Third World Studies: Theorizing Liberation

In this revised and expanded second edition of Third World Studies, Gary Y. Okihiro considers the methods and theories that might constitute the formation of Third World studies. Proposed in 1968 at San Francisco State College by the Third World Liberation Front but replaced by faculty and administrators with ethnic studies, Third World studies was over before it began. As opposed to ethnic studies, which Okihiro critiques for its liberalism and US-centrism, Third World studies begins with the colonized world and the anti-imperial, anticolonial, and antiracist projects located therein as described by W. E. B. Du Bois in 1900. Third World studies analyzes the locations and articulations of power around the axes of race, gender, sexuality, (dis)ability, class, and nation. In this new edition, Okihiro emphasizes the work of Third World intellectuals such as M. N. Roy, JosÉ Carlos MariÁtegui, and Oliver Cromwell Cox; foregrounds the importance of Bandung and the Tricontinental; and adds discussions of eugenics, feminist epistemologies, and religion. With this work, Okihiro establishes Third World studies as a theoretical formation and a liberatory practice.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments  ix Introduction  1 1. Subjects  19 2. Nationalism  45 3. Imperialism  69 4. World-System  91 5. Education  113 6. Subjectification  131 7. Racial Formation  149 8. Social Formation  171 9. A luta continua  203 Notes  241 Bibliography  271 Index  299

About the Author :
Gary Y. Okihiro (1945-2024) was Visiting Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Race, and Migration at Yale University and the author of many books, including The Boundless Sea: Self and History and American History Unbound: Asians and Pacific Islanders.

Review :
Praise for the First Edition “A bracing account of the phantom Third World studies, the field that never was. Gary Y. Okihiro has had his feet planted firmly in the fields of ethnic studies and global studies, two fields that would have been part of Third World studies, making him well positioned to write this book.” - Vijay Prashad, author of (The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South) Praise for the First Edition “Okihiro makes an exciting and innovative contribution to the scholarship on Third World studies. . . . [This book] will make excellent reading for anyone interested in the interplay between politics and framing of subjectivities and would be particularly useful for undergraduate and graduate courses on postcolonial studies, critical pedagogy, and international politics.” - Ananya Sharma, (Postcolonial Studies) “Gary Y. Okihiro’s Third World Studies remains an extraordinarily important contribution. It is the single most effective critique of racial capitalism’s entanglement with multicultural liberalism, remarkably showing readers how Third World studies offers a distinct challenge and radically different way of viewing human history and society. This book is indispensable.” - Penny M. Von Eschen, author of (Paradoxes of Nostalgia: Cold War Triumphalism and Global Disorder since 1989) "This second edition summarizes Okihiro's 'intellectual labors.' It is also a tribute to a first-generation ethnic studies scholar (notwithstanding his misgiving about labeling the field thus) who helped found, define, and redefine the field to break out of parochial identity politics and focus on relationships of power, domination, and liberation. Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; professionals." - E. Hu-DeHart (Choice)