Rolling Back the Frontiers of Empire: Practising the Postcolonial

This article presents a postcolonial critique of the liberal peacekeeping project and canvasses ideas for a very different approach. It is argued that peacekeeping in the non-European world is cast in the colonial mould of intervention from above and outside. A case is then made that as the provision of security is now tied to a development agenda, liberal interventionism works to legitimize the existing world order. On the premise that there is a need for an alternative model to the liberal project, the article concludes by proposing that the everyday be privileged as the site for security, in the North as well as in the South.