Protecting civilians or colonial worldviews? A queer analysis of UK debates on humanitarian intervention

Vernon, PJ (2023). Protecting civilians or colonial worldviews? A queer analysis of UK debates on humanitarian intervention. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

The current global political moment can be characterised by multiple, inter- related crises. These include culture wars, identity-based social conflict, massive economic inequality and environmental destruction - all of which are driven by factors such as misinformation, excessive capital accumulation and racial/sexual normativities. Given that many of these conditions are traceable back to early European colonialism, there has been insufficient attention paid to the epistemic frameworks that underpin global politics. In response to this moment of crisis, and informed by Queer IR scholarship (notably the works of Cynthia Weber, Momin Rahman, and Rahul Rao), this thesis takes humanitarian intervention as its central focus, in order to draw into stark relief the ongoing coloniality of the Western state. Focusing on House of Commons debates on humanitarian intervention from 2011 to 2018, it explores the extent to which racism and heteronormativity, rooted in colonial understandings of time and space, are enacted through the UK’s responses, failed responses, and non-responses to atrocity crimes. In particular, it highlights the ways in which dominant logics in these debates invoke subject-positions of extreme selfhood or otherness. These are identified in this thesis as ‘The Brutal Dictator’, ‘The ISIL Terrorist’ and ‘The British Self’, framed as existing at various steps on ‘The Universal Path to Democracy.’ In studying these extreme cultural figures of selfhood and/or otherness, this thesis unpacks the ways in which racism and heteronormativity work together to dehumanise certain populations under coloniality, and the ways in which this can be resisted.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):