India’s foreign policy behaviour often challenges conventional theories of international relations (IR). Why for instance, did India wait 24 years after its first nuclear test to conduct another test? In the wake of its nuclear tests, why did the political leadership highlight the scientific achievements more than the military implications and why did it characterise India’s nuclear program as being unique in terms of its restraint and its commitment to total disarmament? Why did India engage in a discourse of friendship with China rather than adopt the anti-communist stance of other democratic states? These are just some of the questions that cannot be adequately explained by the positivist and ahistorical traditions of IR that down-play the connection between state identity and foreign policy or analyse foreign policy as the product of pre-existing realities, subjectivities and interpretive dispositions. An approach that takes into account the historical and cultural context of the construction of state identity however, offers a fuller understanding of India’s foreign policy behaviour. Using genealogy and the idea of identity performativity, this thesis analyses India’s foreign policy discourse as a representational practice which, through various codings of sex, gender and race, enacts India’s postcolonial identity. The thesis uses the findings of five case studies – India’s relationship with China, its nuclear politics, its relations with its South Asian neighbours and its interventions in Pakistan and Sri Lanka – to suggest that a deep ambivalence toward Western modernity lies at the heart of India’s postcolonial identity and, therefore, the foreign policy discourse that enacts it. This ambivalence arises because, on the one hand, Indian nationalists accepted colonial narratives in which the backwardness of ‘Indian civilisation’ led to its degeneration, but on the other hand, they recognised the need to advance a critique of Western modernity and its deep imbrication with colonialism. The result is a striving for a postcolonial modernity that is not only imitative but strives to be distinctly different and superior to Western modernity by being culturally and morally grounded. Thus, India is fashioned as a postcolonial civilisational-state that brings to international affairs a tradition of morality and ethical conduct which it derives from its civilisational heritage. This thesis argues that in order to comprehend the apparently inexplicable aspects of Indian foreign policy it is crucial to understand this self-fashioning. / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2008

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2004. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 211-215). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

The Harry Potter novels written by J.K Rowling have been popular since the first book was released in 1997. Rowling has written seven books about Harry and the first four together with the Swedish National Agency for Education constitute the primary sources of this essay. The essay discusses how these supposed children’s’ novels can be used to construct a lesson for students in the Swedish upper secondary classroom. The lesson plan created is based on the analysis of the possible themes of the novels using Postcolonial and Marxist critical perspectives. The theories are used to show how discrimination and suppression can be seen in the Harry Potter novels. Previous research has shown that the occurrences in Harry Potter is similar to the occurrences happening in the real world and the lesson plan is created to compare these fictional happenings with the ones happening in our real society. The lesson plan constructed consequently focuses on how the Harry Potter novels can be used to discuss discrimination and suppression takes place in English speaking societies as required by the rules and guidelines provided by the Swedish National Agency for Education.

Operating from Postcolonial theory and using Honneth (1994), and Taylor (1995) conception of Multicultural recognition, Yosso's (2005) Community Cultural Wealth, and studies on Culturally Responsive Leadership, this dissertation presents three empirical studies that evidence the necessity of a global decolonization towards multicultural recognition. The first study shed light of a recognized Indigenous school that struggles for recognition and counters colonial domination. Findings demonstrated how a culturally responsive shared leadership fosters academic achievement and cultural pride. The second study provides an example of resilience and community cultural wealth in a group of repatriated students from the United States to Mexico, at the same time presents a re-conceptualization of cultural capital concept (Bourdieu, 1997), as a guide for recognition of cultural wealth within migrant communities. The final study examines how Southern Arizona principals conceptualize and enact successful leadership in border schools with shifting demographics and high percentages of colonized populations. Findings indicate that, along with Leithwood and Riehl's leadership dimensions, all four principals demonstrate a sociocultural affect as part of successful practice in Arizona border contexts.

In Critical Practice, Catherine Belsey states how traditionally, classic realism is interpreted as a genre that"presents individuals whose traits of character, understood as essential and predominantly given, constrain the choices they make" (Belsey 74). Belsey's claim is significant in that it articulates what is often the locus of tension and conflict in the genre: rigid, essentialist identitary discourse.In summarizing and considering the various identitary discourses at play within Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz and The Street and Gérard Bessette's La bagarre and Les pédagogues, the purpose of this thesis is to analyse how issues surrounding constructions of identity are dramatized in these classic realist, satirical texts in order to show how their cultural work in terms of identity can be understood as being more ambivalent than has heretofore often been thought. The thesis' theoretical focus is rooted primarily in post-colonial theory, especially the ways it interrogates representations of cultural and ethnic struggles for recognition and power that are a result of colonial and/or cultural hegemonic domination. More specifically, the thesis discusses and appropriates the theory and concepts of the post-colonial critic Homi K. Bhabha, particularly in terms of how the selected primary texts can be said to exemplify Bhabha's notions of ambivalence, hybridity and a Third Space of identity; how the narratives' main conflicts and tensions around identity can be better understood by looking at how some of the characters can be said to inhabit a Third Space. However, the thesis will also show that while Bhabha's claim that instances of ambivalence, hybridity and the Third Space in the selected texts can be said to represent" neither the one [...], nor the Other [...] but something else besides which contests the terms and the territories of both [i.e. of competing identities]," (Bhabha 41) their concomitant essentialist discourses can be said to trouble the idealism of Bhabha's faith in such notions.In short, this thesis posits that though the selected texts perform important cultural work via their complex problematizations of the ambivalence of said discourses, they also satirize and critique essentialist and ethnocentric discourses.

This study is a postcolonial literary analysis of Miika Nousiainen’s novel Hallonbåtsflyktingen from 2007. The aim is to analyse how Sweden and Finland, along with the Swedish and Finnish characters, are portrayed in the novel. Through a close norm-critical reading and with postcolonial theory as a basis, the content and characters in the novel have been analysed. The result shows that the Finnish characters are portrayed in stereotyped patterns and described in general forms. A dichotomy of “us” and “the others” is created in the novel. The Finnish characters and Finnish culture are described negatively and constantly contrasted with positive descriptions of Sweden and Swedes. If literature teaching in school gives pupils knowledge and skills in postcolonial reading of literature, they may learn to identify and analyse negative portrayals. This might makes it possible to break down their assumptions and prejudices, and instead they become critical individuals who act in a global context. By comparing how different nationalities and cultures are presented, pupils can potentially begin to reflect on themselves and their picture of the Other.

This research report considers the question and concept of the flâneur as an artist and a means of representing the city. In doing this, the figure of the flâneur is removed from its European and Western urban context and placed within an African one. This figure is also imagined as an African black artist as opposed to its popularly and historically known white poet and artist, of Baudelaire’s creation. In this way, the flâneur as an African artist, in an African city, may be used to ask and possibly answer the question of what this all entails for the representation of such a city, are there any differences between this flâneur and its Western archetype? Factoring in the significance of postcolonial theory and its application to space, more especially the city, what nuances and perspectives may be drawn from this? For purposes of the above; the city of Johannesburg is used as the spatial subject matter, the early series of work by the artist Kudzanai Chiurai being an example of the aforementioned representation of the city while the artist himself is seen as the flâneur with the rationale behind his work being the practice of the flâneur that is, flânerie. Keywords: Postcolonialism, postcolonial urbanism, flâneur, flânerie, Baudelaire, Walter Benjamin, Johannesburg, post-apartheid, Achille Mbembe, Kudzanai Chiurai.

Thesis advisor: M. Shawn Copeland / Thesis advisor: O. Ernesto Valiente / The title of this essay is deliberately provocative. It aims at drawing attention on the reality of Christian churches full everyday – not only on sundays – with people who everyday die from hunger. In the Congo-Zaire. Behind the image of crowded churches, I see the complex reality of Christianity, and behind the image of empty stomachs, I have in view the complex reality of poverty, oppression, violence and death. It is paradoxical that those two realities grow together. This essay explores the sources of that paradox, going back to the first encounter of the people of the old Kongo Kingdom, and later on Congo-Zaire, with Christianity. It analyzes the relationships between Christianity and the poor throughout the history of the Congo-Zaire. It examines the message of salvation brought by Christianity and how it is related to the people’s conditions of life. The conclusion is tough, but unavoidable. First, Christianity during colonial times – which I call missionary Christianity – in the Congo-Zaire did not side with the poor. It served the interests of the powerful, to safeguard its own interests. It despised the way of life of the autochthonous and destroyed their identity. Second, Christianity today in the Congo-Zaire – which I call postindependence Christianity – struggles with the heritage of the colonial past, but it basically continues to function following the same model. We still live in the colonial settings. Therefore, this for me is the key to resolving the paradox. Following the insights of postcolonial theories, turn the page of colonial Christianity, move towards what I call a “postcolonial Christianity.” That postcolonial Christianity should be informed by the African way of life (hence re-appropriating the values of the autochthonous) and rooted in the preferential option for the poor, which is the main principle at the heart of liberation theology. There lies a great challenge: how to actualize that postcolonial Christianity in the Congo-Zaire? / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2017. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

This research paper will examine the representation of colonialism in the narratives Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. The aim of this Analysis is to demonstrate that both Achebe and Conrad expressed the same universal ethic in two diametrically opposite ways. The term “universal ethic” refers to the evil that is associated with colonialism, and “evil” represents the psychological, physical and emotional trauma that was suffered by both the colonizers and the colonized people. Therefore, as the basis for analysis, this research uses the psychological, emotional and physical criticisms to expose the evil of colonialism. As a postcolonial, Achebe’s opposition to the concept of colonialism is represented by the psychological and emotional collapse of the Igbo natives in Things Fall Apart. As for Joseph Conrad, a colonizer who was sent to the Congo, the physical abuse of the natives represents the evil of colonialism in Heart of Darkness. Achebe criticizes the evil of colonialism as a postcolonial, while Conrad criticizes the evil of colonialism as a colonial. This research was conducted exclusively with the support of textbooks and internet articles as well as Webb publications that address the concepts of postcolonialism and colonialism. A total of six (6) recognized books, as well as twelve (12) Webb publications, were used as references to support the postcolonial theory in this analysis. In addition, this research features twelve pages of close reading that examines the psychological, emotional and physical criticism of colonialism that are used to defend the thesis. Correspondingly, the conclusion is established based on the suitability of the findings. It is then concluded that the evil of colonialism is expressed by Chinua Achebe and Joseph Conrad in two diametrically opposite ways in Things Fall Apart and Heart of Darkness respectively.

This project investigates the emergence of near-future fiction in the post-colonial African novel. Analyzing The Rape of Shavi (1983) by Buchi Emecheta, Osiris Rising (1995) by Ayi Kwei Armah, Wizard of the Crow (2006) by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and Big Bishop Roko and the Altar Gangsters (2006) by B. Kojo Laing, I gauge the impact of African science fiction (sf) on issues of historicity, economics, statism and localized identities and how these have adapted or are adapting to an increasingly globalized and technophilic world. Identifying sf's roots in the European travelogue, I attend to the way each author codes technology in the text and the manners in which technophilic spaces exacerbate or ease the frequent tension between modernity and tradition in African literature. By reading these works against novels by, among others, Thomas Pynchon, Ishmael Reed, Robert Heinlein, and Chinua Achebe, I conclude that recent developments in the African sf novel offer a compelling critique on the genre's colonial heritage and have progressively indigenized sf by wedding it to local traditions of orature and myth. While Black African sf production has been historically overlooked in literary studies, it is important to revisit early moves in the direction of African near-future fiction in order to contextualize the rising interest in the genre on the part of African authors.