ABSTRACT
Given the great overlap between the discursive appeals used by colonialist and anti-colonialist speakers examined in the previous chapter, and given the inconsistency of especially the latter, in this chapter I seek to explore these discussions in greater depth. In what follows, I examine the central narratives shaping the politics of different groups in their discussions of colonialism and decolonization; specifically, I examine these discursive exchanges as attempts to renegotiate space through the renegotiation of identity. As mentioned in a previous chapter, I see these exchanges as both persuasive and constitutive. They are persuasive in the sense that they are based on a set of appeals that aim to justify a speaker’s stance on a draft resolution under discussion and also to convince others to take on a similar stance (and so ultimately, vote similarly). Additionally, following Tischer, Meyer, Wodak and Vetter, they are also constitutive. They are “simultaneously constitutive of social identities, social relations, and systems of knowledge and beliefs (Titscher, Meyer, Wodak, and Vetter 2000).” From this perspective, we may understand the historic, kinship politics previously identified to posit two overarching, distinct categories of social identity: the disembodied or rational/paternal/masculine on the one hand versus the embodied or irrational/childlike/feminine on the other; a hierarchical set of social relationships between the two, whereby the first category can and indeed must “rule over” or “guide” the second; and the system of knowledge inherent in these constructions, namely the notion that dependent territories require rule/tutelage from sovereign states. From the eighteenth to especially the twentieth century, I argued in Chapter One that this politics moved away from “harsher” notions of colonial rule to “softer,” paternalistic notions of guidance and tutelage. In this chapter, I am interested in to what extent this politics-in either form-is evident in the GA debates in the fifteen years examined. Moreover, given the great overlap in colonialist
and anti-colonialist argument identified thus far, how do anti-colonialists respond?
