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Newer is Truer: Time, Space and Subjectivity at the Bandung Conference

Parfitt, Rose (2017) Newer is Truer: Time, Space and Subjectivity at the Bandung Conference. In: Eslava, Luis and Fakhri, Michael and Nesiah, Vasuki, eds. Bandung, Global History, and International Law: Critical Pasts and Pending Futures. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 49-65. ISBN 978-1-107-12399-1. E-ISBN 978-1-316-41488-0. (doi:10.1017/9781316414880.005) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:63263)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided. (Contact us about this Publication)
Official URL:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316414880.005

Abstract

To critical scholars of international law, the demands of the newly independent states represented at the Bandung Conference can appear somewhat less than radical. If analysed not only in terms of their substance but also in terms of their (narrative) form, however, these demands take on a far more revolutionary aspect. This chapter mobilises Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope to focus on the relationship between time and space, as constructed by the delegates at Bandung. They made use, the chapter argues, of certain chronotopic devices in order to narrate – and constitute – a particular kind of international legal subjectivity for their states. In doing so, they made a rhetorical-political move against the superpowers and their allies, collectively the source of the two most important threats to the subjectivity of African and Asian states: colonialism and the Cold War. With this move, the delegates sought to challenge the identity of these powerful states as international law’s archetypal subjects, and in their stead to position their own states – international law’s newest subjects – as also, and for that reason, its truest.

Item Type: Book section
DOI/Identification number: 10.1017/9781316414880.005
Subjects: K Law
K Law > K Law (General)
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > Kent Law School
Depositing User: Rose Parfitt
Date Deposited: 07 Sep 2017 11:10 UTC
Last Modified: 11 Dec 2023 14:47 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/63263 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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