Lack of attention to definitions of indigeneity is a problem in both political theory and practice. Defining indigeneity has at least two important consequences: it affects who has access to resources or rights reserved for Indigenous peoples; and it shapes the kinds of privileges and resources available to Indigenous peoples. In this article, I draw on Theodor Adorno’s concept of ‘nonidentity’ as a resource for exploring the power and limits of conceptions of indigeneity. I argue that recognizing the non-identical aspects (...) of indigeneity enables critical engagement with constellations of concepts that attend to the distinctive aspects of indigeneity in particular moments and locations. To illustrate my argument, I draw on one conception of indigeneity that could be characterized as non-identity thinking – a research approach called Kaupapa Māori. I suggest that non-identity is a promising resource for conceptualizing indigeneity as it has potential to respond to some of the key problems with current responses to indigeneity; notably, that universal definitions may not best represent what it means to be Indigenous, and that unreflective acceptance of current definitions fails to produce just outcomes. (shrink)

This article outlines the possibilities of autobiographical stories to criticize status quo iterations of International Relations. The article draws on the personal experiences of the author’s deportation order issued by the United Kingdom’s Home Office and its associated Border agency to challenge the accepted assumptions of a cosmopolitan world-view as it relates to orderly international institutional design. It highlights the possibilities of trauma when border management and personal mobility collide. It suggests that mobility trauma ensues when the expectations of human (...) mobility, outlined in Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, infringe the state’s role as security provider. It begins in part one with a challenge to the traditional role and understanding of international borders that sustain order within the international. It examines the unacknowledged role that human vulnerability plays within IR and institutional design while frankly engaging with human vulnerability and trauma in the second section. This section details the experiences of the author when her mobility rights were curtailed and the ensuing identity crisis prompted by such events. The final section investigates the ideas of critical cosmopolitan scholarship demanding that such discourses acknowledge and work through the possibility of failed agency when the demands of state security supersede individual mobility rights. It turns to the possibility of traumatic iterations of IR in order to probe such possibilities. The article suggests, in its conclusion, the possibility of storytelling and psychoanalysis to endorse unorthodox agency, and the possibility of a dynamic international institutional design, that challenges the status quo iterations of IR. (shrink)

This article argues that Buddhist social thought offers valuable insight into debates about cosmopolitan solidarity by raising cosmopolitanism's need to explore more deeply the relationship between the nature of self and the politics of solidarity. It suggests that a radical ‘socio-existential’ account of the individual, which rejects a conception of the self as autonomous and separate from others, mitigates categories of exclusion and offers a robust account of the possibility of solidarity with strangers. Buddhist thought theorises a movement from suffering (...) to solidarity that does not recognise borders or boundaries as containing inherent ethical value. (shrink)