IR475      Half Unit
Race, Resistance and Decolonisation in International Relations

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

From the rise of far-right parties in Europe, to the racially-motivated policies of US administration; from settler-colonialism in Palestine to ultra nationalism in India: we are witnessing a resurgence of fascism and the normalisation of colonialism on a global level. In turn, grass-roots movements, legal institutions, and universities have become key sites of resistance against state repression.  Against the backdrop of these pressing global developments, this course examines race and coloniality as ordering principles in world politics that shape (and are shaped by) historical and contemporary colonial practices in international relations. The course challenges a state-centric approach and the separation between internal and external politics to explore the everydayness and transnationalism of both violence and liberation beyond just the context of war. Students will engage with the ideas, epistemologies, and methods of anti-colonial thinkers and movements, and learn why and how international politics is inextricable from race and coloniality through the following substantive themes: sovereignty and nationalism; militarism, war, and policing; political economy, environment, and development; migration and borders; and global solidarity movements. Grounded in postcolonial, decolonial, and anti-racist political thought, the course will enable students to develop their skills in applying political theory to the most urgent issues in contemporary world politics. 

Indicative topics to be covered: 

Part 1: Political theory and history of ideas 

1. Excavating race and gender in International Relations 

2. The imperial university: political theory and knowledge production 

3. Epistemic disobedience: postcolonial theories 

4. Intersectionality: gender,  and Black/Indigenous feminist thought 

5. Decolonisation, the pluriverse, and liberation theology

Part 2: Issues and case studies in world politics 

7. Retelling the story of the state: sovereignty and nationalism 

8. Political economy, environment, and development. 

9. Militarism, War, and Security

10. Racial borders, Citizenship and migration 

11. Resisting empire: world-making through global solidarity movements

15 hours of seminars and 15 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

Mock Exam in the WT. The mock e-Exam provides students with an opportunity to write a paper in class under simulated exam conditions and receive feedback to support their preparation for the summative e-Exam.   

• Frantz Fanon, “The Wretched of the Earth”
• Edward Said, “Orientalism”
• Angela Davis et al., “Abolition. Feminism. Now”
• Gloria Anzaldúa, “Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza”
• Charles W. Mills, “The Racial Contract”
• Errol Henderson, “Hidden in Plain Sight: Racism in International Relations Theory.”

Exam (75%), duration: 120 Minutes in the Spring exam period

Course participation (10%)

Learning Log / reflective learning report (15%, 700 words) in Winter Term Week 7

Class participation includes seminar attendance and contributions to the discussion.