Postcolonial Maghreb and the Limits of IR

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Making the Case for Re-imagination

   • Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira

   Pages 1-20

3. Narrative IR, Worldly IR

   • Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira

   Pages 21-64

4. Postcolonial Literature and the Task of (Re-)imagining the Maghreb

   • Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira

   Pages 65-90

5. History and Narration as Weapons of Decolonization: Kateb Yacine’s Nedjma

   • Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira

   Pages 91-136

6. Language and the (Im)possibility of Translation in Derrida’s Monolingualism of the Other and Khatibi’s Love in Two Languages

   • Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira

   Pages 137-173

7. East and West Encounters and Double Critique in Fatema Mernissi’s Writings

   • Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira

   Pages 175-210

8. IR and the Need for Re-imagination: Concluding Remarks

   • Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira

   Pages 211-221

9. Back Matter

   Pages 223-230

   PDF

This book explores narratives produced in the Maghreb in order to illustrate shortcomings of imagination in the discipline of international relations (IR). It focuses on the politics of narrating postcolonial Maghreb through a number of writers, including Abdelkebir Khatibi, Fatema Mernissi, Kateb Yacine and Jacques Derrida, who explicitly embraced the task of (re)imagining their respective societies after colonial independence and subsequent nation-building processes. Narratives are thus considered political acts speaking to the turbulent context in which postcolonial Maghrebian Francophone literature emerges as sites of resistance and contestation. Throughout the chapters, the author promotes an encounter between narratives from the Maghreb and IR and makes a case for the kinds of thinking and writing strategies that could be used to better approach international and global studies.

• postcolonialism
• narrative
• Maghreb
• North Africa
• Global South

“This lyrically written work showcases unfamiliar theorists/writers who offer tremendous resources. It develops a vital theoretical richness and breadth while internally engaging the international relations canon. Jessica de Oliveira combines ethical awareness, aesthetic sensibility, and skillful precision. Her acumen expresses itself as a quiet wisdom, unwavering application, and unbounded creative curiosity.” (Naeem Inayatullah, Ithaca College, USA, and co-author of International Relations and the Problem of Difference)

“In this beautifully written book, Jessica de Oliveira brings a poetic sensibility to the exploration of the links between literature and colonial memory in the Maghreb. Her investigation of postcolonial literary texts in the Maghreb illuminates the ways in which narratives are not only aesthetic spaces, but also (and especially in the case of the Maghreb) spaces of historical memory and collective mourning.” (Alina Sajed, Associate Professor of International Relations, McMaster University, Canada)

“Postcolonial Maghreb invites the reader to revisit one’s worlds and its meanings. By focusing on narration and literature, the author provides a powerful critique of the limits of IR as a way of speaking about and conversing with these multiples worlds we inhabit. It is mandatory reading for all scholars and students interested in traveling through novel and uncharted paths of being in-with global relations, profoundly marked by injustice, forgetting and inequality.” (Carolina Moulin, UFMG, Brazil, and co-editor of Review of International Studies)

 

 

 

 

• Department of International Relations, Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Poços de Caldas, Brazil

  Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira

Jessica da Silva C. de Oliveira is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. 

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