Department of Politics

Date: Thursday, November 16^th
Location: BAC 138
Time: 11:30-12:30

Fikir Haile will be joining the Acadia Politics faculty beginning in July 2024. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political Studies at Queen's University. Her fields of specialization are International Relations and Political Theory. Her research interests include International Political Economy, African Political Economy, and socio-environmental transformations. Her doctoral dissertation research explores the governance of rapid urban expansion in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Lecture Summary: Recent years have seen increased interest in making the discipline of Politics more diverse and inclusive. There have been calls to include racialized, gendered, and geographically diverse experiences, perspectives, and knowledges in the field. In light of these calls, there has been considerable debate about how to undertake such a project of diversification. The presentation introduces postcolonialism as a theory and method to diversify and globalize the study of Politics. It discusses how a postcolonial framework can help us unpack the colonial power relations that undergird the discipline. Moreover, the presentation highlights the new insights we gain when we center places and people who have long been considered marginal to the making of politics.