Uses of the Other: "The East" in European Identity Formation - Softcover

Iver B. Neumann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0719056535 ISBN 13: 9780719056536

Publisher: Manchester University Press, 1999

Synopsis

The field of international relations has recently witnessed a tremendous growth of interest in the theme of identity and its formation, construction, and deconstruction. In Uses of the Other, Iver B. Neumann demonstrates how thinking about identity in terms of the self and other may prove highly useful in the study of world politics.Neumann begins by tracing the four different paths along which this thinking has developed during this century -- ethnographic, psychological, Continental philosophical, and "Eastern excursion" -- and he shows how these blended at the margins of the discipline of international relations at the end of the 1980s. There follow several incisive readings of European identity formations on the all-European, regional, and national levels.The theme that draws these readings together is how "the East" is used as a sign of otherness at all three levels. Whereas previous studies framed this process as part of colonial and postcolonial developments, this book suggests that "Easternness" is also present as a marker in contemporary discourses about Russia, Turkey, Central Europe, and Bashkortostan, among others.

About this title

About the Author:

Iver B. Neumann is Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science and an associate of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

About this edition

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0719056535
• ISBN 13: 9780719056536
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 248