The Politics of Identification and Alternative Forms of Self-Other Relations: The Travelogue of Muhammad Ibrahim and His Journey to Siam in the 17th Century

The prominence of travelogues as a useful heuristic source for the study, exploration and understanding of processes of identity formation, performance and transformation and conceptualization of various forms of Self-Other relations has been on the rise in the field of International Relations (IR). However, most of the studies that use travelogues as a heuristic source to explore such issues as power, knowledge and identity are European travelogues. In particular, Tzvetan Todorov’s The Conquest of America has been a predominant source for the conceptualization of various forms of Self-Other relations and processes of identity formation, performance and transformation in IR. While within the fields of literature and cultural studies a rise in the number of studies of non-European travelogues is perceptible, only the analysis of European travelogues have so far informed the conceptualizations of various forms of Self-Other relations in the discipline of IR. The problem with the prevalence of European travelogues, and in particular Todorov’s work, as the source for the conceptualization of various forms of Self-Other relations is the implicit extrapolation of European experiences to universal experiences and the exclusion of other – non-European – experiences and forms of Self-Other relations. This paper explores other forms of Self-Other relations through the study of Muhammad Ibrahim’s travelogue, the Safina’i Sulaimani. In 1685 Ibrahim travelled as a member of the Safavid diplomatic envoy to Siam and encountered during his journey various peoples with whom he interacted. Through the deconstructive analysis of the text of his travelogue, I reveal in this paper the author’s politics of identification of the self and the others, the various categories he uses to make sense of the others and his experiences of difference, and the hierarchy that he establishes between these others in relation to the position of the self. Through this deconstruction of Ibrahim’s politics of the identification of the self and the others I explore his various ways of othering and how they contribute to the conceptualization of alternative forms of self-other relations and challenge at the same time the contemporary mode of thinking and conceptualization of forms of self-other relations.