Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Meanings of Bandung: Postcolonial Orders and Decolonial Visions (Kilombo: International Relations and Colonial Questions)

The Bandung Conference was the seminal event of the twentieth century that announced, envisaged and mobilized for the prospect of a decolonial global order. It was the first meeting of Asian and African states, most of which were newly independent, to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation and to oppose colonialism or neocolonialism by any nation. This book focuses on Bandung not only as a political and institutional platform, but also as a cultural and spiritual moment, in which formerly colonized peoples came together as global subjects who, with multiple entanglements and aspirations, co-imagined and deliberated on a just settlement to the colonial global order. It conceives of Bandung not just as a concrete political moment but also as an affective touchstone for inquiring into the meaning of the decolonial project more generally. In sum, the book attends to what remains woefully under-studied: Bandung as the enunciation of a different globalism, an alternative web of relationships across multiple borders, and an-other archive of sensibilities, desires as well as fears. Review Pham and Shilliam's pioneering volume moves far beyond these procrustean narratives of geopolitics, diplomacy, and ethics--to understand Bandung as not merely a diplomatic event but rather as a political and affective exemplar that sheds light on the lived experiences and reality of the "other" so easily eclipsed by the predominant Western grand narratives about global order. By highlighting the points of departure through alternative thought systems, lived practices, everyday sensibilities, and invisible archives, the volume re-entangles the "other" in the global colonial nexus of power and order. . . . The contributors all weave the story of Bandung into the entangled global and local histories--one that those interrogating critical and postcolonial history, politics of development, or the fissures of modernity will appreciate.-- "International Studies Review" Meanings of Bandung is an outstanding collection of essays that, from a variety of vantage points, engage anti-colonial sensing of that world-shaping event in 1955, as well as its decolonizing legacies. The collection provides a brilliantly illuminating window into a diversity of international relations and world orders. It is a must read for all who seek to think international relations otherwise than as an American social science--and even more importantly for those who do not.--Raymond Duvall, University of Minnesota It is not frequent to read, in the social sciences, expressions such as "The Meanings of Bandung" and "Sensing Bandung," as this excellent volume unapologetically does. The Bandung Conference is the equivalent to the French Revolution for the history of Europe. Bandung was a signpost and will remains so for the growing presence in the planetary scene of people, states and regions, shattered by the consolidation of Eurocentrism to which the French Revolution contributed so much.--Walter D. Mignolo, William H. Wannamaker Professor and Director, Center for Global Studies and the Humanities Sixty years ago, the Bandung Conference seemed to open up the possibility of a new world of racial equality and global justice. But as this valuable collection makes clear, the event also had even more far-reaching aspirations. Bandung offered a revolutionary decolonial revisioning of the affective sensibilities, dominant temporalities, and official corporealities of the planetary body politic. It is a vision we urgently need to recover.--Charles W. Mills, CUNY Graduate Center Robbie Shilliam and Quynh N. Pham place the lens on an iconic moment for the postcolonial world in global politics. Invaluable for both research and teaching, this collection of essays reveals the layers of meaning contained in this moment, as well as the paradoxes and tensions faced by those who sought to recreate the international beyond the legacies of the colonial era.--Vivi