Pluriversal Sovereignty and the State: Imperial Encounters in Sri Lanka

(Hardback)

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Presenting a case study of British colonial rule and its aftermath in Sri Lanka, this book explores the collision of competing ontologies in the making of the modern state system. It develops a decolonial theoretical framework informed by the idea of a pluriverse to reveal the empirical and imperial avenues through which the idea of the modern/colonial state became normalised in Ceylon. The book contributes to three areas of scholarly discussion: the politics of ontology as related to sovereignty, postcolonial and decolonial international relations, and globalisation through the colonial encounter. It argues that in order to understand contemporary postcolonial crises rooted in territorial conflicts, we must first understand the historical and conceptual processes that depoliticised and universalised the norm of total territorial rule rather than treating the modern state as a territorial and developmental inevitability.

Author Bio

Ajay Parasram is an Associate Professor in International Development Studies and History at Dalhousie University in Kjipuktuk