{"id":86,"date":"2014-05-03T12:58:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T12:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/?p=86"},"modified":"2014-05-03T12:58:25","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T12:58:25","slug":"race-in-the-ontology-of-international-order-critical-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/?p=86","title":{"rendered":"Race in the Ontology of International Order: Critical Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Race in the Ontology of International Order\u2019 by Branwen Gruffydd Jones examines through the use of critical realism the concepts of race and racism that has infected the structures of society and the International Order through the perpetuation of four interlinked social dimensions and the global dominance of capitalism.<\/em> Branwen Gruffydd Jones argues that race is overlooked because of the Empirical method which dominates mainstream international relation (IR) studies. She perceives two main issues within Empiricalism which reduce its effectiveness. Firstly,\u201d \u2026it reduces racism to phenomena of agency and behaviour seen as aberrant to the normal social order.\u201d (Jones, 2008:909)(Wight, 2003), which generally restricts analyses to individual societies rather than international. Secondly, the focus on institutional form of the state and the ahistorical treatment of the state and sovereignty, thus Empiricalism, \u201c\u2026systematically overlooks the historical relationship between different state forms and processes of state formation\u2026\u201d (Jones, 2008:909)(Krishna, 2001). Branwen Gruffydd Jones instead suggests using critical realism, an approach that uses \u2018depth ontology\u2019 to distinguish the realm of real entities, the realm of actual events and the realm of the empirical and assess their causal powers using stratification or stratified ontology, which looks at how the effects of a stratified effect can effect another. Branwen Gruffydd Jones believes analyses through this process is necessary to combat the concept that the dimensions of race in the international order, \u201c\u2026 goes beyond the discursive realm and includes non-ideational structural dimensions\u2026 which is socially produced and reproduced.\u201d (Jones, 2008:916).<\/p>\n

Racism is traditionally understood by IR as discursive and agential phenomena. While important, racial oppression is also the, \u201c\u2026form of unequal social power in society.\u201d (Jones, 2008:916) created and reproduced through intentional acts and structural forces from the configuration of social relationships (Jones, 2008:916). Bhaskar defines these four dimensions of social being as material transactions with nature (the ontological situation people are in), social relations (groups of people communicating with other groups), interpersonal relations (communication between individuals) and the realm of Jones,<\/p>\n

subjectivity (a person\u2019s individual epistemological decisions) (Bhaskar, 1993:160-161). They are, \u201cinterrelated and interacting but ontologically distinct and non-reducible.\u201d Jones, 2008:916).<\/p>\n

Alone these dimensions of social being do not create the notions of race or racism, according to Jones, rather the capitalist notion of \u2018private property\u2019 embedded into society does, and the dimensions just circulate it. The uneven global distribution of property and power was created through long historical processes of appropriation of land and labour power which form the foundation for capitalist accumulation. Generally, the processes of dispossession were perpetrated by people of European descent against non-Europeans and were formerly legitimized by a, \u201c\u2026variety of legal doctrines incorporating racial ideologies asserting the superiority of European religion, culture and civilization\u2026\u201d such as Terra Nullius in Australia (Jones, 2008:919). Thus the time of colonialism and imperialism created new local and global social orders with new \u2018property relations\u2019 founded on racialised dispossession (Jones, 2008:922). Post-colonialism former colonised nations defined as the \u2018South\u2019 continue their colonised objectives, to provide, cheap labour, export raw materials and to import manufactured \u2018North\u2019 products (Jones, 2008:923). Therefore the historical development of capitalism as a global system has created the current global structure of the \u2018North\u2019 and \u2018South\u2019 (Jones, 2008:923). Branwen Gruffydd Jones thus argues that racialised social inequality is routinely reproduced as a direct result of, \u201c…structures persevered through non-racial institutions and legal orders of private property.\u201d (Jones, 2008:924).<\/p>\n

Jones\u2019s argument suggests that racism primarily was created during colonial, imperial time from concepts of \u2018private property\u2019 and capitalism, however, racial discrimination was occurring before this time. The Greeks often depicted on pottery and art all but Greeks wearing clothes, an indication that non-Greeks were different and less trustworthy; the Roman Empire was bringing civilisation to the barbarians, but only Romans could be part of the senate; and the many dynasties of China saw only the \u2018middle kingdom\u2019 as the centre of the world (Isaac, 2006:53,253). Thus as Vorster, Hudson and McWhorter argue racial discrimination could simply be a product of human nature and the fear of difference rather than a result of capitalism (Vorster, 2002)(Hudson, 2004:308)<\/p>\n

This article would thus be beneficial to those attempting to understand the concepts of race and racism and how historical actions have shaped the International Order or as an example for greater research using different research methodology. Branwen Gruffydd Jones in her article \u2018Race in the Ontology of International Order\u2019 argues that the racialised structures of social power developed through centuries of colonial dispossession remain entrenched in modern institutions of international order through a critical realism perspective (Jones,2008). Her historical critique is sound and helps \u2018open the shutters\u2019 of continued race and racism; however, it arguably stops too early in colonial times and primarily blames capitalism for the concept of race and racism, which is perhaps a too simplistic approach to the vast problem of race and racism.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bhaskar, R. 1993. Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom. London: Verso
\nBranwen G. 2008. Race in the Ontology of International Order. Political Studies 56: 907-927.
\nHudson N. 2004. \u2018Hottentots\u2019 and the evolution of European racism. Journal of European Studies December 2004. 34: 308-33
\nIsaac, B. 2006. The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity. Princeton University Press. US. 53 & 253.
\nKrishna, S. 2001. Race, Amnesia and the Education of International Relations. Alternatives, 26 (4), 401-424.
\nMcWhorter, L. 2010. Racism, Eugenics, and Ernst Mayr\u2019s Account of Species. Philosophy Today. Recentering of Continental Philosophy: Selected Studies.54 : 200-207.
\nWight, C. 2003. The Agent-Structure Problem and Institutional Racism. Political Studies, 51 (4), 706-21.
\nVorster, J.M. 2002. Racism, Xenophobia and Human Rights. The Ecumenical Review, 54: 296\u2013312.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Race in the Ontology of International Order\u2019 by Branwen Gruffydd Jones examines through the use of critical realism the concepts of race and racism that has infected the structures of society and the International Order through the perpetuation of four interlinked social dimensions and the global dominance of capitalism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,38,44,49,45,21,46],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-branwen-gruffydd-jones","tag-international-order","tag-international-relations","tag-race","tag-race-in-the-ontology-of-international-order","tag-racism","tag-society","tag-structures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87,"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/87"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lindsay.mengel.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}