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The international human rights movement is facing an existential crisis—a crisis created in part by its continuing failure to adequately address strong criticism that international human rights law (IHRL) is a form of cultural imperialism designed to destroy local religion and culture. While the debate underlying the crisis is not new, the strength of its threat to IHRL and the liberal democratic order is. One of the primary points of friction is over IHRL's seeming rejection of a group right to be governed by religious or cultural law—a right IHRL proponents fear would open the doors to discrimination against women, the LGBT community and nonconformists. Already, populist leaders like President Erdogan of Turkey have been able to capitalize on a combination of demands for a role for religion in governance and frustration with economic inequality to claw back on human rights and democratic guarantees.The debates surrounding group rights have reached an impasse that will do little to promote either human rights or greater respect for religion and culture. This Article seeks to break that impasse. First, it relies on progressive Muslim and African scholarship to tear down the assumptions shared by both IHRL and group rights proponents that make the impasse seemingly intractable: (1) that religious and cultural law are determined from the top down; and (2) that they demand total submission of their followers. Having debunked those assumptions, it then challenges both groups to consider whether a theory of substantive human rights could allow countries to guarantee individuals the right to feely and equally choose whether to be governed by religious or cultural law without risking that this choice will become a ruse for favoring the majority group or for subjugating women and vulnerable groups.

This article analyses resistance movements to large-scale mining projects in Mexico, particularly the case of sustained organized resistance to the San Xavier Mine, in the central north state of San Luis Potosí. As one of the first struggles in Mexico against Canadian mining projects after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the leaders of this movement pioneered strategies of resistance on the legal front and were instrumental in building anti-mining alliances and networks on the national and international levels. Now that the excavation process has finished and the mine is closing down, this article seeks to draw on the case to illustrate the complementarity of three approaches for interpreting resistance to mining: class struggle, ecological distribution conflicts, and the clash of cultural valuations over territorial vocation. The argument is that these approaches are not mutually exclusive; they can be combined to explain the multiple dimensions of specific struggles, whose shifts in emphasis at different moments of the struggle are conditioned by – and condition – the phase of a mine's development. By contextualizing the case study in a broader analysis of social environmental conflicts around mining in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, the analysis seeks to illustrate the ways in which the struggle against the San Xavier Mine is representative of broader trends, as well as its peculiarities. On the local level, we find the struggle has more to do with defending conditions of social and cultural reproduction than protecting the means of production that sustain traditional livelihoods. This pertains, not just to a non-contaminated living environment and the availability of clean water for human consumption, but also to the conservation of natural and architectural patrimony with historic and cultural significance.Key words: Mining conflicts, Canadian imperialism, political class formation, ecological distribution, cultural valuations

While French settlement in Dahomey was initially driven by more mercantile than political intentions, the birth of modern French imperialism, following the Franco-Prussian confrontation of 1870 and the post-Berlinese context of 1885, prompted the metropolitan authorities to give a different direction to the French presence in Africa. Resolutely imperialist, France has embarked on territorial conquests. The protectorate treaties concluded with the local rulers were the tool for their territorial expropriation. A colonial-style protectorate was imposed, characterized by the dismantling of local sovereignties. The local chiefs, who were refractory to the idea of putting themselves under the French protectorate, were, like Béhanzin, militarily submitted. The annexation of the kingdom of Abomey and the exile of its king by force finally offered the opportunity for the conquering France to explore the Dahomean hinterland, to negotiate new treaties that allowed it to take control of this region that it integrated into the lower and middle Dahomey. This thesis on the construction of the colonial territory of Dahomey finally addresses the horogenesis of the Dahomean borders and the issues related to colonial demarcations. A historical and comparative perspective with European and American borders makes it possible to answer the question of the artificiality of colonial borders, considered as "exogenous" and "arbitrary". ; Si l'implantation française au Dahomey était mue au départ par des intentions plus mercantiles que politiques, la naissance de l'impérialisme moderne français, consécutive à l'affrontement franco-prussien de 1870 et au contexte post-berlinois de 1885, a poussé les autorités métropolitaines à donner une autre orientation à la présence française en Afrique. Résolument impérialiste, la France s'est lancée dans des conquêtes territoriales. Les traités de protectorat conclus avec les souverains locaux furent l'outil de leur expropriation territoriale. Un protectorat de type colonial s'imposa, caractérisé par ...

In 1886, the Portuguese government signed a public-private partnership with a private company to build and operate a railway between Luanda and Ambaca in its overseas colony of Angola. It was expected that the partnership would benefit both parties: it would provide Angola with a powerful tool of economic development and political appropriation, and it would pay the private investment (stockholders and bondholders). However, the enterprise soon became a financial disaster with soaring construction costs and feeble operational revenues, which forced the Portuguese state to intervene. In this paper, I will analyse the evolution of the Ambaca public-private partnership from a quantitative perspective, examining the figures of its financing, operation and state aid. I will add to the debate about the relationship between state and private initiatives, through public-private partnerships in the specific context of the scramble for Africa and New Imperialism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. ; En 1886, el gobierno portugués estableció un consorcio público-privado con una empresa privada para construir y operar un ferrocarril entre Luanda y Ambaca en su colonia ultramarina de Angola. Se esperaba que la asociación beneficiara a ambas partes: proporcionaría a Angola una poderosa herramienta de desarrollo económico y apropiación política y pagaría la inversión privada (accionistas y tenedores de bonos). Sin embargo, pronto la empresa se convirtió en un desastre financiero con altos costos de construcción e ingresos operacionales débiles, lo que obligó al Estado portugués a intervenir. En este documento, analizaré la evolución del consorcio público-privado de Ambaca desde una perspectiva cuantitativa, examinando las cifras de su financiamiento, operación y ayuda estatal. Me sumaré al debate sobre la relación entre el Estado y la iniciativa privada, a través de asociaciones público-privadas en el contexto específico del «scramble for Africa» y del Nuevo Imperialismo de finales del siglo xix y principios del XX.

This article analyses resistance movements to large-scale mining projects in Mexico, particularly the case of sustained organized resistance to the San Xavier Mine, in the central north state of San Luis Potosí. As one of the first struggles in Mexico against Canadian mining projects after the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the leaders of this movement pioneered strategies of resistance on the legal front and were instrumental in building anti-mining alliances and networks on the national and international levels. Now that the excavation process has finished and the mine is closing down, this article seeks to draw on the case to illustrate the complementarity of three approaches for interpreting resistance to mining: class struggle, ecological distribution conflicts, and the clash of cultural valuations over territorial vocation. The argument is that these approaches are not mutually exclusive; they can be combined to explain the multiple dimensions of specific struggles, whose shifts in emphasis at different moments of the struggle are conditioned by – and condition – the phase of a mine's development. By contextualizing the case study in a broader analysis of social environmental conflicts around mining in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, the analysis seeks to illustrate the ways in which the struggle against the San Xavier Mine is representative of broader trends, as well as its peculiarities. On the local level, we find the struggle has more to do with defending conditions of social and cultural reproduction than protecting the means of production that sustain traditional livelihoods. This pertains, not just to a non-contaminated living environment and the availability of clean water for human consumption, but also to the conservation of natural and architectural patrimony with historic and cultural significance.Key words: Mining conflicts, Canadian imperialism, political class formation, ecological distribution, cultural valuations

The present paper analyzes H. M. Naqvi's Home Boy as counter-narrative to Orientalism in Western discourse that writes back to the American Empire apropos September 11 and terrorism. Naqvi tries to analyze, describe, problematize and destabilize Orientalist discourse of "othering" a and "stereotyping" The narrative protests against American imperialism—its belligerent foreign policy, its suppression and exploitation of third world countries, interference in other countries, and occupation and invasion of foreign lands. The narrative starts as a typical immigrant narrative in which the protagonist comes to the United States in pursuit of the American dream of prosperity, happiness and freedoms. Initially, the protagonist has assimilative and accommodative tendencies in the hopes of partaking in the economic and social privileges bestowed by a prestigious American education and lucrative employment in big financial institutions in the metropolis. However, the events of September 11 exacerbate an already precarious atmosphere of discrimination that exists in the novel in which their protagonist is treated as an outsider and enemy. ; Bu çalışma, H. M. Naqvi'nin Home Boy adlı eserini Amerikan İmparatorluğu'na 11 Eylül ve terörizm ile ilgili Batı söylemindeki Oryantalizme karşı cevap veren bir direnç anlatısı olarak incelemektedir. Naqvi, romanında "öteki" ve klişeleştirme ile ilgili Oryantalist söylemi analiz etmeye, tanımlamaya, problemize etmeye ve dengesizleştirmeye çalışmaktadır. Anlatı, Amerikan emperyalizmine, savaşçı dış politikasına, Üçüncü Dünya ülkelerinin baskı altında tutulmasına, sömürülmesine, diğer ülkelere müdahalesine, yabancı toprakları işgaline karşı bir protesto anlatısıdır. Anlatı, kahramanın refah, mutluluk ve özgürlük rüyasının peşinde koştuğu tipik bir göçmen anlatısı olarak başlar. Başlangıçta, kahraman prestijli bir Amerikan eğitimi ve metropolde büyük finansal kurumlarda kazançlı istihdamın getirdiği ekonomik ve sosyal imtiyazlardan faydalanma umuduyla özümseyici ve uzlaşmacı eğilimler sergiler. Fakat, 11 Eylül olayları, kahramının yabancı ve düşman olarak gördüğü ve zaten mevcut olan ürkütücü ayrımcılık atmosferi ile karşılaşmasıyla, bu ayrımcılık daha da şiddenlenmektedir.

The article examines the foreign policy of the USSR in the period from the July Revolution in 1952 in Egypt to the beginning of the Suez crisis in 1956. In this period, the Kremlin's attitude towards the Arab countries has been radically changed: if at the end of the Stalin era they were considered bourgeois collaborators of imperialism, in 1955 the Khrushchev leadership made a decisive bet on an alliance with the national liberation movement. All this time, the main problem for the Soviet Union in the region was the attempts of the United States and United Kingdom to unite the local states within a single military-political bloc under the Western aegis. In response to the creation of the Baghdad Pact in February 1955, Moscow began supplying weapons to Egypt and Syria, supporting the nationalist Arab regimes as opposed to the pro-Western conservative and Israel. The policy of the Soviet Union regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict also took a radical turn: from the neutral position of the post-Stalin era the Kremlin shifted to unilateral support of the Arab states; at the same time, Tel Aviv continued to be considered only as an «American puppet». In general, Moscow was not interested in settling the Middle East conflict, because such course of events could lead to the inclusion of the parties to the conflict in the Baghdad Pact and, consequently, to the complete control of the West over the region. In case of end to the confrontation between the Arabs and Israel, the USSR with its military and industrial-technical assistance would be unnecessary. This reason inevitably pushed Moscow to the union with Arab nationalists.The new Soviet foreign policy course found its consolidation in the conception of "peaceful coexistence", and mapping at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956.Within six months, it passed its testing during the Suez Crisis.

Cyprus has been divided for more than four decades by a cease fire line known as "the Green Line". This long-standing partition has made the island infamous for the seemingly unsolvable antagonism between its "Turkish" and "Greek" inhabitants. In this article, we argue that, in order to better understand why this division has remained obstinately meaningful for Cypriots, we need to "delocalise" the Green Line that separates them. We contend that the foundation upon which the conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots has been built—and consequently also the location of the Green Line keeping them apart—does not lie in an indigenous hostility between the Greek-speaking and Turkish-speaking communities of Cyprus. Instead, we argue that this is the result of imperial puppeteering: Cyprus' Greco-Turkish enmity is largely based on perceptions of space, heritage and identification that were first introduced during the British colonisation and have been persistently—if not always deliberately—reinforced by chronic external intrusions and counter-productive conflict-resolution initiatives. We claim that a succession of British imperialism, Hellenic irredentism, Turkish nationalism, Cold-War geopolitics, UN conflict resolution and EU expansion have created, inculcated and reinforced cartographically organized perceptions of space, history and culture—a cartopolitics—that have invented the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots as identitary categories and perpetuated their antagonism. Thus, rather than an essentially local and binary play, the Cypriot conflict should be regarded as a glocal drama in which outside actors have been pulling the strings of the island's politics. The readjustment of the historiographical and geographical limitations to which the Cypriot conflict has been confined so far has decisive implications for the island's reunification: merely to zoom in on the hostile dichotomy at work is insufficient. Rather, to understand the persistence of the Green Line fracturing the island we need to zoom out from Cyprus. ; published version ; peerReviewed

The article explores the problem of the ideology of Putinism. It draws attention to the fact that in modern analytical texts about the phenomenon of Putinism, the dispute between scholars has shifted toward clarifying its ideological foundations. A few years ago, an intense scientific debate about the correctness of usage of the term "Putinism" itself took place. The authors investigate the current analytical publications on the ideological foundations of Putinism. The article points out the divergence of views of researchers on the existence of state ideological doctrine developed in the current Kremlin regime. The purpose of this article is defined as proving the fact that Putinism is not only a practical but also an ideological phenomenon of our age. The authors conclude that the ideology of Putinism exists. It seems convincing to consider Putinism as an ideological doctrine of the hybrid type, the general characteristic of which can be defined as neo-imperialism of the autocratic type with the elements of totalitarianism, "assembled" from a set of different doctrines of the past and present. Among them: Pan-Slavism, Russo-Centrism, Eurasianism and Neo-Eurasianism, Duginism (ideologically extremely close to the ideology of the Third Reich and the ideologists of the German "conservative revolution" at the same time, according to L. Lux), Messianism, Isolationism, Anti-Westernism and Anti-Americanism, Neo-Stalinism, Orthodox Fundamentalism, the role of the strong leader. Putinism as a neo-imperialist ideology is in line with the Kremlin's practice, beginning with Putin's rise to power when neo-colonial wars began on the perimeter of the former Soviet empire. It is partly orientated to suppress internal separatist movements, as it was in the case of Chechnya and partly to attempts to "gathering lands" as in the case of Georgia and now – of Ukraine.

This paper evaluates the "evolution" of African anti-imperial resistance in African history in general and that of Kenya in particular, in the attempt to reveal hidden or private/public transcripts and inherent power dynamics that fueled political dissent, opposition, and action. James C. Scott informs us that people, generally, and especially where relations of power are concerned, do not usually wear their opinions, emotions, motives or deepest thoughts that shape their behavior on their sleeve. Therefore, throughout history, the vast majority of people, the "dissembled weak," or "those subject to elaborate and systematic forms of social subordination," are given to putting up "public performances," a perfunctory adherence to imposed laws, policies, and the status quo as is required of them. The outcome of this general rule of thumb is a "public transcript" that, "by its accommodationist tone," provides "convincing evidence for the hegemony of dominant values, for the hegemony of dominant discourse." Such public transcripts are misleading since they lead observers to "conclude that subordinate groups endorse the terms of their subordination and are willing, even enthusiastic, partners in that subordination." The implications of Scott's insightful paradigmatic conceptualization of the internal dynamics of the "arts of resistance" are far-reaching. This radical conceptualization of the concealed roots of external human behavior, and "public performances," naturally complicates earlier analysis of social categories of African responses to European imperialism thought to be straightforward and concrete or mutually exclusive. It presents a possibility for an analysis and reinterpretation of the deep psychosociological springs and triggers of human behavior, which necessitates a crucial return to this important theme in African history. That is, a more nuanced scrutiny and critical study of the popular mind or populist reason. This paper is such a critical reexamination of problematic social categories and Eurocentric binary nomenclatures.

Between early 1600s and the mid 19th century, the British East India Company lead the establishment and expansion of international trade to Asia and subsequently leading to economic and political domination of the entire Indian subcontinent. It all started when the East India Company, or the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading with the East Indies", as it was originally named, obtained a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I, granting it "monopoly at the trade with the East". A joint stock company, shares owned primarily by British merchants and aristocrats, the East India Company had no direct link to the British government.Through the mid 1700s and early 1800s, the company came to account for half of the world's trade. They traded mainly in commodities exotic to Europe and Britain like cotton, indigo, salt, silk, saltpetre, opium and tea. Although initial interest of the company was aimed simply at reaping profits, their single minded focus on establishing a trading monopoly throughout Asia pacific, made them the heralding agents of British Colonial Imperialism. For the first 150 years the East India Company's presence was largely confined to the coastal areas. It soon began to transform from a trading company to a ruling endeavor following their victory in the Battle of Plassey against the ruler of Bengal, Siraj ud daullah in the year 1757. Warren Hastings, the first governor general, laid down the administrative foundations for the subsequent British consolidation. The revenues from Bengal were used for economic and military enrichment of the Company. Under directives from Governor Generals, Wellesly and Hastings, expansion of British territory by invasion or alliances was initiated, with the Company eventually acquiring major parts of present day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar. In 1857, the Indians raised their voice against the Company and its oppressive rule by breaking out into an armed rebellion, which historians termed as the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Although the company took ...

Thailand has never been officially colonized by foreign powers whereas the re-appropriation of neo-liberal policy and nationalistic propaganda by the Thai government to promote the conservative elites' version of nation-centrism clearly functions to maintain the hierarchical social structure and dominant hegemony through education. Grounded in Chen's idea, Asia as Method, Winichakul's framework (2014) on Thai cultural studies, home as method, has been recontextualized for understanding how the researcher gain and encounter educational experiences as well as having freedom of choice to reconstitute on the powerful curriculum discourse in Thailand. The notion of "home" signifying Thailand is a part of Asia is used to move beyond the debate over "us vs. them" or "insider vs. outsider" which is neither misleading nor productive. Additionally, it is employed for the understanding of the hegemonic roles of national elites on policy re-contextualization to combine both the neo-liberalism and neo-conservative discourse in education. Given that "curriculum studies" is an intellectual sphere in which competing discourses, plural assumptions, and pedagogical practices deserved its place, the field itself needs to be reconceptualized and goes beyond the legacy of both western cultural imperialism and internal colonialism, a legacy that continues to take place at the deep-rooted cultural and psychological level and plays a significant role in constructing cultural imaginary and subjectivity, which also has shaped many of our ideas about education, schooling, curriculum, and pedagogy. Thus, the onus is on us, critical curriculum workers, to explore and discover our diverse reflective ways in order to move forward our critical curriculum projects. The relationship between the home as method and critical curriculum projects needs to be a point of departure for discussions and an illustration of how curriculum as a form of cultural practice and cultural politics works to hegemonize particular knowledge production and distribution for many decades in Thailand.

This article analyzes the discourse of three Afro-descendant intellectuals from the Hispanic Caribbean, whose work addresses racism as an ongoing discussion throughout the entire 20th century. To that end, it defines Afro-descendant intellectuals in terms of an analytical category and proposes a general periodization of their thought in Latin America, comprised of three crucial moments. The first moment corresponds to the first half of the 20th century and is characterized by a discussion that connects racism to national belonging. Gustavo Urrutia examines this relationship in Cuba, one of the most prolific countries for Afro-Latin American intellectual production. The second moment covers the sixties and seventies, when racism is articulated with the problem of imperialism, circumstances in which Isabelo Zenón's reflections from Puerto Rican are representative, given the island's political situation. The third moment spans from the eighties up to the present day and is associated to an identity shift toward diaspora and afro-descendants, the groundwork from which Afro-Latin American movements begin to spread beyond national boundaries. In this context, Dominican intellectual Ochy Curiel renews discussions of racism from an anti-racist feminist perspective ; Este artículo analiza el discurso de tres intelectuales afrodescendientes del Caribe hispanohablante, en los que es posible identificar el desarrollo del racismo como una discusión que cruza todo el siglo xx. Para ello se propone una definición de la categoría de intelectual afrodescendiente y una periodización general del pensamiento que han elaborado en Latinoamérica, el que se compone de tres momentos. El primero corresponde a la primera mitad del siglo xx y está caracterizado por una discusión que vincula el racismo con la pertenencia a la nación. Gustavo Urrutia, cubano, desarrolla esta relación en uno de los contextos nacionales más prolíficos de la producción intelectual afro. El segundo momento se concentra en los años sesenta y setenta en torno a ...

This article departs from the discussion by Stephen Castles on the migration-asylum nexus by focusing on the political and cultural effects of the summer of immigration in 2015. It argues for a conceptualization of the asylum-migration nexus within the framework of Anibal Quijano's "coloniality of power" by developing the analytical framework of the "coloniality of migration." Through the analytical framework of the "coloniality of migration" the connection between racial capitalism and the asylum-migration nexus is explored. It does so by first focusing on the economic and political links between asylum and migration, and how both constitute each other. On these grounds, it discusses how asylum and migration policies produce hierarchical categories of migrants and refugees, producing a nomenclature drawing on an imaginary reminiscent of the orientalist and racialized practices of European colonialism and imperialism. In a second step, it focuses on migration and asylum policies as inherent to a logic of racialization of the workforce. It does so by first exploring the racial coding of immigration policies within the context of settler colonialism and transatlantic White European migration to the Américas and Oceania in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and second, by discussing migration policies in post-1945 Western Europe. ; Cet article se démarque de la discussion de Stephen Castles sur le lien entre l'asile et la migration en ciblant les effets politiques et culturels de l'été migratoire vécu en 2015. Il plaide pour une conceptualisation du lien entre l'asile et la migration dans le cadre de la « colonialité du pouvoir » d'Anibal Quijano, et ce en élaborant le cadre d'analyse de la « colonialité de la migration ». C'est dans ce dernier qu'il explore la connexion entre le capitalisme racial et le lien asile-migration. Pour cela, l'article cible d'abord les liens politiques et économiques entre asile et migration, et la manière dont l'un et l'autre se constituent l'un par l'autre. Sur ces bases, en ...

This article draws on multidisciplinary perspectives to consider the need and the possibilities for inter-cultural dialogue concerning families that may be seen by some to be 'troubling'. Starting from the premise that 'troubles' are a 'normal' part of children's family lives, we consider the boundary between 'normal' troubles and troubles that are troubling (whether to family members or others). Such troubling families potentially indicate an intervention to prevent harm to less powerful family members (notably children). On what basis can such decisions be made in children's family lives, how can this question be answered across diverse cultural contexts, and are all answers inevitably subject to uncertainty? Such questions arguably reframe and broaden existing debates about 'child maltreatment' across diverse cultural contexts. Beyond recognizing power dynamics, material inequalities, and historical and contemporary colonialism, we argue that attempts to answer the question on an empirical basis risk a form of neo-colonialism, since values inevitably permeate research and knowledge claims. We briefly exemplify such difficulties, examining psychological studies of childrearing in China and the application of neuroscience to early childhood interventions in the United Kingdom. Turning to issues of values and moral relativism, we also question the possibility of an objective moral standard that avoids cultural imperialism but ask whether cultural relativism is the only alternative position available. Here, we briefly explore other possibilities in the space between 'facile' universalism and 'lazy' relativism. Such approaches bring into focus core philosophical and cultural questions about the possibilities for 'happiness', and for what it means to be a 'person', living in the social world. Throughout, we centralize theoretical and conceptual issues, drawing on the work of the philosopher François Jullien to recognize the immense complexities inter-cultural dialogue entails in terms of language and communication.