Knowledge

And Power

Knowledge is not

immune from the

workings of power –

what we know depends

on power in our lives.

Knowledge is not stable and eternal as the history of science has shown us, it refers to probabilities rather than certainties, better rather than the best.

The idea that some

people (experts)

know more than

others (non-experts)

are not espoused.

They believe that

interaction between

the knower and non-

knower is often best

seen as a dialog in

which both are

involved in an

interactive process of

knowledge creation.

Dialog replaces

monolog.Definition of power is limited mostly to tangible measures, not power of ideas, norms, words, etc.

Post-structuralism Post-

struc

tural

ism

Structuralism was an intellectual

movement in France in the 1950s and

1960s that studied the underlying

structures in cultural products (such as

texts) and used analytical concepts

from linguistics, psychology,

anthropology, and other fields to

interpret those structures. It

emphasized the logical and scientific

nature of its results.

Post-structuralism offers a way of

studying how knowledge is produced

and critiques structuralist premises. It

argues that because history and

culture condition the study of

underlying structures, both are subject

to biases and misinterpretations. A

post-structuralist approach argues that

to understand an object (e.g., a text),

it is necessary to study both the object

itself and the systems of knowledge

that produced the object.

Jean-Francois Lyotard• The figural resists representation

• In 1974 he predicted that no knowledge will

survive that cannot be translated into

computer language--into quantities of

information.

• Made critical distinction between narrative

discourse and scientific discourse

Jean Baudrillard • Death of modernity, “the real,” and sex

• Semiotic analysis of commodities

• binary oppositions that minimize difference(s)

• the simulation, simulacra, becomes the real

• The role of the hyper-real

• The Merchants of Cool/Reality TV

Michel Foucault

Jacques Derrida

View language as the “container” of possible practices

within a discourse (profession).

Speaking is not an innovative activity, but a selection from

a fixed set of practices, governed by rules that are

permissible in the language.

• World is a “text” that must be interpreted.

– World is constructed like a text.

– Cannot refer to anything “real” – only “interpretive experience”

– Quoting Montaigne: “We need to interpret interpretations more than to interpret things”

• stable and natural concepts and relations are artificial concepts.

Like structuralism, they

rejected the centrality of the self, believing

that it is not the self that creates culture, it

is culture that creates the self;

and unlike

structuralism, they

rejected scientific pretensions and applied

the structural-cultural analysis of human

phenomena to the human sciences

themselves, which are after all human cultural constructions.

What is Post-colonialism?

What is colonialism?•An extension of a nations rule over territory beyond its borders•a population that is subjected to the political domination of another population

Post-colonial theory deals with the reading and writing of literature written inpreviously or currently colonized countries, or literature written in colonizingcountries which deals with colonization or colonized peoples

- it embraces no single method or school

How does it work?

•Assesses the position of thecolonial or post-colonial subject•Offers a counter-narrative tothe long tradition of Europeanimperial narratives considering:

Political oppressionEconomicSocial/cultural oppressionPsychological oppression

■ What happens after colonization?

* What language do you speak?

* what culture do you follow?

■ Two terms to describe the results of colonization on those colonized

■ Awareness of culture before colonized and during colonization and what emerged as a result.

Edward Said

• “Power and knowledge areinseparable”(followingFoucalt’s belief) Orientalism isthe 1978 book that has beenhighly influential in postcolonialstudies.

• Attempted to explain howEuropean/Western colonizerslooked upon the ‘’Orient”

What is the Orient?

• A mystical plane that wasstereotyped due to lack ofknowledge and imagination