Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Political Theory

Winter 2023/24

Politics Lecture Series

Department of Social Sciences

31.10.2023, 12:00-13:00h

In Room 002 at the ISW (Universitätsstraße 3b)

Gurminder Bhambra (Sussex)

Varieties of Empires, Varieties of Colonialism

Gurminder K Bhambra is Professor of Postcolonial and Decolonial Studies in the Department of International Relations in the School of Global Studies, University of Sussex. She is a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS), and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS).

Previously, she was Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick and also Guest Professor of Sociology and History at the Centre for Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies, Linnaeus University, Sweden (2016-18). In March 2017, she was Visiting Professor at EHESS, Paris; for the academic year 2014-15, she was Visiting Fellow in the Department of Sociology, Princeton University and Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. She has also held a Visiting Position at the Department of Sociology, University of Brasilia, Brazil; and is affiliated with REMESO, Linköping University, Sweden.

Abstract:

Empires in the modern period are often elided from consideration as 'modern' by being presented as appendages of nation-states, destined to disappear as modernity achieves its ‘mature’ and essential form as an international system of such states. Further, empires – despite their different characteristics – are consistently defined in terms of their commonalities across time and place. In contrast, I argue for more attention to be given to empires across modernity and to the differences between empires that are elided in the focus on a sharp distinction between nation-states and empires. In this talk, I distinguish between two types of empire – empires of incorporation and empires of extraction – and argue for the specificity of colonialism to the latter form.