Third World Quarterly

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Decolonising International Relations?

Zeynep Gulsah Capan

To cite this article: Zeynep Gulsah Capan (2017) Decolonising International Relations?, Third
World Quarterly, 38:1, 1-15, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2016.1245100

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1245100

Published online: 27 Oct 2016.

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Third World Quarterly, 2017
VOL. 38, NO. 1, 1–15
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1245100

Decolonising International Relations?

Zeynep Gulsah Capan
Department of International Relations, Istanbul Bilgi University, Istanbul, Turkey

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

How do we ‘decolonise’ the field of International Relations? The Received 3 August 2015
aim to decolonise has become a widely discussed and mentioned Accepted 3 October 2016
subject across the social sciences and humanities. The article aims to
KEYWORDS
discuss what 'decolonisation' might mean in the context of the field Decolonization and
of International Relations. colonization
Global South
dependency and
anti- imperialism
Eurocentrism

How do we ‘decolonise’ the field of International Relations (IR)? The question about the
Eurocentrism of the field of International Relations and how to move beyond it has generated
a variety of responses and debates, and answers have ranged from possibilities for non-West-
ern International Relations, post-western International Relations, or global International
Relations to decentring and decolonising International Relations.1 These forays into discuss-
ing ‘decolonising’, ‘decentring’ and ‘deconstructing’ reflect a trend across the social sciences
to problematise and attempt to overcome their own legacies of Eurocentrism. The aim to
decolonise has become a widely discussed and mentioned subject across the social sciences
and humanities.2
Decolonisation is a ‘process which engages with imperialism and colonialism at multiple
levels’.3 These multiple levels need to be taken into consideration as both the process of
colonisation and juridico-political decolonisation operate(s) in diverse manners and these
processes are not themselves over.4 As such, decolonisation in this article is taken as a process
involving a myriad of strategies not limited to juridico-political decolonisation but also involv-
ing ‘the bureaucratic, cultural, logistic and psychological divesting of colonial power’.5 The
article aims to discuss what ‘decolonisation’ might mean in the context of the field of
International Relations.
The first part of the article will discuss the Eurocentrism of International Relations. The
section will discuss how the field of International Relations has approached Eurocentrism
through focusing on the ‘absences’ it has created and their constitutive role. The section will
also underline how the focus on the absence of the non-West overlooks the constitutive
alterity that established the spatial and temporal geo-political divisions of knowledge pro-
duction. The second section will focus on these spatial and temporal geo-political divisions
of knowledge production and discuss the alterity that was established with the ‘discovery’

CONTACT  Zeynep Gulsah Capan  zgulsah@gmail.com

© 2016 Southseries Inc., www.thirdworldquarterly.com
2    Z. G. Capan

of the ‘New World’. The section will then elaborate on the coloniality of International Relations
and discuss the concepts of coloniality and the colonial matrix of power and the space it
opens up in questioning how forms of colonial domination continue to operate in the (post)
colonial present. The third section will explore how ‘decolonisation’ might occur within the
field of International Relations by focusing on Eurocentrism as a mode of knowledge pro-
duction. The section is divided into two parts that focus on the spatial and temporal geo-
political divisions of knowledge of production that sustain and reproduce Eurocentrism as
a mode of knowledge. The first aspect focused upon will be the practices of knowledge
production, and the possible ways of approaching the spatial and temporal alterities through
which knowledge production becomes formulated in academia in general and in International
Relations specifically. The second aspect that will be focused upon that sustains Eurocentrism
as a mode of knowledge will be the spatial and temporal binaries and alterities through
which events are made meaningful. The article will conclude by underlining not a road map
of how to decolonise but rather an exploration into its possibilities and potentialities.

The Eurocentrism of International Relations

The Eurocentrism of International Relations has become one of the central concerns of what
can broadly be termed critical perspectives.6 The field of International Relations has dealt
widely with the issue of its Eurocentric roots7 and how it has manifested itself through its
many ‘avatars’8 in its central concepts such as sovereignty9 security10 and the Westphalian
international system.11
Criticisms of the Eurocentrism of the narratives of International Relations have primarily
focused upon the ‘absence’ of other actors and how their agency was being silenced. For example,
the story of the ‘expansion’ of the international society is written in a linear manner where the
‘others’ join into the system established by Europe. The narratives of International Relations
establish ‘Europe’ as the central referent and main actor of history, and events outside of Europe
become derivative of events that have already happened in Europe.12 It was often overlooked
that the story of the expansion of international society is also the story of the dissolution of
empires, anticolonial struggles and the process of juridico-political decolonisation. The way in
which the ‘international society’ was joined and socialised into took many forms and encapsulated
many motivations.13 The discussions on sovereignty, human rights and international law demon-
strated that the concepts taken to be central to the understanding of International Relations
had developed in interaction with areas outside of Europe.14
The ‘absences’ in the narrative of International Relations have not only been about the
formation of the international system but also about how understandings of the history of
International Relations were narrated and have underscored how Eurocentrism is constitutive
of International Relations.15 The way in which the Haitian Revolution has entered into dis-
cussions about history and International Relations is demonstrative of this point. The Haitian
Revolution, as the first anti-slave revolution occurring around the same time as the French
and American Revolutions, does not constitute a central a place in narratives of democracy,
human rights and modernity.16 This is not because the Haitian Revolution was not known
in its time, but rather because it has been forgotten as a consequence of ‘the disciplinary
discourses through which knowledge of the past has been inherited’.17 As such, it is not just
a matter of underlining the importance of Haitian Revolution in the formation of modernity
but rather inquiring into the reasons for its absence in the first place, because it is that
 Third World Quarterly   3

‘absence’ and silence that ‘is constitutive of the very idea of modernity and its use in socio-
logical interpretations of the contemporary world’.18
These discussions about the ‘absences’ in the narrative of International Relations have
opened up space in order to reimagine the field of International Relations. Amitav Acharya, for
example, approaches the ‘non-Western’19 and/or ‘post-western’ endeavours ‘as part of a broader
challenge of reimagining IR as a global discipline’.20 This reimagining encapsulates a pluralistic
universalism that recognises and respects diversity, is premised upon world history, encompasses
existing approaches, includes area studies, abandons exceptionalism and recognises multiple
facets of agency.21 Even though the 'non-West' is a ‘perilous but unavoidable terrain’,22 how this
terrain is navigated needs to be mindful of the spatial and temporal alterities that produce and
sustain Eurocentrism as a mode of knowledge. Eurocentrism is a mode of knowledge and a
paradigm for ‘interpreting a (past, present and future) reality that uncritically established the
idea of European and Western historical progress/achievement and its political and ethical
superiority’.23 As such, what makes Eurocentrism possible and enables it to continue being repro-
duced in narratives of nternatinal relations is its re-articulation, reproduction and re-enactment
through the colonial matrix of power that is ‘maintained alive in books, in the criteria for academic
performance, in cultural patterns’.24

The coloniality of International Relations

International Relations as a discipline defines political time25 and space26 through the
Western conceptions of modernity.27 International Relations is constituted upon spatial and
temporal differences that were constituted by the ‘discovery’ of the ‘New World’, and contin-
ues to define time and space through these binaries and dichotomies.28 The alterity that was
established with the ‘discovery’ established a ‘geo-cultural division of knowledge production’
both spatially and temporally. These differences and binary oppositions posit the West in a
‘flexible positional superiority’29 of being the knower, of being human, of being civilised.
What is written for the ‘others’ is always a story of a lack and a story of catching up.30 It is this
‘geo-cultural division of knowledge production’31 established with the ‘discovery’ that con-
stitutes the ‘philosophical foundation for the totalizing, cultural, political, economic, and
legal systems of knowledge that have sustained Western hegemony’.32 This system of knowl-
edge is maintained through the continued designation of ‘difference’ within the geo-political
and geo-cultural organisation of world politics, whether it is civilised/barbarian, modern/
traditional, advanced/backward. The field of International Relations is predicated upon these
constitutive alterities and continues to reproduce them.33 As such, the Eurocentrism of
International Relations is rooted in the alterities established with the ‘discovery’ of the ‘New
World’, and to understand Eurocentrism ‘in terms of the way in which certain patterns of
interpretation are produced and contested’,34 it is important to question the coloniality of
International Relations.
Coloniality and the colonial matrix of power are concepts put forward by the Peruvian
sociologist Anibal Quijano35 and have been elaborated and expanded upon by Walter
Mignolo36 (‘colonial difference’), Ramon Grosfoguel37 (heterarchies); Nelson Maldonado-
Torres38 (coloniality of being) and Maria Lugones39 (coloniality of gender). Coloniality is a
re-reading of the story of modernity. According to this perspective, modernity is a European
narrative and coloniality is the darker side of that narrative. The conceptual framework thus
should not be ‘modernity’ but rather ‘modernity/coloniality’, whereby coloniality is consti-
tutive of modernity and should not be thought of separately.40 The perspective also
4    Z. G. Capan

underscores that even though ‘colonialism’ might have ended and decolonisation succeeded
in the sense of juridico-political independence, complete ‘decolonisation’ has not been
achieved. Grosfoguel calls this the ‘mythology of the ‘decolonizazion of the world’ which
‘contributes to the invisibility of ‘coloniality’ today’.41 As such, coloniality as ‘modality of being
as well as … power relations that sustain a fundamental social and political divide’ did not
end with the achievement of juridico-political independence ‘but was rearticulated in terms
of the post-World War II imaginary of three worlds (which in turn replaced the previous
articulations in terms of Occidentalism and Orientalism’.42
The colonial matrix of power structures the modern/colonial world and is what makes
sustaining, rearticulating and reproducing coloniality and the social and political divisions
it encapsulates possible. Coloniality of power can be conceptualised as an ‘entanglement’
or ‘intersectionality of multiple and heterogenous global hierarchies (‘heterarchies’)’ that
includes ‘sexual, political, epistemic, economic, spiritual, linguistic and racial forms of dom-
ination and exploitation’.43 Coloniality enables an understanding of the present as a contin-
uation of the colonial forms of domination. As such, it opens up space to question not only
the constitutive role of the colonial past in the formation of the present international system
but also how forms of colonial domination continue to operate in the (post)colonial
present.
The narrative of International Relations through Western conceptions of modernity works
to silence the colonial past of International Relations and the constitutive role of colonialism.
There are works within International Relations that have addressed the colonial past and
constitutive role of colonialism. For example, the edited volume entitled Decolonizing
International Relations approaches the Eurocentrism as being constitutive of International
Relations.44 Julian Saurin conceptualises International Relations as ‘imperial relations’ and
questions whether the strategy to overcome its Eurocentrism can be done through postco-
loniality or anticolonialism. As such, Saurin situates the field within neo-colonial relations.45
The colonial origins and reflections of International Relations are also taken up by Muppidi
who characterises International Relations ‘as relations of shame and rage’ and discusses IR’s
relationship with the colonial wounds of the past and present.46 These works establish the
continued relationship of International Relations with colonial forms of classification.
Situating International Relations within a colonial matrix of power works to further these
analyses in two main ways. Firstly, it enables an understanding of the colonial forms of
domination that are reproduced within the present (post)colonial international system.
Secondly, it situates at the centre of its analysis the alterities established by the ‘discovery’
and how they are reproduced and sustained through Eurocentrism as a mode of organising
knowledge.

Eurocentrism as a mode of organising knowledge

‘Eurocentrism’ is conceptualised as ‘the knowledge form of modernity/coloniality – a hegem-
onic representation and mode of knowing that claims universality for itself’.47 Quijano under-
lines the important aspects of Eurocentrism as follows:

(1) a peculiar articulation between dualism (capital-pre-capital, Europe-non-Europe,

primitive-civilised, traditional modern, etc.) and a linear, one dimensional evolution-
arism from some state of nature to modern European society;
 Third World Quarterly   5

(2) the naturalisation of the cultural differences between human groups by means of

their codification with the idea of race;
(3) the distorted-temporal relocation of all these differences by relocating non-Europeans
in the past.48

Eurocentrism as a mode of knowing is articulated through a variety of ways, one of which

is the articulation of dualisms such as Western/non-Western and modern/traditional. A fur-
ther element in this mode of knowing is the codification and naturalisation of cultural dif-
ferences through the idea of race and the way these differences and the ones designated
non-Western are relocated on the ‘other’ side of the dualities spatially and temporally. These
binaries and hierarchies have been reproduced within the field of International Relations.49
The two dynamics that have been reproduced within the field of International Relations will
be the focus of the following two sections. The first is the issue about modes of knowing
and production of knowledge. The production of knowledge and who gets to be the knower
and who the known is an important component in reproducing the coloniality of International
Relations. The locus of enunciation, meaning the ‘epistemic location from where the world
was classified and ranked’,50 within International Relations as a discipline remains the West,
and as such one of the main components that reproduces and sustains Eurocentrism as a
mode of organising knowledge is the locus of enunciation and the practices of knowledge
production.

Practices of knowledge production

The aim of this section is to elaborate on the possibilities for decolonising practices of knowl-
edge production within the field of International Relations. When elaborating upon the
meaning of coloniality, Quijano states that ‘this relationship consists, in the first place, of a
colonisation of the imagination of the dominated, that is, it is acts in the interior of that
imagination, in a sense, it is a part of it’.51 This quote captures the way in which coloniality
has permeated not only knowledge production but conceptualisations of what constitutes
knowledge and ‘legitimate’ practices for producing it. The section will thus elaborate upon
the manner in which ‘decolonisation’ might be understood with respect to practices of knowl-
edge production within the field of International Relations, mainly through engaging with
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s views on education and ‘decolonizing the mind’. 52
The Nairobi Literature Debate and the 1974 conference on The Teaching of African Literature
in Kenyan Schools provide important insights into how to question the everyday practices
that organise the field of International Relations, underlining ‘everyday practices that organ-
ise this discipline and the differential ways that these are reproduced at various sites and
within these in different locations’.53 The aim of these debates and this conference was to
discuss the role of literature and how it was taught.54 Furthermore, Thiong’o’s elaborations
on the nature of language and communication present a series of important questions with
respect to the decolonisation of the mind and production of knowledge. Who produces
knowledge is an oft-repeated question, but linked to that question is another one that we
do not ask as readily, which is ‘Who is the knowledge produced for’, or ‘Who is its recipient’?55
Further considerations that Thiong’o’s elaborations open up are about ‘What directions
should an education system take in an Africa wishing to break with neo-colonialism? What
should be the philosophy guiding it? How does it want the “New Africans” to view themselves
and their universe? From what base: Afrocentric or Eurocentric? What then are the materials
6    Z. G. Capan

they should be exposed to: and in what order and perspective’?56 This presents an important
question to ponder with respect to education in the field of International Relations: how are
syllabuses organised, what is the story of the ‘international’ being taught in universities, and
how does it want the students to conceptualise the world?
The discipline of International Relations is increasingly becoming more focused on ques-
tions of production of knowledge. Ever since Hoffman’s seminal article declaring International
Relations an American social science57 the field has increasingly become concerned with
attempting to ascertain the nature of the discipline, asking questions such as to what extent
the discipline is American or European.58 Sociologies of the field have focused primarily on
knowledge produced through journals and citation practices to extricate the different hier-
archies at work within knowledge production.59 Even though it has received less attention
than citation practices, the role of education and what kind of knowledge is being re-pro-
duced through education has received some attention. A recent study has shown that the
criticisms and re-evaluations of the story of Westphalia and the story of the origins of the
field that have been quite central within the field have not been reflected in textbooks.60
The reason behind the reticence to break with the myths of the field is primarily because it
would mean ‘to fundamentally confront the Eurocentric identity of the discipline’.61 Another
important work with respect to teaching practices is the research conducted by Jonas
Hagmann and Thomas Biersteker in which they focus on ‘how IR is taught, as disciplinary
core knowledge, in the advanced study programmes of 23 IR graduate programmes in
Europe and North America’.62 The research showed that ‘rational choice perspectives (40%
on average) are the most widely taught paradigmatic approaches among the 23 schools
examined’, whereas ‘reflexive approaches to world politics are underrepresented’ with con-
structivist theories getting 12% and other critical perspectives such as feminism and
post-structuralism getting 5% of representation.63
Yet the teaching practices issue brings another component into the discussion. Would
including more ‘reflexivist’ readings actually make the production of knowledge less
Eurocentric if the coloniality of the systems and practices of knowledge production persist?
As such, it is not only through ‘adding’ more critical perspectives that coloniality can be
challenged but through altering the practices of said knowledge production. Through the
example of theatre and putting on scene his play Ngaahika Ndeenda, Thiong’o also opens
for discussion the process of demystifying education. The staging of Ngaahika Ndeenda was
a way of opening up the theatrical process where the audience was allowed to participate
in the auditions and the rehearsals rather than being presented with a perfected end prod-
uct.64 The different ways of comprehending and making sense of the world are best captured
in Americanah65 when the main character makes the following observation:
School in America was easy, assignments sent in by e-mail, classrooms air-conditioned, profes-
sors willing to give makeup tests. But she was uncomfortable with what the professors called
‘participation’, and did not see why it should be part of the final grade; it merely made students
talk and talk, class time wasted on obvious words, hollow words, sometimes meaningless words.
It had to be that Americans were taught, from elementary school, to always say something in
class, no matter what. And so she sat stiff-tongued, surrounded by students who were folded
easily on their seats, all flush with knowledge, not of the subject of the classes, but how to be
in the classes.66
The observation about the differences in approaching ‘participation’ and how to be in classes
relates to the fact that questioning knowledge production is not only about the subject
being taught in classes but the knowledge about how to be in classes, and this can be
 Third World Quarterly   7

extended to other arenas as well: knowledge about how to be in conferences or in academic

meetings, how to write, how to be. These are all a series of practices that construct the edifice
of academia and draw the boundaries from where knowledge is produced. As such, even
before getting to the production of knowledge, there is an a priori knowledge of how to be
a student, an academic, a knowledge producer and a knowledge consumer.
To state it more succinctly, the intellectuals must firstly ‘decolonise their minds’67 and
rethink the academic spaces and knowledges that they inhabit and reproduce. In that sense,
it is not sufficient to be able to change the number of articles published in the periphery,
have more non-Western sources cited or include post-structuralism and/or post-colonialism
more widely in syllabuses if the understanding of what constitutes knowledge and how it
should be presented and consumed remains embedded within the binaries and dualities
that reproduces the colonial matrix of power.

Production of binaries
The second aspect of Eurocentrism as a mode of knowing is the temporal and spatial alterities
that continue to be reproduced. Gibson argues that the role of the intellectual within the
work of Fanon is to ‘confront the intellectual internalisation of colonial ideology that had
become mentally dehabilitating’, and as such the intellectual ‘does not simply uncover sub-
jugated knowledges but has to challenge the undeveloped and Manichean ways of thinking
produced by colonial rule’.68 As such, it is not enough to bring in new narratives or ways of
conceptualising the field, but rather the binaries and dualities upon which coloniality is
premised need to be overcome. The question then is how do we extricate ourselves from
the binaries and dualities upon which knowledge is premised and keep being (re)produced.
The section will focus on the concepts of border thinking and mestizaje consciousness as
possible ways to discuss overcoming binaries.
Border thinking is one of the strategies put forward by decolonial perspectives and is
primarily premised upon the writings of Gloria Anzaldúa.69 In its simplest articulation, ‘bor-
derlands is a space where identities are renegotiated and border thinking is ‘moments in
which the imaginary of the modern world system cracks’.70 It is thinking through those cracks
that one might be able to find spaces outside of modernity/coloniality. As such, the question
is no longer whether there is an outside of modernity/coloniality but where are the cracks,
the ruptures, the borderlands that are inhabited by thinking that has not been subsumed
under modernity/coloniality. This is not a pre-modernity/coloniality space but a space where
the hegemony of the modernity/coloniality has created mestizas. It is these spaces and their
viewpoints that need to be brought forward in order to challenge the hegemony of moder-
nity/coloniality.
With respect to the field of International Relations, the conceptualisation borderlands
provides an opening to think through the binaries upon which the field is built since
‘Borderland is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residual of an
unnatural boundary. It is in constant state of transition. The prohibited and forbidden are
its inhabitants’.71 Thus, ‘border thinking means turning contradictions into ambivalences’.72
It is through thinking beyond rigid identities and imposed labels that decolonisation might
occur, as it will open the way for the existence of multiple knowledges rather than a mono-
lithic one. In that sense,
it is not enough to stand on the opposite river bank, shouting questions, challenging patriarchal
white conventions. … At some point, on our way to a new consciousness, we will have to leave
the opposite bank, the split between the two mortal combatants somehow healed so that we
8    Z. G. Capan

are on both shores at once and, at once, see through serpent and eagle eyes. Or perhaps we
will decide to disengage from the dominant culture, write it off altogether as a lost cause, and
cross the border into a wholly new and separate territory. Or we might go another route. The
possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.73
What Anzaldúa is underlining here is that even though at times it might be necessary to
take opposing positions, it is not enough since what it does is reproduce binaries and dual-
ities. As such, new consciousness cannot be achieved through continuing to fight within
the same dualistic vocabularies that were handed down within the tradition of International
Relations, but these vocabularies themselves have to be transformed. Mestizaje conscious-
ness will break down the subject–object duality and the binaries through which the world
is comprehended by ‘developing a tolerance for contradictions … nothing is thrust out, the
good, the bad and the ugly, nothing rejected, nothing abandoned. Not only does she sustain
contradictions, she turns the ambivalence into something else’.74 Thus, rather than com-
pletely reject or completely accept, it is the readiness to engage with these ambiguities that
will make it possible to go beyond the binaries.
One of the most pervasive binaries that is reproduced in International Relations is the
West/non-West differentiation. It is the search for an ‘alternative’ non-West that also continues
to reproduce the power of the West. Ngũgĩ wa Tiongh’o, in questioning the nature of ‘African
Literature’, asks a pertinent question:
Was it literature about Africa or about the African experience? Was it literature written by
Africans? What about a non-African who wrote about Africa: did his work qualify as African
literature? What if an African set his work in Greenland: did that qualify as African literature? Or
were African languages the criteria? OK: what about Arabic, was it not foreign to Africa? What
about French and English, which had become African, languages? What if an European wrote
about Europe in an African language? If … if … if …?75
The nature of this questioning is pertinent for the discussion about the field and the ques-
tions we ask of it. What is Non-Western International Relations theory? Is it theory about the
non-Western experience? Is it theory from non-Westerners? Is it theory about the non-West
from the West or theory written by someone from the West about the non-West? The differ-
ent possible formulations and qualifications of the question lead us to different answers that
culminate in the problematic reproduction of a West/non-West binary.76 The struggle to
overcome the Eurocentrism of IR rests on a continued reproduction of the West/non-West
binary. The way in which International Relations can be written without succumbing to
reproducing these binaries remains one of the main issues in ‘decolonising’ International
Relations. There is no one way or road map that should be followed, but rather what this
section aimed to underline is the necessity to continuously question the binaries that creep
into our discussions of International Relations. In that sense, different potentialities and
possibilities need to be explored. For example, Himadeep Muppidi in narrating the story of
Telagana focuses on India and Andhra Pradesh, and in doing so works through a ‘field of
significance’ that is not ‘only of the West’.77 Robbie Shilliam breaks through the cartographic
gaze and focuses on redeeming ‘the possibilities of anti-colonial solidarity between colonial
and (post)colonial peoples on terms other than those laid out by colonial science’78 through
‘cultivating knowledge of deep relations’ which is ‘relationality that exists underneath the
wounds of coloniality’ and aims to bind ‘back together peoples, lands, pasts, ancestors and
spirits’79 and research ‘sideways’ rather than through the Eurocentric gaze. The understanding
of the field of International Relations is permeated with rigid identities, clearly identifiable
borders and imposed labels. It is these that have to be questioned, re-thought of and opened
 Third World Quarterly   9

up in order to have the possibility for multiple knowledges and ‘decolonise’ International
Relations.

Conclusion
Decolonisation is a call for action, for change, for an overhaul of the dualities and the binaries
amongst which we have become too comfortable. Decolonisation should not be used inter-
changeably with being critical of the field of International Relations. The roots of one’s dis-
enchantment with the field may vary, and as such the direction of the ‘criticality’ itself. The
myriad of strategies developed and discussed in order to overcome the Eurocentrism of the
field is an example of that. Being critical of International Relations and wanting to change
the field does not amount to wanting to ‘decolonise’ the field. As Smith states, decolonisation
for researchers is concerned with ‘having a more critical understanding of the underlying
assumptions, motivations and values which inform research practices’.80 The article has
argued that decolonisation in the context of International Relations necessitates the prob-
lematisation of Eurocentrism as a mode of organising knowledge and the questioning of
the spatial and temporal geo-political divisions of knowledge production. In that sense,
decolonisation should be approached as an ‘unsettling’ approach, and not as ‘an “and”’ but
rather as an ‘elsewhere’.81 To ‘decolonise’ as a strategy for change has to take into account
not only adding more perspectives but also the practices of knowledge production. As long
as the knowledge produced remains within the binaries re-produced by the colonial matrix
of power, any ‘criticality’ reproduces those power relations.
The article has provided not a road map to ‘decolonise International Relations’ but rather
an exploration into its possibilities and potentialities. Two points need to be underlined
about its possibilities and potentialities. Firstly, decolonisation should be taken as a process
with different aspects in different contexts. But focusing on one aspect should not detract
from the immediacy and importance of the other aspects, and there needs to be a careful
exploration into adopting the discourse of decolonisation. Thus, what is meant by decolo-
nisation in each instance needs to be clarified so that it does not become a ‘swappable term
for other things we want to improve’.82 Secondly, decolonisation need not be taken as ‘a total
rejection of all theory or research or Western knowledge’, but rather it means ‘centering our
concerns and world views and then coming to know and understand theory and research
from our own perspectives and for our own purposes’.83 As such, it is concerned with breaking
down the spatial and temporal geo-political divisions of knowledge production. The poten-
tiality of ‘decolonisation’ resides in its promise to be an ‘elsewhere’.84 To what extent it is
possible to ‘decolonise’ fields of study that were constituted in and through coloniality,
though, remains.85

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Acknowledgements
Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 57th ISA Annual Convention and at the Millennium
Annual Conference in 2014. I would like to thank the discussants and audiences at the conferences for
10    Z. G. Capan

their valuable comments. I would like to thank Pinar Bilgin for her helpful comments and suggestions
on earlier drafts. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and criticisms.
All errors are, of course, mine.

Notes on Contributor
Zeynep Gulsah Capan is a lecturer in International Relations in Istanbul Bilgi University in
Turkey. She is the author of Re-Writing International Relations: History and Theory Beyond
Eurocentrism in Turkey (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016). Her research agenda focuses on
Eurocentrism in the field of International Relations, sociology and historiography of
International Relations, and postcolonial and decolonial thought.

Notes
1. Buzan and Little, "World History”; Acharya and Buzan, Non-Western International Relations
Theory; Acharya, "Global International Relations”; Nayak and Selbin, Decentering International
Relations; Jones, Decolonizing International Relations; Ling, Dao of World Politics; Sabaratnam,
"IR in Dialogue”; Bilgin, International in Security.
2. Gutiérrez Rodríguez et al., Decolonizing European Sociology; Pahuja, Decolonising International
Law; Go, "Decolonizing Bourdieu”; Ascione, Science and the Decolonization of Social Theory;
Laffey and Weldes, "Decolonizing the Cuban Missile Crisis”; Hudson, "Decolonising Gender
and Peacebuilding.”
3. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 98.
4. For an account of how decolonisation occurred under rules and regulations determined by
former colonial powers, see Grovogui, Sovereigns, Quasi Sovereigns, and Africans.
5. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 98.
6. Grovogui, Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy; Jones, "Introduction”; Kayaoglu, "Westphalian
Eurocentrism”; Hobson, Eurocentric Conception of World Politics.
7. Hobson, Eurocentric Conception of World Politics.
8. Wallerstein, "Eurocentrism and Its Avatars”; Sabaratnam, "Avatars of Eurocentrism.”
9. Grovogui, "Regimes of Sovereignty”; Hobson, "Provincializing Westphalia.
10. 
Barkawi and Laffey, "Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies”; Bilgin, "‘Western-Centrism’ of
Security Studies.”
11. Kayaoglu, "Westphalian Eurocentrism.”
12. Barkawi and Laffey, "Postcolonial Moment in Security Studies.”
Suzuki, Civilization and Empire; Keal, European Conquest; Zarakol, After Defeat; Keene, Beyond
13. 
the Anarchical Society.
Grovogui, "Mind, Body, and Gut!”; Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty; Hobson, Eastern Origins of
14. 
Western Civilization.
15. Krishna, "Race, Amnesia”; Phillips, "Global IR Meets Global History”; Buzan and Lawson, "Global
Transformation.”
16. Fischer, Modernity Disavowed; Shilliam, "What the Haitian Revolution Might Tell Us”; Bhambra,
"Undoing the Epistemic Disavowal”; Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History.
17. Buck-Morss, Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History, 50.
18. Bhambra, Rethinking Modernity,149.
19. Acharya and Buzan, Non-Western International Relations Theory.
20. Acharya, "Global International Relations”; 243.
21. Ibid.
22. Shilliam, "Perilous but Unavoidable Terrain.”
23. Araújo and Maeso, Eurocentrism, Racism and Knowledge, 1 .
24. Maldonado-Torres, "Coloniality of Being," 243.
 Third World Quarterly   11

25. Hutchings, Time and World Politics; Solomon, "Time and Subjectivity in World Politics”;
Agathangelou and Killian, Time, Temporality and Violence.
26. Agnew, "Territorial Trap”; Wallerstein, "Inventions of TimeSpace Realities”; Tuathail and Toal,
Critical Geopolitics.
27. Halperin, War and Social Change; Shilliam, International Relations and Non-Western Thought;
Paolini et al., Navigating Modernity.
28. Todorov, Conquest of America; Rabasa, Inventing America; Mignolo, Coloniality; Blaney and
Inayatullah, International Relations.
29. Said, Orientalism, 7.
30. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe.
31. Shilliam, "Perilous but Unavoidable Terrain,” 13.
32. Grovogui, Sovereigns, Quasi Sovereigns, 8.
33. Blaney and Inayatullah, International Relations.
34. Araújo and Maeso, Eurocentrism, Racism and Knowledge, 1.
35. Quijano, "Modernity, Identity, and Utopia”; Quijano, "Coloniality of Power”; Quijano, "Coloniality
and Modernity/Rationality.”
36. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs; Mignolo, "Geopolitics of Knowledge”; Mignolo, Darker
Side of Western Modernity.
37. Grosfoguel, "Epistemic Decolonial Turn"; Grosfoguel, "Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies”;
Grosfoguel, Colonial Subjects.
38. Maldonado‐Torres, "Topology of Being"; Maldonado-Torres, "Coloniality of Being.”
39. Lugones, "Heterosexualism.”
40. Mignolo, Darker Side of Western Modernity.
41. Grosfoguel, "Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies.”
42. Escobar, "Beyond the Third World,” 219.
43. Grosfoguel, "Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies,” 17.
44. Jones, "Introduction”; Jones, Decolonizing International Relations.
45. Saurin, "International Relations as the Imperial Illusion.”
46. Muppidi, Colonial Signs of International Relations, 42.
47. Escobar, "Beyond the Third World,” 217.
48. Quijano, "Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality,” 169.
49. Blaney and Inayatullah, International Relations, Walker, Inside/Outside; Doty, Imperial Encounters;
Weber, Queer International Relations.
50. Mignolo, Idea of Latin America, 42.
51. Quijano, "Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality”;169.
52. Thiong'o, Decolonising the Mind.
53. Patel, "Afterword: Doing Global Sociology,” 605.
54. Thiong'o, Decolonising the Mind, 89–109.
55. Ibid., 101.
56. Ibid., 101.
57. Hoffmann, "An American Social Science.”
58. Wæver, "Sociology of a not so International Discipline”; Friedrichs, European Approaches to
International Relations; Smith, "Discipline of International Relations”; Bilgin, "International
Political Sociology.”
59. Kristensen, "Revisiting the ‘American Social Science’”; Kristensen and Nielsen, "Chinese
International Relations Theory.”
60. De Carvalho et al., "Big Bangs of IR.”
61. Ibid., 756.
62. Hagmann and Biersteker, "Beyond the Published Discipline,” 299.
63. Ibid.
64. Thiong'o, Decolonising the Mind, 34–62.
65. Americanah is a novel by Chimumanda Nguzi Adichie. The novel, set in postcolonial Nigeria,
focuses on the characters’ experiences with immigration, race and westernisation.
66. Adichie, Americanah, 148.
12    Z. G. Capan

67. Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind.

68. Gibson, "Thoughts about Doing Fanonism,” 109.
69. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera; Anzalduá, Making Face, Making Soul; Anzaldúa, Light in the
Dark.
70. Mignolo, Local Histories/Global Designs, 23.
71. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera, 7.
72. Ibid., 79.
73. Ibid., 78–79.
74. Ibid., 79.
75. Thiong'o, Decolonising the Mind, 6.
76. Hutchings, "Dialogue between Whom?”
77. Muppidi, Politics in Emotion .
78. Shilliam, Black Pacific, 11.
79. Ibid., 13.
80. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 20.
81. Tuck and Yang, "Decolonization Is not a Metaphor,” 36.
82. Ibid., 3.
83. Smith, Decolonizing Methodologies, 39.
84. Tuck and Yang, “Decolonization is not a Metaphor,” 36.
85. Bleiker, "Forget IR theory.”

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