Table Of ContentNikita Dhawan · Elisabeth Fink
Johanna Leinius
Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel Editors
Negotiating
Normativity
Postcolonial Appropriations,
Contestations, and Transformations
Negotiating Normativity
Nikita Dhawan • Elisabeth Fink
Johanna Leinius
Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel
Editors
Negotiating Normativity
Postcolonial Appropriations, Contestations,
and Transformations
Editors
Nikita Dhawan Elisabeth Fink
University of Innsbruck Goethe University Frankfurt
Austria Frankfurt am Main , Hessen , Germany
Johanna Leinius Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel
Goethe University Frankfurt Goethe University Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , Hessen , Germany Frankfurt am Main , Hessen , Germany
ISBN 978-3-319-30983-5 ISBN 978-3-319-30984-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-30984-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940908
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
T his work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
T he publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors
or omissions that may have been made.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland
This publication was supported by the DFG
funded Cluster of Excellence “Normative
Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt am
Main
v
Contents
Normative Legitimacy and Normative Dilemmas:
Postcolonial Interventions .............................................................................. 1
Nikita Dhawan , Elisabeth Fink , Johanna Leinius ,
and Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel
Part I Appropriating Transnational Norms
Can the Subaltern Speak within International Law?
Women’s Rights Activism, International Legal Institutions
and the Power of ‘Strategic Misunderstanding’ .......................................... 27
Kiran Grewal
Cultural Brokers in Post-colonial Migration Regimes ................................ 45
Sara de Jong
Indigenising Democracy? Renegotiating the Role of Indigenous
Political Authorities in Ghana’s Constitution Review ................................. 61
Joshua Kwesi Aikins
Civil Society as a Postcolonial Project: Challenging Normative
Notions in Post- confl ict Sub-Saharan Africa ................................................ 79
Simone Datzberger
Undoing Subalternity? Anarchist Anthropology
and the Dialectics of Participation and Autonomy ...................................... 95
Philipp Zehmisch
Part II Postcolonial-Queer-Feminist Appropriations and Contestations
The Re-colonization of South Asian Women’s Bodies: Normalizing
Off-Label Experiments in the Pharmaceuticalization of Homebirths ....... 113
Fouzieyha Towghi
vii
viii Contents
Motherhood, Mining and Modernity in the Peruvian
Highlands from Corporate Development to Social Mobilization ............... 131
Kyra Grieco
Women’s Rights in the Aftermath of Tunisia’s Revolution:
New Options and Constraints for Women’s Activism
in Processes of Transition ............................................................................... 147
Tanja Scheiterbauer
Contested Universal R/rights: The New Family Code in Mali ................... 159
Lucia Artner and Gavaza Maluleke
“Cruelty Is Uncivilized”: Consent, BDSM, and Legal
Regulation of the Civil(ized) Subject ............................................................. 175
Jordana Greenblatt
Part III Transformations of Development Politics
Negotiating ‘Development’: Constitution, Appropriation
and Contestation ............................................................................................. 191
Aram Ziai
Political Economy, Subjectivity and Agency: A Materialistic
Governmentality Study of Microfi nances ..................................................... 207
Dana Lüddemann
Normative Confl icts in Bangladesh: Nature/Forest Conservation,
Corporate Interests and the Politics of Co-management ............................ 225
Mohammad Tanzimuddin Khan
“We Want You to Ask Us First”: Development,
International Aid and the Politics of Indebtedness ...................................... 241
Jini Kim Watson
Normative Legitimacy and Normative
Dilemmas: Postcolonial Interventions
Nikita Dhawan , Elisabeth Fink , Johanna Leinius ,
and Rirhandu Mageza-Barthel
Research on colonialism as well as its impact on today’s world has been at the center
of critical debates throughout the last decades, contributing to major revisions of
theoretical, methodological and epistemological assumptions. It has produced a
wide range of research topics as well as a more nuanced understanding of the (post-)
colonial1 condition (cf. Ashcroft et al. 1 989 ; Lewis and Mills 2 003 ; McClintock
et al. 1 997; Spivak 1990) . However, one of the biggest diffi culties still lies in the
differentiated analysis of the various operations of power, which is attentive to its
complexities, yet does not refrain from the critical interrogation of supposedly “lib-
erating” or “empowering” agendas.
A gainst this background, this volumes aims at analyzing the interweaving of the
productive as well as limiting aspects of power by employing postcolonial-feminist
research perspectives, which have proven to contribute the most to (self-)critical
The editors would like to express their sincere appreciation to Smaran Dayal and Lorraine
Klimowich for their help and support in the editorial process.
1 Within postcolonial discourses, many terms denote hegemonic global power relations and struc-
tures of domination, such as Orient/Occident, global North/global South, First World/Third World
(Castro Varela and Dhawan 2015 ). The contrastive pair “the West and the Rest,” established by
Stuart Hall (1992) is commonly referred to in scholarly literature as well. The current volume
primarily employs the terms “global South/North,” since this pair diverges from suggesting mono-
lithic entities and draws attention to the “South” within the “North” and vice versa.
N. Dhawan (*)
Institute of Political Science , University of Innsbruck , Austria
e-mail: [email protected]
E. Fink (cid:129) J. Leinius
Frankfurt Research Center for Postcolonial Studies, Cluster of Excellence “The Formation
of Normative Orders” , Goethe University Frankfurt , Germany
e-mail: elisabeth.fi [email protected]; [email protected]
R. Mageza-Barthel
Department of Political Science , Goethe University Frankfurt , Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1
N. Dhawan et al. (eds.), Negotiating Normativity,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-30984-2_1
