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Lecture: Not in Our Name – Why russia is Not a Decolonial Ally: Misuses of the Decolonial Agenda

by Selbi Durdiyeva
Language: English

The decolonial turn marked a radical shift in how we think about the world. In the process, decolonization also became a trend and a fashionable term that is often misappropriated. An assumption exists, not least among decolonial scholars, that the rejection of human rights norms and the international system as “western” phenomena makes a country a decolonial ally. In her lecture, Selbi Durdiyeva aims to dismantle this assumption, drawing on the irony of putin styling russia as part of the Global South despite the Soviet Union’s and russia’s colonial history and present and Soviet pseudo-internationalism, which was rooted in a “muted racism” (Madina Tlostanova).

The lecture draws on the genealogy of human rights as a concept and historicizes the Soviet Union’s and russia’s attitude towards human rights. While not discounting the colonial roots of the international system, it shows that different discourses on human rights exist. Decolonizing human rights, Durdiyeva argues, would imply relying on the discourse of rights born out of liberation movements, rather than the sovereign discourse (Ariella Aïsha Azoulay).

The lecture proposes that decoloniality implies the struggle of people against a system built broken. It shows that imperial attitudes promulgate a “non-ethics” of war (Achille Mbembe), and that de-Westernization does not always equate to decolonization.

Lecturer: Selbi Durdiyeva, postdoctoral researcher, “Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict” project, Center for Conflict Studies, Philipps University Marburg.

Note on accessiblity:

The room is inaccessible to people in a wheelchair. There is an elevator, but access to it is blocked by 4 steps. To get to the toilet you have to overcome about 10 steps on narrow stairs. There are only chairs with a backrest for seating.

We recommend wearing medical masks throughout the event.