Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-18T18:07:23.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Divided World

Encountering Frantz Fanon in Kabul

from Part II - Historical Sociology and the Imperial Fundaments of International Politics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 June 2023

By
Teresa Koloma Beck
Edited by
Klaus Schlichte  and
Stephan Stetter
Klaus Schlichte
Affiliation:
Universität Bremen
Stephan Stetter
Affiliation:
Universität der Bundeswehr München
Get access

Summary

In his seminal work, The Wretched of the Earth (1961), Frantz Fanon develops a micro-sociology of colonial society. He characterizes the latter as a world divided in two, one for the colonizers and one for the colonized. In many former colonies such enforced racial or ethnic segregation has become a thing of the past. Yet, the socio-spatial arrangements described by Fanon re-emerge in contemporary zones of conflict, where they are recreated as security measures intended to separate the protagonists of international peace and development from the threats posed by contentious local populations. Based on ethnographic field research in Kabul in 2015, this contribution analytically pursues these structural resemblances. The aim, however, is not to make a (cheap) argument about the neo-colonial character of global humanitarianism, but to investigate the significance of this particular presence of the past for a sociology of world society.

Keywords

sociologycolonial societysocio-spatial arrangementssecurity measureslocal populations
Type
Chapter
Information
The Historicity of International Politics
Imperialism and the Presence of the Past
 , pp. 191 - 207
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andersson, R. & Weigand, F. (2015). Intervention at Risk: The Vicious Cycle of Distance and Danger in Mali and Afghanistan, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 9(4), 1–23.Google Scholar
Baberowski, J. (2015). Räume der Gewalt, Frankfurt: Fischer.Google Scholar
Balandier, G. (1951). La situation colonial: approche théorique, Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie, 1(110), 44–79.Google Scholar
Barfield, T. J. (2004). Problems in Establishing Legitimacy in Afghanistan, Iranian Studies, 37(2), 263–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayart, J. F. (2016). Relire Fanon, Politique Africaine, 143(3), 137–43.Google Scholar
Calhoun, C. (2004). A World of Emergencies: Fear, Intervention, and the Limits of Cosmopolitan Order, Canadian Review of Sociology/Revue Canadienne de Sociologie, 41(4), 373–95.Google Scholar
Dorronsoro, G. (2000). La Révolution Afghane des Communistes aux Tâlebân, Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Duffield, M. (2010). Risk-management and the Fortified Aid Compound: Everyday Life in Post-interventionary Society, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 4(4), 453–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Duffield, M. (2012). Challenging Environments: Danger, Resilience and the Aid Industry, Security Dialogue, 43(5), 475–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edwards, D. B. (1989). Mad Mullahs and Englishmen: Discourse in the Colonial Encounter, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 31(4), 649–70.Google Scholar
Fanon, F. (1965). The Wretched of the Earth, London: Macgibbon & Kee.Google Scholar
Go, J. (2016). Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory, New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Green, N. (2011). The Trans-border Traffic of Afghan Modernism: Afghanistan and the Indian ‘Urdusphere’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 53(3), 479–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koloma Beck, T. (2016). Gewalt – Raum: Aktuelle Debatten und deren Beiträge zur raumsensiblen Erweiterung der Gewaltsoziologie, Soziale Welt, 67(4), 431–50.Google Scholar
Koloma Beck, T. (2018). Liberating the Women of Afghanistan, Socio, 11, 57–75.Google Scholar
Lewin, K. (2009). The Landscape of War, Art in Translation, 1(2), 199–209.Google Scholar
Manchanda, N. (2017). The Imperial Sociology of the ‘Tribe’ in Afghanistan, Millennium, 46(2), 165–89.Google Scholar
Massey, D. B. (2005). For Space, London: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Miller, J. (1976). Merleau-Ponty’s Marxism: Between Phenomenology and the Hegelian Absolute, History and Theory, 15(2), 109–32.Google Scholar
Monsutti, A. (2012). Fuzzy Sovereignty: Rural Reconstruction in Afghanistan, Between Democracy Promotion and Power Games, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 54(3), 563–91.Google Scholar
Nunan, T. (2016). Humanitarian Invasion: Global Development in Cold War Afghanistan, New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rabasa, A., et al. (2007). Ungoverned Territories: Understanding and Reducing Terrorism Risks, Santa Monica: Rand Corporation.Google Scholar
Rendall, J. (1982). Scottish Orientalism: From Robertson to James Mill, The Historical Journal, 25(1), 43–69.Google Scholar
Risse, T. (ed.) (2011). Governance without a State? Policies and Politics in Areas of Limited Statehood, New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Smirl, L. (2008). Building the Other, Constructing Ourselves: Spatial Dimensions of International Humanitarian Response, International Political Sociology, 2(3), 236–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smirl, L. (2015). Spaces of Aid: How Cars, Compounds and Hotels Shape Humanitarianism, London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Soja, E. W. (1989). Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory, London: Verso.Google Scholar
Soja, E. W. (1996). Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Trotha, T. (1994). Koloniale Herrschaft: Zur soziologischen Theorie der Staatsentstehung am Beispiel des ‘Schutzgebietes Togo’, Tübingen: Mohr.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×