{"title":"Appealing to the World: Du Bois and the Transnational Politics of Petition","authors":"Adam Dahl","doi":"10.1215/00382876-11235591","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"As a mode of radical, anti-colonial politics, the petition and related genre of the appeal would seem to hold little promise. This paper uncovers the radical and transnational politics of petitioning in W. E. B. Du Bois's work with and against the United Nations in the 1940s. Examining a range of petitions beyond the more widely examined Appeal to the World (1947), this article argues that Du Bois subverts the familiar genre conventions of the petition and appeal. The effect is not an appeal to a higher political authority to correct domestic injustices but to contest the shape of the international order itself by highlighting the transnational connection between colonial domination and racial exclusion within the domestic jurisdiction of imperial nation-states and the racial hierarchies of the international order. Instead of leaving the authority of the international order defined by the primacy of the sovereign state system intact, Du Bois contests this authority by exposing how racial hierarchy and colonial rule cut against enshrined divisions between internal state sovereignty and international law. The essay closes by exploring how other anti-colonial figures in the twentieth century such as B. R. Ambedkar and Malcolm X similarly turned to the transnational politics of appeal.","PeriodicalId":21946,"journal":{"name":"South Atlantic Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"South Atlantic Quarterly","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-11235591","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"CULTURAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
As a mode of radical, anti-colonial politics, the petition and related genre of the appeal would seem to hold little promise. This paper uncovers the radical and transnational politics of petitioning in W. E. B. Du Bois's work with and against the United Nations in the 1940s. Examining a range of petitions beyond the more widely examined Appeal to the World (1947), this article argues that Du Bois subverts the familiar genre conventions of the petition and appeal. The effect is not an appeal to a higher political authority to correct domestic injustices but to contest the shape of the international order itself by highlighting the transnational connection between colonial domination and racial exclusion within the domestic jurisdiction of imperial nation-states and the racial hierarchies of the international order. Instead of leaving the authority of the international order defined by the primacy of the sovereign state system intact, Du Bois contests this authority by exposing how racial hierarchy and colonial rule cut against enshrined divisions between internal state sovereignty and international law. The essay closes by exploring how other anti-colonial figures in the twentieth century such as B. R. Ambedkar and Malcolm X similarly turned to the transnational politics of appeal.
作为一种激进的反殖民主义政治模式,请愿书和相关的呼吁书似乎没有什么前途。本文揭示了 W. E. B. 杜波依斯在 20 世纪 40 年代与联合国合作和反对联合国的工作中的激进和跨国请愿政治。本文研究了《向世界发出呼吁》(1947 年)之外的一系列请愿书,认为杜波依斯颠覆了人们熟悉的请愿书和呼吁书的体裁惯例。其效果不是呼吁更高的政治权威纠正国内的不公正现象,而是通过强调帝国民族国家国内管辖范围内的殖民统治和种族排斥与国际秩序的种族等级制度之间的跨国联系,对国际秩序本身的形态提出质疑。杜波依斯没有让主权国家体系至上所定义的国际秩序权威保持不变,而是通过揭露种族等级制度和殖民统治如何与国家内部主权和国际法之间的神圣划分相抵触,对这一权威提出质疑。文章最后探讨了二十世纪的其他反殖民人物,如 B. R. Ambedkar 和 Malcolm X,是如何同样转向跨国政治诉求的。
期刊介绍:
Individual subscribers and institutions with electronic access can view issues of the South Atlantic Quarterly online. If you have not signed up, review the first-time access instructions. Founded amid controversy in 1901, the South Atlantic Quarterly continues to cover the beat, center and fringe, with bold analyses of the current scene—national, cultural, intellectual—worldwide. Now published exclusively in special issues, this vanguard centenarian journal is tackling embattled states, evaluating postmodernity"s influential writers and intellectuals, and examining a wide range of cultural phenomena.