| dc.description.abstract | Situated on the occidental discursive terrain of the West-Islam paradigm, this research takes aim at its civilisational framing, reified by a dynamic of terror and counter-terror events. By cracking the monolith of Islam at the source, and projecting a reverse gaze through time, it allows for a revisiting of this relationality and an exploration of how ‘the West’ has, in turn, been (re)presented and constructed as a multi-faceted ‘other’ in the official schoolbooks of self-designated representatives of Islam, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Working with an original diachronic corpus, comparing and contrasting schoolbooks prior to and after the pivotal year of 1979, I uncover schoolbooks as a critical site of identity construction and consolidation in international relations (IR). The analysis, building on a conceptual framing around self, other, linguistic tropes, and memory, reveals an ideational landscape shaped by and enabling the reification of hostile and performative self-other dichotomies in Iranian and Saudi schoolbooks since 1979, which do not cut across sectarian lines, but posit ‘the West’ as central.
This research contributes to the broader endeavour to locate the sources and drivers of identity in IR, thereby building on and further contributing to the constructivist agenda in a way that acknowledges the importance of identity markers that transcend the state level to include alternate spatial, ethical, and temporal constructs. Implementing a granular qualitative methodology tailored to the discourse analysis of schoolbooks, the thesis more broadly participates in the ongoing efforts to de-centre and internationalise the discipline. At a time when the West appears to be globally contested, shedding light on this critically under-researched empirical material is not only part and parcel of expanding our understanding of alternate worldviews, and in particular, perceptions of the West, but is paramount to both the theorising and conduct of IR. | en_GB |
