Researching Ambicoloniality: Theory, Method, Positionality

Written by Harry Robinson, current UCL SSEES MA student (International Masters in Economy, State and Society)

Marking the beginning of the new academic year, Dr Svitlana Biedarieva delivered a presentation to the PhD forum on Critical Area Studies within the framework of the PPV research group on her new book Ambicoloniality and War: The Ukrainian-Russian Case, published with Springer in 2024. The novel theory of ambicoloniality seeks to fill the gaps in current postcolonial and decolonial theoretical frameworks for analysis of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia with area specificity, attempting to rationalize and explain Russia’s invasion of and atrocities in Ukraine.

Dr Biedarieva’s theory of ambicoloniality builds on postcolonial and decolonial theory, additionally drawing on poststructuralist and psychoanalytical ideas. ‘Ambi-‘, reflects the double-sided connection between Russia and Ukraine, depicting particularly the idea of ambivalence, and ‘coloniality,’ first introduced by Anibal Quijano, who draws attention to colonial behaviours brought to the present. Four constituent elements underpin the theory: Filtering, with cultural exchange across a geographically and symbolically proximate border resulting in epistemological entanglement and hybridity; Appropriation, where, due to this entanglement, Russia has claimed aspects of Ukrainian culture and epistemic production as its own; etic attempts at analysis are confounded due to the resulting hybridity; Affection, drawing conceptually on Lacan’s Jouissance, represented as a destructive desire for reunification that destroys the state of the coloniser and the object of its desire; and Transgression where this affection transforms into aggression, transgressing across the cultural and geographic border.

Dr Biedarieva presented a combination of theory synthesized, developed, and contextualised with an analysis of cultural production. Her focus on visual art influenced by her own expertise as an art-historian and a practicing artist. This aspect of the argumentation raises interesting methodological questions. The artistic examples were presented as testimonial, and consciously selected to be supportive and demonstrative of the already conceived theoretical proposals, to which the majority of the book was dedicated.  Dr Biedarieva maintained that the works of art gathered create a comprehensive image of the postcolonial condition in Ukraine; it would be interesting to examine other potential empirical sources that could contribute to this picture from other perspectives and strengthen the theory. A clearer discussion of the methodology in gathering and selecting the works presented would have been enlightening, as would a further clarification of the art’s role in the conception of the theory. Similarly, there was no real discussion of Russian cultural production, though examples are used in the argumentation of the book; despite the risks to epistemic justice involved, a careful presentation would have fleshed out the bi-directional aspect of ambicolonial filtering in the context of the talk.

Ukraine’s colonial history is of course not solely tied up with Russia; an analysis of Ukraine’s historical relationship with Poland and Austria would benefit from Dr Biaderieva’s convincing demonstration of the validity of a colonial lens in a European context, accounting for specific issues of geographic and cultural proximity.

This is academia on the frontlines of a rhetorical and symbolic war playing out on the global stage. The theory of ambicoloniality forcefully argues for a reconsideration of widespread global ambivalence towards Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine through its demonstration of the neocolonial nature of Russia’s behaviour. It helps to undermine Russian rhetoric and accusations of Western hypocrisy utilized to maintain this situation. It raises the question: how could this theoretically complex proposition be instrumentalised to break through this ambivalence towards the war demonstrated by members of the global community, and in what fora?

Perhaps the most chilling question raised in light of the presentation is whether the current unimaginable bloodletting was unavoidable aspect of Ukraine’s final ‘decolonial release,’ and how a cyclical repetition of that violence brought about by Russia’s reaction to the ambicolonial relationship can be avoided.