Maneuvering Empire: (Post)Colonial Order Among Marginalized Subjects

• In Event: The Emergence and Continuity of Colonialisms: Agency and Domination

Abstract

The problem of order, its disciplinary power and regulatory effects on marginalized groups, has recently emerged as a fruitful site of debate among scholars of international relations and political theory. Studies of raced and indigenous actors commonly portray marginalized groups as merely subjected to colonial order, and in turn reactionary to political change. Works attuned to the importance of ‘subaltern’ resistance at times risk flattening diverse forms of political action and ideological differences, instead prioritizing accounts of elite nation-building. In this paper we take on these problems by demonstrating that raced and indigenous actors were not only aware of changes in colonial orders but were actively maneuvering interests between imperial structures, raced practices, and (post-)colonial hierarchies. Illustrating the role of such actors and groups we hope will push the field to think beyond the role of elite nation-builders in worldmaking projects. Further, for the fields of international relations and political theory, we address the stakes of highlighting and erasing certain forms of resistance to colonial orders. We turn toward insurgent Nueva Granada (c.1790-1810) and the American Revolution to analyze a transitionary period in colonial order in which subaltern groups were negotiating their respective allegiances to empire and revolutionary nation-building.

Authors

• Owen Rhys Brown, Northwestern University

• Arturo Chang, University of Toronto