Sitting in the Room with Glissant
Imagining, Relating, and Translating the World
Existing in deep relation with the work of poet, philosopher, and theorist Édouard Glissant, this paper, taking as its grounding the Caribbean archipelago, explores ways of thinking/being/imagining/inhabiting the world as constituted in and through relations of multiplicity. The pages that follow take up this task through a series of philosophies co- constituted in dialogue with Glissant. Reading Glissant generatively (albeit, at times errantly) through the optic of ‘translations’, this paper ...
Éditeur : Graduate Institute Publications
Lieu d’édition : Genève
Publication sur OpenEdition Books : 22 août 2023
ISBN numérique : 978-2-940600-50-2
DOI : 10.4000/books.iheid.9205
Collection : eCahiers de l’Institut | 50
Année d’édition : 2023
Arrival
Glissant
Archipelago
Rhizome
Caribbeanness
Opacity
Departure
Existing in deep relation with the work of poet, philosopher, and theorist Édouard Glissant, this paper, taking as its grounding the Caribbean archipelago, explores ways of thinking/being/imagining/inhabiting the world as constituted in and through relations of multiplicity. The pages that follow take up this task through a series of philosophies co- constituted in dialogue with Glissant. Reading Glissant generatively (albeit, at times errantly) through the optic of ‘translations’, this paper takes up the ‘big’ questions confronting political philosophy, such as, ‘thinking’, ‘being’, ‘freedom’, ‘difference’, ‘space’, and ‘time’. Suggesting that these questions can be usefully approached from the tortured landscape of the Caribbean, this paper makes the case for orienting critical inquiry and political action around modalities of relationality, multiplicity, and non-systematicity. In doing so, this paper puts forward a poetic mode of critique, which, while thinking through the world- breaking historical violence instituted by coloniality, slavery, and other dispossessions, is immanently able to overcome them through an affirmative, de-territorialised, and inventive ethico-political stance.
We extend our heartfelt thanks to the Vahabzadeh Foundation for financially supporting the publication of best works by young researchers of the Graduate Institute, giving a priority to those who have been awarded academic prizes for their master’s dissertations.
Devarya Srivastava is a doctoral candidate at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), working on the history of aesthetics, decolonisation, and literature in South Asia. He also completed his masters at the Geneva Graduate Institute, studying International Relations and Political Science. More broadly, he is interested in studying the temporalities, socio-cultural processes, and shadows of decolonisation, especially as instituted in the realm of literature and art.

Le texte seul est utilisable sous licence Creative Commons - Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Les autres éléments (illustrations, fichiers annexes importés) sont « Tous droits réservés », sauf mention contraire.
The Development of International Refugee Protection through the Practice of the UN Security Council
Christiane Ahlborn
2010
The SWIFT Affair
Swiss Banking Secrecy and the Fight against Terrorist Financing
Johannes Köppel
2011
The Evolving Patterns of Lebanese Politics in Post-Syria Lebanon
The Perceptions of Hizballah among Members of the Free Patriotic Movement
Fouad Ilias
2010
La justice internationale à l'épreuve du terrorisme
Défis, enjeux et perspectives concernant la Commission d'enquête internationale indépendante (UNIIIC) et le Tribunal spécial pour le Liban
Sébastien Moretti
2009
Aut Dedere, aut Judicare: The Extradite or Prosecute Clause in International Law
Claire Mitchell
2009