What would it mean to decolonize the concept of war? “Decolonizing” means critiquing the ways in which Eurocentric ideas and historiographies have informed the basic categories of social and political thought. Dominan... more abstractWhat would it mean to decolonize the concept of war? “Decolonizing” means critiquing the ways in which Eurocentric ideas and historiographies have informed the basic categories of social and political thought. Dominant understandings of the concept of war derive from histories and sociologies of nation-state formation in the West. Accordingly, I critique this Eurocentric concept of war from the perspective of Small War in the colonies, that is, from the perspective of different histories and geographies of war and society than were assumed to exist in the West. I do so in order to outline a postcolonial concept of war and to identify some of the principles of inquiry that would inform a postcolonial war studies. These include conceiving force as an ordinary dimension of politics; situating force and war in transnational context, amid international hierarchies; and attending to the co-constitutive character of war and society relations in world politics.

Postcolonial Studies, War Studies, and Security Studies

International Relations, War Studies, Diplomacy, and Diplomacy and international relations

International Relations, War Studies, Security Studies, and Empire

Military History, War Studies, Civil-military relations, and Military Sociology

Postcolonial Studies, United Kingdom, and Strategy

This article introduces the concept of “utile forms” and analyzes the effects of these forms in imperial rule and contemporary counterinsurgency. Utile forms are media that enable bureaucracies to disseminate speciali... more abstractThis article introduces the concept of “utile forms” and analyzes the effects of these forms in imperial rule and contemporary counterinsurgency. Utile forms are media that enable bureaucracies to disseminate specialized knowledges to officials operating in the field. Examples include smart cards, field manuals and handheld biometric devices. We argue that utile forms have significant social and political effects irrespective of the “truth value” of the knowledge they contain. We analyze these effects in terms of world-ordering and world-making properties: utile forms both embody a particular worldview or ideology (world-ordering) and they facilitate official attempts to remake the world in accordance with this vision (world-making). We draw on examples of utile forms from British India and more recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. The article concludes by reflecting on the relations between truth, knowledge and power in times of war and imperialism.

Publication Date: May 2013

Publication Name: Review of International Studies

More Info: International Journal, Vol. LXVI, #3 (Summer 2011), pp. 597-612

This paper approaches the ontology of war by asking why, despite its constitutive function for politics and society, war has never been made the object of an academic discipline? Through an analysis of the relationshi... more abstractThis paper approaches the ontology of war by asking why, despite its constitutive function for politics and society, war has never been made the object of an academic discipline? Through an analysis of the relationship between war and knowledge about war, we argue that the ontology of war is such that it disrupts foundational claims of the kind necessary for conventional forms of academic disciplinarity. At the center of the ontology of war is fighting, an idea we recover from Clausewitz. A moment of radical contingency, fighting both compromises knowledge about war and forces the unmaking and remaking of social and political orders. These generative powers of war operate through the production of systems of knowledge and their institutionalization in the academy, the state and wider society. Although of existential significance for political authority, these knowledges are vulnerable to the very contingency of war that produces them. This complex of relations between war, knowledge and power we term War/Truth. As such, an analytical framework adequate to war requires a reflexive relation to truth claims. We clear the ground for such a ‘critical war studies’.

More Info: Co-authored with Shane Brighton International Political Sociology (2011) 5, 126–143

This article critiques the wider agenda in security studies from the perspective of the idea of a war studies. It argues that security studies in any form has not adequately addressed the phenomenon of war and that IR... more abstractThis article critiques the wider agenda in security studies from the perspective of the idea of a war studies. It argues that security studies in any form has not adequately addressed the phenomenon of war and that IR more generally reduces war to an effect of the states system. An analysis of inquiry into the Second World War illuminates these points, while the Vietnam War is mobilised to show how the study of war can refigure our understanding of the international as a distinct social space. The conclusion suggests a new critical research agenda centred on politics, force, and war.

More Info: Millennium, Vol., 39, #3 (May 2011), pp. 701-716

More Info: in Denemark, Robert A, ed., The International Studies Encyclopedia, Blackwell Publishing, Blackwell reference online; The International Studies Encylopedia, Vol. III, Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010, pp. 1360-1379

This is the Syllabus for IR 319 in MT 2016. Ignore class times and room numbers but readings and lectures are correct. If you are registered for this course, note the Assigned Readings. You are strongly encouraged to ... more abstractThis is the Syllabus for IR 319 in MT 2016. Ignore class times and room numbers but readings and lectures are correct. If you are registered for this course, note the Assigned Readings. You are strongly encouraged to purchase copies of The Conquest of America, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia, The Impossible Indian, The Wretched of the Earth, and The Colonial Signs of International Relations. We will be reading these books in their entirety and you will need to bring copies to class. If this looks like too much reading to you, DROP THE COURSE.

This is the syllabus for my MSc course in 2016-17. Note that places on this course are limited. To determine if you want to take the course, look at the seminar books on pp. 10-11 and ask yourself if you really want t... more abstractThis is the syllabus for my MSc course in 2016-17. Note that places on this course are limited. To determine if you want to take the course, look at the seminar books on pp. 10-11 and ask yourself if you really want to read them. If you are absolutely sure you want to take the course, buy the seminar books before you come to London and email me. I will guarantee the first 15 who do this a place; after that you will be on a waiting list. Note that this course is more difficult and involves more reading and writing than other courses; it is taught at the level of US PhD coursework. Be warned.

International Relations, Transnational and World History, War Studies, and Empire

LSE MSc Syllabus for 2014/15

International Relations, War and society, and Empire

More Info: This is an MSc course I will be teaching at the LSE in Fall term 2013. Incoming LSE students who are sure they want to take this course should consider buying the 9 seminar books before they arrive at the LSE, especially if you are in the US where books are cheaper.

More Info: Syllabus for Fall 2012

More Info: New School PhD course (New School Students: Be sure to use tarak.barkawi@gmail.com to contact me, new school email not active yet)

More Info: Cambridge MPhil Course