Negotiating Decolonization in the United Nations Politics of Space, Identity, and International Community

Combining discourse and comparative historical methods of analysis, this book explores how colonialists and anti-colonialists renegotiated transnational power relationships within the debates on decolonization in the United Nations from 1946-1960. Shrewdly bringing together Sociology, Women’s Studies, History, and Postcolonial Studies, it is interested in the following questions: how are modern constructions of gender and race forged in transnational – colonial as well as ‘postcolonial’ – processes? How did they emerge in and contribute to such processes during the colonial era? Specifically, how did they shape colonialist constructions of space, identity and international community? How has this relationship shifted with legal decolonization?

Introduction  1. Kinship Politics and Space, Identity and International Community Prior to Legal Decolonization: The Problem and the Query  2. (Re)negotiating the Colonial Problematic: The UN Charter, the Emergence of Asia-Africa, and the Anti-Colonial Challenge to Kinship  3. The Limits of the Anti-Colonial Critique: Anti-Colonialists’ Visions and Divisions  4. Contending Perspectives?: The Overlap between Colonialist and Anti-Colonialist Narratives on Dependency and Sovereignty  5. Masculinity, Time and Brotherhood: Resolving the Colonial Problematic  6. Conclusion: Twentieth Century Transformations of Space, Identity and International Community.  Appendix: Tables and Figures

Vrushali Patil is an Assistant Professor at Florida International University, where she holds a joint appointment in the Program of Women’s Studies and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. She has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Maryland, College Park and is the author of "Gender Oppression."