Decolonising governance / Archipelagic thinking

Paul was in conversation with John Cunningham, Curator and Creative director, Melinda Hinkson, Anthropologist and Director of IPCS, and Priya Srinivasan, Performance Studies Scholar

“Power may be globalized, but Westphalian notions of sovereignty continue to determine political and legal arrangements domestically and internationally: global issues–the legacy of colonialism expressed in continuing human displacement and environmental destruction–are thus treated ‘parochially’ and ineffectually. Not designed for dealing with situations of interdependence, democratic institutions find themselves in crisis. Reform in this case is not simply operational but conceptual: political relationships need to be drawn differently; the cultural illiteracy that prevents the local knowledge invested in places made after their stories needs to be recognised as a major obstacle to decolonising governance. Archipelagic thinking refers to neglected dimensions of the earth’s human geography but also to a geo-politics of relationality, where governance is understood performatively as the continuous establishment of exchange rates.”

Paul’s latest book Decolonising Governance was published by Routledge as part of the Institute of Postcolonial Studies’ Writing Past Colonialism series.