Agamben and Colonialism

Svirsky and Bignall assemble leading figures to explore the rich philosophical linkages and the political concerns shared by Agamben and postcolonial theory. Agamben's theories of the 'state of exception' and 'bare life' are situated in critical relation to the existence of these phenomena in the colonial/postcolonial world.

Features an international set of expert contributors who approach postcolonial criticism from an interdisciplinary perspectiveo Deals with colonial and postcolonial issues in Russia, Israel and Palestine, Africa the Americas, Asia and Australiao Offers new insights on colonial exclusion, racism and postcolonial democracyo A timely intervention to debates in poststructuralist, postcolonial and postmodern studies for students of politics, critical theory and social & political philosophy

Acknowledgements; Introduction: Agamben and Colonialism, Simone Bignall and Marcelo Svirsky; I. Colonial States of Exception; Imperialism, Exceptionalism and the Contemporary World, Yehouda Shenhav; 1. The Management of Anomie: The State of Exception in Post-communist Russia, Sergei Prozorov; 2. The Cultural Politics of Exception, Marcelo Svirsky; II. Colonial Sovereignty; 4. Indigenising Agamben: Rethinking Sovereignty in Light of the ‘Peculiar’ Status of Native Peoples, Mark Rifkin; 5. Reading Kenya’s Colonial State of Emergency after Agamben, Stephen Morton; 6. Colonial Sovereignty, Forms of Life and Liminal Beings in South Africa, Stewart Motha; III. Bare Life and Bio-Politics; 7. Encountering Bare Life in Italian Libya and Colonial Amnesia in Agamben, David Atkinson; 8. Abandoning Gaza, Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir; 9. Colonial Histories: Biopolitics and Shantytowns in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, Silvia Grinberg; IV. Method, History and Potentiality; 10. Metropolis and Colonisation, Leland de la Durantaye; 11. ‘The Work of Men is Not Durable’: History, Haiti and the Rights of Man, Jessica Whyte; 12. Potential Postcoloniality: Sacred Life, Profanation and the Coming Community, Simone Bignall; Notes on Contributors; Index.

Marcelo Svirsky is Lecturer and Marie Curie Fellow at the Cardiff University.

Simone Bignall is Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales.