CIRR-IRSS - Infraglob Lecture, Rita Abrahamsen: Decolonizing IR: African Visions of World Order (IRSS Colloquium Special)

In her talk, Rita Abrahamsen will show that as we fret about challenges to the current world order, we need to recognize the contributions of Africa and Pan-Africanism to the emergence of the liberal world order. That is; world order is/was also made by Southern/African actors, not just the hegemons. She will then argue that, somewhat counter-intuitively, Africa's opposition to the International Criminal Court (ICC) can be seen as a continuation of the struggle for a more just, equitable world order rather than resistance to liberal multilateralism. At the same time, this opposition reveals longstanding tensions within Pan-Africanism, and its sovereignist and nativist expressions are in the current political climate potentially detrimental to the struggle for a more equal and democratic world order.

The lecture is followed by a launch reception.

The INFRAGLOB Project: what is it about?

From 2018 - 2023, this new five-year research project will study how newly emerging powers from the Global South are introducing and shaping new practices of governing conflict and business-society relations. The INFRAGLOB team will research the ideas and models driving Chinese and Brazilian management of large-scale port and mining projects in Tanzania and Mozambique, and how they are negotiated by Africans. Conceptualizing sites of infrastructure as laboratories, it ultimately asks how new actors, and practices emerging from South-South relations, change the governance of economic hubs as well as their global governance. To what extent do new models, experiences and practices circulate across China, Brazil and Africa and shape global politics? In pursuing these objectives, the INFRAGLOB team will conduct multi-sited ethnographic research in Mozambique, Tanzania, Brazil and China, within international organizations and transnational practitioner communities.