Relating self and other in Chinese and Western thought

Recent debates in International Relations seek to decolonise the discipline by focusing on relationality between self and other. This article examines the possibilities for preserving a particular type of otherness: ‘radical otherness’ or ‘alterity’. Such otherness can provide a bulwark against domination and colonialism: there is always something truly other which cannot be assimilated. However, two problems arise. First, if otherness is truly inaccessible, how can self relate to it? Does otherness undermine relationality? Second, can we talk about otherness without making it the same? Is the very naming of otherness a new form of domination? This article draws out and explores the possibilities for radical otherness in Sinophone and Anglophone relational theorising. It addresses the difficulties presented by the need for a sense of radical otherness on the one hand, and the seeming impossibility of either detecting it, or relating to it, on the other. By constructing a typology of four accounts of otherness, it finds that the identification and preservation of radical otherness poses significant problems for relationality. Radical otherness makes relationality between self and other impossible, but without radical otherness there is a danger of domination and assimilation. This is common to both Sinophone and Anglophone endeavours

Pulling threads: Intimate systematicity in The Politics of Exile

The achievements of Elizabeth Dauphinee\u27s (2013) The Politics of Exile are highlighted by means of two juxtapositions. First, Dauphinee\u27s book invites a contrast to novels because it takes the form of a story. Specifically, Dauphinee\u27s portrait of the vilified \u27Serbs\u27 is compared with how the Taliban are treated in Khalid Hosseini\u27s The Kite Runner and Nadeem Aslam\u27s The Wasted Vigil. Second, The Politics of Exile is examined as it emerges from Dauphinee\u27s efforts to overcome the limits of her more academic work. The advantages of Dauphinee\u27s approach relative to our standard research are presented along five dimensions: the responsibility of closure, the purpose of narration, the transparency of the message, how the work is shown, and the role of generosity. This article critiques Dauphinee\u27s silence on the purpose of travel. It closes by suggesting what social theory can glean from The Politics of Exile. Social theorists can learn how to theorize more systematically, to weigh the relationship between the form and content in writing more judiciously, and to probe the deeper purposes of our intellectual life-work more fully. © The Author(s) 2013

ETHNICITY AND DEVELOPMENT

Ethnic regionalism may be the most powerful force in Asia today. Yet ethnic boundaries are not plotted on maps and neither are they taken into consideration in most economic analysis. The problem is a serious one and wide. What makes ethnicity such a strong force? If it is such a strong force, it must effect national goals such as integration and "development". How are these goals affected by ethnicity? This was one line of questioning out of which this paper has emerged. There was another aimed at a different direction but ending at the same place. What is development? How do countries develop? What factors help and what factors hinder development? This paper attempts to answer all the above questions and, hence, the topic of this paper is the relationship between ethnicity and development. There are six sections to this paper. Section I attempts answers to the following questions: What is ethnicity and why is it important? Section II is a brief look at modernization theory and how it relates to "national integration" and "ethnicity". These ideas are criticized and rejected. Section III is a look at the concepts of a "cultural division of labor" and "internal colonialism". These concepts we applied to the case of Pakistan in Section IV. External forces affecting ethnicity with reference to Pakistan are examined in Section V. Section VI explores the debate of whether a country should pursue policies which aim to integrate its economy with the world economy or whether inward-looking policies aimed at self-reliance should be followed. The conclusion attempts to redefine development with reference to ethnicity