Postcolonial Dialogue(s). Crossed and Parallel Identities in Former Colonizing and Colonized Societies

A Round-Table organized by International Institute of Asian Studies (IIAS) and the South South Exchange Programme for Research on the History of Development (SEPHIS)

21 - 22 November 2011
Seating is limited - Pre-Registration is required

The recurrent debates taking place in Europe and Europe’s former colonies concerning their colonial past, as demonstrated by the French 2005 law on “the positive aspects of colonization” or the ambiguous celebrations over the fiftieth year anniversary of independence in a number of sub-Saharian African countries in 2010 and in the former “métropoles” - to only mention recent occurrences - in an environment where the colonial “other” is often still depicted as alien to (Western) democratic values” or as “neo-imperialist” by nature, demonstrate the extent to which our colonial past and its memory still blurs rational appreciations over this historical episode and its multiple legacies. If framed constructively, however, intervention of scholars and civil society representatives of various disciplinary backgrounds and experiences - with a core component originating from former colonizing and colonized countries in Asia, Africa, the Middle-East and beyond - should enrich this critical debate by exposing its inherent complexity while seeking to explore, beyond artificially framed narratives, the potentials for reconciled identities and a new shared political modernity. Until very recently, the post-colonial official nation-state has succeeded in framing the rhetoric of such a dialogue, with northern countries turning their back on their colonial past and constructing the myth of a “southern threat” (yesterday “communist”, today “islamist”), while southern ex-colonies, in the name of a long gone national liberation unanimity, have often justified the perpetuation of despotic regimes against their peoples. The Spring 2011 revolutions in the Maghreb and Mashrek are in this sense of critical significance for their promise to think and act “beyond” the colonial legacy and its numerous orchestrations.

This exploratory Round-Table therefore ambitions to (re)examine a variety of approaches to the process of collective (national) identity formation in the context of colonial and post-colonial experiences. Focusing particularly on “modern imperialism” (nineteenth and twentieth centuries), the meeting will explore parallel and simultaneous impacts of the Western colonial experience and its aftermath on the construction of new identities in the métropoles and their overseas territories in Europe (for example Ireland), Asia, the Middle-East, Americas and Africa. Although sharing certain commonalities, each local situation and each experience is unique revealing its own historical, social and cultural dynamics. In today’s age of “globalization”, the event will be an occasion to build bridges between these experiences – North-South but also North-North and South-South - in the spirit of moving beyond existing political and epistemological boundaries between (ex) colonizers and (ex) colonized.

Please download the conference programme and background document below