Postcolonial Maghreb and the Limits of IR

by Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira

Overview

This book explores narratives produced in the Maghreb in order to illustrate shortcomings of imagination in the discipline of international relations (IR). It focuses on the politics of narrating postcolonial Maghreb through a number of writers, including Abdelkebir Khatibi, Fatema Mernissi, Kateb Yacine and Jacques Derrida, who explicitly embraced the task of (re)imagining their respective societies after colonial independence and subsequent nation-building processes. Narratives are thus considered political acts speaking to the turbulent context in which postcolonial Maghrebian Francophone literature emerges as sites of resistance and contestation. Throughout the chapters, the author promotes an encounter between narratives from the Maghreb and IR and makes a case for the kinds of thinking and writing strategies that could be used to better approach international and global studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783030199845
Publisher:	Springer International Publishing
Publication date:	06/21/2019
Series:	Global Political Sociology
Edition description:	1st ed. 2020
Pages:	230
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Making the Case for Reimagination.- 2. Narrative IR, Worldly IR.- 3. Postcolonial Literature and the Task of (Re)imagining the Maghreb.- 4. History and Narration as Weapons of Decolonization: Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma.- 5. Language and the (Im)possibility of Translation in Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other and Khatibi’s Love in Two Languages.- 6. East and West Encounters and Double Critique in Fatema Mernissi’s Writings.- 7. IR and the Need for Reimagination – Concluding Remarks.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“This lyrically written work showcases unfamiliar theorists/writers who offer tremendous resources. It develops a vital theoretical richness and breadth while internally engaging the international relations canon. Jessica de Oliveira combines ethical awareness, aesthetic sensibility, and skillful precision. Her acumen expresses itself as a quiet wisdom, unwavering application, and unbounded creative curiosity.” (Naeem Inayatullah, Ithaca College, USA, and co-author of International Relations and the Problem of Difference)

“In this beautifully written book, Jessica de Oliveira brings a poetic sensibility to the exploration of the links between literature and colonial memory in the Maghreb. Her investigation of postcolonial literary texts in the Maghreb illuminates the ways in which narratives are not only aesthetic spaces, but also (and especially in the case of the Maghreb) spaces of historical memory and collective mourning.” (Alina Sajed, Associate Professor of International Relations, McMaster University, Canada)

“Postcolonial Maghreb invites the reader to revisit one’s worlds and its meanings. By focusing on narration and literature, the author provides a powerful critique of the limits of IR as a way of speaking about and conversing with these multiples worlds we inhabit. It is mandatory reading for all scholars and students interested in traveling through novel and uncharted paths of being in-with global relations, profoundly marked by injustice, forgetting and inequality.” (Carolina Moulin, UFMG, Brazil, and co-editor of Review of International Studies)