Rights statement: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cambridge Review of International Affairs on 20 Mar 2019, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09557571.2019.1576160
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Relating self and other in Chinese and western thought
AU - Nordin, Astrid Hanna Maria
AU - Smith, Graham M.
N1 - This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Cambridge Review of International Affairs on 20 Mar 2019, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09557571.2019.1576160
PY - 2019/10/1
Y1 - 2019/10/1
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - radical otherness
KW - alterity
KW - Chinese international relations theory
KW - Western international relations theory
KW - Relationality
U2 - 10.1080/09557571.2019.1576160
DO - 10.1080/09557571.2019.1576160
M3 - Journal article
VL - 32
SP - 636
EP - 653
JO - Cambridge Review of International Affairs
JF - Cambridge Review of International Affairs
SN - 0955-7571
IS - 5
ER -