This book project develops a theory of self-determination that understands peoples to be entangled rather than bounded. The constitutional histories of colonized, indigenous, and exiled peoples disclose what I term an “entanglement” between states, peoples, and individuals, which (a) at least one of the peoples has a say over how the other people organizes its cooperative relationships and (b) when the relational practices of the two peoples overlap or even merge with each other.
Relationships of entanglement challenge the presuppositions grounding existing theories of self-determination, which tend to take peoples as institutionally, associatively, and territorially bounded groups. By contrast, I defend an interpretation of self-determination as relational integrity. Relational integrity as a principle denotes, first, that the starting point of self-determination is neither the atomistic individual nor the reified group, but rather the relational matrix that individuals are positioned in and peoples are constituted by. Additionally, integrity sets a different goalpost for self-determination. In contrast to the sovereigntist narrative of exclusive control, the value of integrity points to the necessary and sufficient conditions under which participants of a relational practice could collectively exercise a say over how that relationship should continue within the broader relational matrix.
Taken together, this book underlines the lesson that there is conceptual and normative significance to rejecting both the state and the individual as the default units of analysis, but rather interpreting political communities as defined and differentiated by institutions, associative relationships, and territorial practices. To that end, I ground my conceptual and normative analysis with interpretative analysis of the constitutional histories (including their founding constitutions, subsequent constitutional reforms, court rulings, and grassroots contestations) of four particular peoples that are entangled with territorial sovereign states: Puerto Rico, an incorporated territory of the United States; Hong Kong, a former British colony handed over to China; Indigenous peoples in Taiwan, and; exiled Tibetans in India’s settlements.
Entangled Peoplehood is divided accordingly into two major parts: Part I (Chapters 1-3) develops a conception of entangled peoplehood, whereas Part II (Chapters 4-6) offers a narrative of self-determination as relational integrity. Please contact me if you are interested in any of the chapter drafts.