Postcolonial Encounters in International Relations

Alina Sajed is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the University of Hong Kong. She researches on the politics of the Global South, postcolonial approaches to IR, and political Islam. Her research has been published in Review of International Studies, Citizenship Studies, and Cambridge Review of International Affairs. She is the co-author, with William D. Coleman, of Fifty Key Thinkers of Globalization, published by Routledge.

• 1.‘IR and the world: the politics of encounters’ 2.‘The Post Always Rings Twice? The Algerian War, Post-Structuralism and the Postcolonial in IR theory’3. ‘Exilé and immigré: the politics of exile and diaspora in the Franco-Maghrebian borderland ‘4. ‘Where have all the natives gone? Spectral Presences and Authenticity in Photographic and Literary Narratives’5. ‘The Franco-Maghrebian Borderland as Cinematic Space: Memory, Trauma, and Authenticity’6. ‘Fanon, Camus and colonial difference: possibilities and limits for decolonial thought and action’ 7. ‘Postcolonial strangers in a cosmopolitan world: postcolonial hybridity and beyond’8. ‘Diasporic identifications, translocal webs, and international relations’ Conclusion. Transgressing International Relations.

With a beautifully written argument flowing seamlessly from social theory to literature to visual arts, this book opens a critical dialogue between poststructural and postcolonial approaches to International Relations.Robbie Shilliam, Senior Lecturer in International Relations, Queen Mary, University of London, UK.Alina Sajed reveals the colonial roots of post-structuralism, offers fresh conceptualizations of the "translocal," and demonstrates how to decolonize international relations. Focusing on Franco-Maghreb encounters, she locates lost and forgotten themes that both resist and constitute the West. With precision, creativity, and poetic compassion, she retrieves the nuances of the actual world. I am sure this inspiring book will become required reading. Naeem Inayatullah, Professor of Politics, Ithaca College, USA.Alina Sajed’s brilliant work represents a stunning advance in our understandings of International Relations, Postcolonial Studies, immigration, exile, diaspora, violence and memory. Weaving a richly contrapuntal tapestry of the Franco-Maghrebian encounter, Sajed deftly demonstrates the inextricability of poststructuralist thought from its origins in the French colonial project – and its postcolonial legacy that so enduringly divides the ever-subaltern immigré of the banlieues from the neo-cosmopolitan exilé of the academy. This is one of those rare works that goes beyond recognizing an extant world of international relations – it radically alters our ways of seeing and understanding the world we live in. Sankaran Krishna, University of Hawai`i at Manoa, USA.Alina Sajed's innovative and compelling engagement with France's colonial legacy challenges both conventional and poststructural scholars for their inability to overcome a Eurocentric vision of the world.Roland Bleiker, Professor of International Relations, University of Queensland, Australia.