This book was written before the global pandemic-before Covid-19 exposed systemic race and class ... more This book was written before the global pandemic-before Covid-19 exposed systemic race and class inequalities; before Black Lives Matter protests broke out across the world, pushing an abolitionist agenda to the fore; before revolutionary feminisms took to the streets of London in collective grief and anger following the death of Sarah Everard in March 2021. And yet, this anthology of conversations with ten scholar-activists, that detail their personal, political and scholarly trajectories, speaks directly to our current moment. Revolutionary Feminisms imparts an uplifting 'political inheritance' of anti-racist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles to people organising today. Comprised of 'conversations' between the editors Brenna Bhandar and Rafeef Ziadah and ten scholar-activists
Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-8223-7146-5 (paper); ISBN: 978-0-8223-7139-7 (cl... more Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-8223-7146-5 (paper); ISBN: 978-0-8223-7139-7 (cloth) In the global present, the emergence of new regimes of neoliberal accumulation have proved that neither capitalistic expansion nor (settler) colonialism belong to bypassed stages of history (Lloyd and Wolfe 2016; Veracini 2019). On the contrary, contemporary modes of capital accumulation continue to perpetuate forms of racially inscribed dispossession and appropriation. In settler colonial contexts such as Canada, Australia or Israel/Palestine, land appropriation remains the triggering engine of different accumulation strategies that are oriented towards the encroachment of the settler constituency and the erasure of Indigenous communities, a process that constantly regenerates itself.
Rico) in which these works were read. First, the themes of racism, capitalism and coloniality -to... more Rico) in which these works were read. First, the themes of racism, capitalism and coloniality -to varying degrees disavowed and erased in both IR as a discipline and public opinion -appear as persistent, pervasive yet adapting across time, space and situatedness. Second, both the autobiographical examples and the works point at the equally omnipresent cracks in the system and invite reflection on anticolonial alternatives (of solidarity). In conclusion, the essay explores how these works could inform reconceptualisation of the IR syllabus, towards a discipline that engages with the world rather than itself, against the colonial status quo.
s concept of plasticity has influenced and inspired scholars from across disciplines. The contrib... more s concept of plasticity has influenced and inspired scholars from across disciplines. The contributors to Plastic Materialities-whose fields include political philosophy, critical legal studies, social theory, literature, and philosophy-use Malabou's innovative combination of post-structuralism and neuroscience to evaluate the political implications of her work. They address, among other things, subjectivity, science, war, the malleability of sexuality, neoliberalism and economic theory, indigenous and racial politics, and the relationship between the human and non-human. Plastic Materialities also includes three essays by Malabou and an interview with her, all of which bring her work into conversation with issues of sovereignty, justice, and social order for the first time.
Rather than the exception to an otherwise progressive intellectual environment in North American,... more Rather than the exception to an otherwise progressive intellectual environment in North American, and specifically Canadian universities, the suppression of speech related to Palestine reveals the racial limits of a settler-colonial liberal politics of acknowledgment and reconciliation. The mainstream or institutional conceptualisation of academic freedom does not address the structural racism and settler-colonial realities within which Canadian universities are embedded, and which render them as ‘natural’ allies for Israeli institutions and state practices. A complicated – if revealing – moment of exposure of the limits of the liberal script of reconciliation is the land acknowledgment, which has become, since October 2023, an opportunity grasped by some critical scholars to acknowledge the links between the ongoing genocide in Palestine and settler colonialism across Turtle Island. Tracing the oppositional functions of the land acknowledgment, this article exposes the political limits of a liberal racial order, which is explicitly challenged by expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
In this article the author examines Fitzpatrick's foundational critique of liberal legality and r... more In this article the author examines Fitzpatrick's foundational critique of liberal legality and racism, a theme which remained central to his decades-long excavation of modern law's self-identity. After considering Fitzpatrick's 'separation thesis', the author then turns to consider the ways in which neoliberal legality is parasitic upon liberal legal racial formations while at the same time, obscuring the foundational place of race in contemporary capitalism by subsuming material life within its modes of value extraction.
https://thedisorderofthings.com/2019/05/10/property-abolitionism-race-colony-body-land/ Thanks to... more https://thedisorderofthings.com/2019/05/10/property-abolitionism-race-colony-body-land/ Thanks to all five contributors for these incredibly thoughtful interventions. It is a real gift to have such expansive and thorough responses to one's work, and to have been given the opportunity to consider the questions they raise about the potential for some of the ideas in the book to travel into domains unexplored in the text. It is impossible to respond to each of the issues raised, but I have chosen 4 different themes to discuss which I think connect many of the articles. One of the themes arising from the responses to the book is a question about the extent to which the concept, "racial regimes of ownership" is adequate to grasp the realities of colonialism outside of the sphere of British colonial and imperial rule. Relatedly, to what extent has the co-emergence of racial subjectivities and capitalist property relations been a central part of the advent of colonial modernities beyond the settler colony? There are a few ways of considering these questions. One would be to turn to the histories of other European colonial endeavours of the 19 th century, such as the German colonisation of Namibia, or the French colonisation of Algeria, and excavate the articulation of ideologies of ownership with racial logics that shaped the histories of colonisation in those sites. In turning to the specificities of different colonial sites, the contradictions and ambiguities that drive forward the formation of racial regimes of ownership can be better grasped. For instance, while British colonial appropriations of land were largely based on doctrines of possession and use, by the late 19 th century European powers used "occupiability in a fictive sense" in order to achieve "commercial sovereignty" over African states. 1 While land appropriation, particularly of coastal areas and control of waterways were central to French, German and Belgian colonisation in various parts of the African continent, it is clear that forms of land title and the conceptions of sovereignty that underpinned them varied according to the exigencies of imperial desire, which in many cases was primarily focused on commercial trade. Emergent capitalist ideologies of ownership based on a commodity logic of abstraction emerged in the context of a globalised economic system. While the book focuses on land appropriation, it is also clear that the conception of land as property developed in conjunction with other forms of property that were central to the functioning of colonial trade and settlement, including slavery. For instance, the analogy between cargo and land as equivalent forms of property lay at the basis of Torrens' arguments for a system of land registration; the analogy between human cargo and inanimate forms of cargo lay at the basis of the treatment of slaves as chattels in English and American law. Mapping the logics of propertisation and their emergence in conjunction with racial ideologies across different colonial regimes illuminates how the specificities of land holding systems and property law, along with particular racial ideologies converged in the settlement enterprises of other colonial powers. As Kerry Goettlich points out, scholars such as Patricia Seed have demonstrated that
This article was originally written in the early part of 2017, as an attempt to grasp the meaning... more This article was originally written in the early part of 2017, as an attempt to grasp the meaning of two significant electoral outcomes – the UK referendum on EU membership and the election of Trump – outside of what felt like an echo chamber of racist populism. The passage of time has only slightly muted the sense of acute crisis experienced by those on the left in the aftermath of the U.S. election and the Brexit referendum. In this article, I suggest that the material, immaterial and psychic dimensions of the current political moment can fruitfully be explored by thinking about the role of property logics in constituting the conditions of its emergence.
English version of interview with Brenna Bhandar by Olivier Chassaing, translated by Chayma Drira... more English version of interview with Brenna Bhandar by Olivier Chassaing, translated by Chayma Drira for Période, the French online journal of Marxist theory; available here: http://revueperiode.net/droit-et-colonialite-entretien-avec-brenna-bhandar/
Droit et colonialité : entretien avec Brenna Bhandar revueperiode.net/droit-et-colonialite-entret... more Droit et colonialité : entretien avec Brenna Bhandar revueperiode.net/droit-et-colonialite-entretien-avec-brenna-bhandar/ À travers l'étude du droit, on peut examiner la manière dont les sociétés capitalistes impliquent et renforcent différentes hiérarchies sociales : dominations de classe, de genre ou de race, persistance de structures et d'idéologies coloniales. À cette fin, est-ce que vous privilégiez, dans votre approche de la matière juridique, certains aspects de cette complexe réalité, comme les usages sociaux qui en sont faits, les pratiques judiciaires, la jurisprudence, ou encore les règles et les lois ? De manière plus générale, quel type de théorie critique du droit déployez-vous ? Dans le champ juridique, l'étude du droit et du colonialisme d'une part, du droit et du capitalisme d'autre part, ont été tenus séparés. Inversement, dans les champs de l'histoire et de la théorie postcoloniale, à commencer par le travail des historiens issus des études subalternes, cette bifurcation ne semble pas être apparue, du moins pas au départ. L'architecture juridique du régime colonial peut fournir un point de départ pour analyser la manière dont le capital, les rapports sociaux en contexte capitaliste et le colonialisme sont profondément interdépendants, ce que soulignent les travaux de Guha, Chakrabarty et, plus récemment, de l'historienne Ritu Birla notamment. Or, les cadres d'analyse développés dans ces domaines n'ont pas encore exercé toute leur influence sur les études juridiques. Mais pour répondre à votre question, il faut des outils d'une grande portée pour examiner comment le droit implique et accentue des rapports sociaux de race, de genre et de classe, s'appuie sur certaines idéologies, et joue un rôle dans le colonialisme, l'impérialisme, ou encore dans certains modes de dépossession et d'accumulation capitalistiques. Les matériaux juridiques tels que la jurisprudence, les lois, les débats parlementaires, les documents d'orientation, etc., peuvent être considérés comme des types particuliers d'artefacts. Ainsi, le travail de Cornelia Vismann sur les dossiers législatifs et judiciaires, les archives et les registres, par exemple, nous pousse à observer que le contenu de ces dossiers, registres d'État et autres archives bureaucratiques, autant que la forme de son expression, jouent un rôle dans la fabrication des catégories juridiques et façonnent les modes de gouvernement. Je ne peux pas rendre justice ici à la profondeur philosophique de son travail, mais il s'agit d'un travail majeur pour l'étude du droit dans sa matérialité. Cette approche critique de la science, du matériel comme des formes juridiques, s'inscrit toutefois dans une lignée philosophique et une conception singulière du pouvoir qui se distingue des analyses du droit, du pouvoir et de la reproduction sociale en termes de structure. Pour le juriste critique qui entend cerner et remettre en cause les visions bien établies des rapports entre droit, capitalisme et colonialisme, comme leurs legs aujourd'hui, il m'est apparu essentiel de tirer partie des ressources intellectuelles du marxisme noir radical, des études post-coloniales et autochtones, et plus largement de tout ce qui a trait aux théories critiques. Les savoirs féministes et anti-racistes, issus en particulier de travaux adossés au référentiel marxien, ont également été décisifs pour comprendre le rôle du droit dans la reproduction des hiérarchies sociales et l'entrecroisement des rapports de domination.
This book was written before the global pandemic-before Covid-19 exposed systemic race and class ... more This book was written before the global pandemic-before Covid-19 exposed systemic race and class inequalities; before Black Lives Matter protests broke out across the world, pushing an abolitionist agenda to the fore; before revolutionary feminisms took to the streets of London in collective grief and anger following the death of Sarah Everard in March 2021. And yet, this anthology of conversations with ten scholar-activists, that detail their personal, political and scholarly trajectories, speaks directly to our current moment. Revolutionary Feminisms imparts an uplifting 'political inheritance' of anti-racist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist struggles to people organising today. Comprised of 'conversations' between the editors Brenna Bhandar and Rafeef Ziadah and ten scholar-activists
Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-8223-7146-5 (paper); ISBN: 978-0-8223-7139-7 (cl... more Durham: Duke University Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-8223-7146-5 (paper); ISBN: 978-0-8223-7139-7 (cloth) In the global present, the emergence of new regimes of neoliberal accumulation have proved that neither capitalistic expansion nor (settler) colonialism belong to bypassed stages of history (Lloyd and Wolfe 2016; Veracini 2019). On the contrary, contemporary modes of capital accumulation continue to perpetuate forms of racially inscribed dispossession and appropriation. In settler colonial contexts such as Canada, Australia or Israel/Palestine, land appropriation remains the triggering engine of different accumulation strategies that are oriented towards the encroachment of the settler constituency and the erasure of Indigenous communities, a process that constantly regenerates itself.
Rico) in which these works were read. First, the themes of racism, capitalism and coloniality -to... more Rico) in which these works were read. First, the themes of racism, capitalism and coloniality -to varying degrees disavowed and erased in both IR as a discipline and public opinion -appear as persistent, pervasive yet adapting across time, space and situatedness. Second, both the autobiographical examples and the works point at the equally omnipresent cracks in the system and invite reflection on anticolonial alternatives (of solidarity). In conclusion, the essay explores how these works could inform reconceptualisation of the IR syllabus, towards a discipline that engages with the world rather than itself, against the colonial status quo.
s concept of plasticity has influenced and inspired scholars from across disciplines. The contrib... more s concept of plasticity has influenced and inspired scholars from across disciplines. The contributors to Plastic Materialities-whose fields include political philosophy, critical legal studies, social theory, literature, and philosophy-use Malabou's innovative combination of post-structuralism and neuroscience to evaluate the political implications of her work. They address, among other things, subjectivity, science, war, the malleability of sexuality, neoliberalism and economic theory, indigenous and racial politics, and the relationship between the human and non-human. Plastic Materialities also includes three essays by Malabou and an interview with her, all of which bring her work into conversation with issues of sovereignty, justice, and social order for the first time.
Rather than the exception to an otherwise progressive intellectual environment in North American,... more Rather than the exception to an otherwise progressive intellectual environment in North American, and specifically Canadian universities, the suppression of speech related to Palestine reveals the racial limits of a settler-colonial liberal politics of acknowledgment and reconciliation. The mainstream or institutional conceptualisation of academic freedom does not address the structural racism and settler-colonial realities within which Canadian universities are embedded, and which render them as ‘natural’ allies for Israeli institutions and state practices. A complicated – if revealing – moment of exposure of the limits of the liberal script of reconciliation is the land acknowledgment, which has become, since October 2023, an opportunity grasped by some critical scholars to acknowledge the links between the ongoing genocide in Palestine and settler colonialism across Turtle Island. Tracing the oppositional functions of the land acknowledgment, this article exposes the political limits of a liberal racial order, which is explicitly challenged by expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation.
In this article the author examines Fitzpatrick's foundational critique of liberal legality and r... more In this article the author examines Fitzpatrick's foundational critique of liberal legality and racism, a theme which remained central to his decades-long excavation of modern law's self-identity. After considering Fitzpatrick's 'separation thesis', the author then turns to consider the ways in which neoliberal legality is parasitic upon liberal legal racial formations while at the same time, obscuring the foundational place of race in contemporary capitalism by subsuming material life within its modes of value extraction.
https://thedisorderofthings.com/2019/05/10/property-abolitionism-race-colony-body-land/ Thanks to... more https://thedisorderofthings.com/2019/05/10/property-abolitionism-race-colony-body-land/ Thanks to all five contributors for these incredibly thoughtful interventions. It is a real gift to have such expansive and thorough responses to one's work, and to have been given the opportunity to consider the questions they raise about the potential for some of the ideas in the book to travel into domains unexplored in the text. It is impossible to respond to each of the issues raised, but I have chosen 4 different themes to discuss which I think connect many of the articles. One of the themes arising from the responses to the book is a question about the extent to which the concept, "racial regimes of ownership" is adequate to grasp the realities of colonialism outside of the sphere of British colonial and imperial rule. Relatedly, to what extent has the co-emergence of racial subjectivities and capitalist property relations been a central part of the advent of colonial modernities beyond the settler colony? There are a few ways of considering these questions. One would be to turn to the histories of other European colonial endeavours of the 19 th century, such as the German colonisation of Namibia, or the French colonisation of Algeria, and excavate the articulation of ideologies of ownership with racial logics that shaped the histories of colonisation in those sites. In turning to the specificities of different colonial sites, the contradictions and ambiguities that drive forward the formation of racial regimes of ownership can be better grasped. For instance, while British colonial appropriations of land were largely based on doctrines of possession and use, by the late 19 th century European powers used "occupiability in a fictive sense" in order to achieve "commercial sovereignty" over African states. 1 While land appropriation, particularly of coastal areas and control of waterways were central to French, German and Belgian colonisation in various parts of the African continent, it is clear that forms of land title and the conceptions of sovereignty that underpinned them varied according to the exigencies of imperial desire, which in many cases was primarily focused on commercial trade. Emergent capitalist ideologies of ownership based on a commodity logic of abstraction emerged in the context of a globalised economic system. While the book focuses on land appropriation, it is also clear that the conception of land as property developed in conjunction with other forms of property that were central to the functioning of colonial trade and settlement, including slavery. For instance, the analogy between cargo and land as equivalent forms of property lay at the basis of Torrens' arguments for a system of land registration; the analogy between human cargo and inanimate forms of cargo lay at the basis of the treatment of slaves as chattels in English and American law. Mapping the logics of propertisation and their emergence in conjunction with racial ideologies across different colonial regimes illuminates how the specificities of land holding systems and property law, along with particular racial ideologies converged in the settlement enterprises of other colonial powers. As Kerry Goettlich points out, scholars such as Patricia Seed have demonstrated that
This article was originally written in the early part of 2017, as an attempt to grasp the meaning... more This article was originally written in the early part of 2017, as an attempt to grasp the meaning of two significant electoral outcomes – the UK referendum on EU membership and the election of Trump – outside of what felt like an echo chamber of racist populism. The passage of time has only slightly muted the sense of acute crisis experienced by those on the left in the aftermath of the U.S. election and the Brexit referendum. In this article, I suggest that the material, immaterial and psychic dimensions of the current political moment can fruitfully be explored by thinking about the role of property logics in constituting the conditions of its emergence.
English version of interview with Brenna Bhandar by Olivier Chassaing, translated by Chayma Drira... more English version of interview with Brenna Bhandar by Olivier Chassaing, translated by Chayma Drira for Période, the French online journal of Marxist theory; available here: http://revueperiode.net/droit-et-colonialite-entretien-avec-brenna-bhandar/
Droit et colonialité : entretien avec Brenna Bhandar revueperiode.net/droit-et-colonialite-entret... more Droit et colonialité : entretien avec Brenna Bhandar revueperiode.net/droit-et-colonialite-entretien-avec-brenna-bhandar/ À travers l'étude du droit, on peut examiner la manière dont les sociétés capitalistes impliquent et renforcent différentes hiérarchies sociales : dominations de classe, de genre ou de race, persistance de structures et d'idéologies coloniales. À cette fin, est-ce que vous privilégiez, dans votre approche de la matière juridique, certains aspects de cette complexe réalité, comme les usages sociaux qui en sont faits, les pratiques judiciaires, la jurisprudence, ou encore les règles et les lois ? De manière plus générale, quel type de théorie critique du droit déployez-vous ? Dans le champ juridique, l'étude du droit et du colonialisme d'une part, du droit et du capitalisme d'autre part, ont été tenus séparés. Inversement, dans les champs de l'histoire et de la théorie postcoloniale, à commencer par le travail des historiens issus des études subalternes, cette bifurcation ne semble pas être apparue, du moins pas au départ. L'architecture juridique du régime colonial peut fournir un point de départ pour analyser la manière dont le capital, les rapports sociaux en contexte capitaliste et le colonialisme sont profondément interdépendants, ce que soulignent les travaux de Guha, Chakrabarty et, plus récemment, de l'historienne Ritu Birla notamment. Or, les cadres d'analyse développés dans ces domaines n'ont pas encore exercé toute leur influence sur les études juridiques. Mais pour répondre à votre question, il faut des outils d'une grande portée pour examiner comment le droit implique et accentue des rapports sociaux de race, de genre et de classe, s'appuie sur certaines idéologies, et joue un rôle dans le colonialisme, l'impérialisme, ou encore dans certains modes de dépossession et d'accumulation capitalistiques. Les matériaux juridiques tels que la jurisprudence, les lois, les débats parlementaires, les documents d'orientation, etc., peuvent être considérés comme des types particuliers d'artefacts. Ainsi, le travail de Cornelia Vismann sur les dossiers législatifs et judiciaires, les archives et les registres, par exemple, nous pousse à observer que le contenu de ces dossiers, registres d'État et autres archives bureaucratiques, autant que la forme de son expression, jouent un rôle dans la fabrication des catégories juridiques et façonnent les modes de gouvernement. Je ne peux pas rendre justice ici à la profondeur philosophique de son travail, mais il s'agit d'un travail majeur pour l'étude du droit dans sa matérialité. Cette approche critique de la science, du matériel comme des formes juridiques, s'inscrit toutefois dans une lignée philosophique et une conception singulière du pouvoir qui se distingue des analyses du droit, du pouvoir et de la reproduction sociale en termes de structure. Pour le juriste critique qui entend cerner et remettre en cause les visions bien établies des rapports entre droit, capitalisme et colonialisme, comme leurs legs aujourd'hui, il m'est apparu essentiel de tirer partie des ressources intellectuelles du marxisme noir radical, des études post-coloniales et autochtones, et plus largement de tout ce qui a trait aux théories critiques. Les savoirs féministes et anti-racistes, issus en particulier de travaux adossés au référentiel marxien, ont également été décisifs pour comprendre le rôle du droit dans la reproduction des hiérarchies sociales et l'entrecroisement des rapports de domination.
Introduction to the special issue, "Reflections on Dispossession: Critical Feminisms", published ... more Introduction to the special issue, "Reflections on Dispossession: Critical Feminisms", published in Darkmatter Journal, 2016, Vol.14
This article explores the centrality of property and dispossession to the operations of settler c... more This article explores the centrality of property and dispossession to the operations of settler colonialism in Israel/Palestine through the prism of Edward Said and Jean Mohr's collaborative photographic essay After the Last Sky. Drawing on the way in which Said directs our attention to the meanings of land, place, and exile within Palestinian life and resistance, and putting his writing in dialogue with recent photographic projects that focus on Palestinian dispossession, the article brings these theoretical perspectives to bear on the present reality of the dispossession of Palestinian Bedouin in the Naqab village of Al-Araqib.
In this article, we want to think through this articulation
of race, property and capitalist abst... more In this article, we want to think through this articulation of race, property and capitalist abstraction, exploring how attention to the forms of property may permit novel and politically urgent insights into the relationship between capitalism and race, addressing a critical area of social contestation in which processes of racialization are intensely present, but in which they are also frequently ‘disappeared’.We revisit the place of property in Marxist theories of abstraction, to consider whether it can provide us with some of the instruments to think the present conjuncture, but also to explore the ways in which a consideration of the racial logics of property may require us to recalibrate our understanding of the violence of abstraction.
Revised version of the article by the same name, here published in Researching Property Law (Lond... more Revised version of the article by the same name, here published in Researching Property Law (London: Palgrave, 2015) eds. Sarah Blandy and Susan Bright
No other aspect of property so infuses our social, psycho-symbolic, cultural and political realms... more No other aspect of property so infuses our social, psycho-symbolic, cultural and political realms as the idea of possession. Whether considering modern theories of subjectivity, relationships between people (from labour relations to intimate ones of love and affection), or indeed, what it means to own something, possession – as an amalgam of both spirit and fact – structures our thought, emotions and actions. The idea of self-ownership, whether in a Lockean vein or as a dialectical struggle for mastery over one’s self in relation to an other, persists across a wide spectrum of philosophical discourses on subjectivity; particularly among those in which propriety and impropriety, appropriation and dispossession, and forms of status are acknowledged as central aspects of contemporary social relations and political subjectivity. In this article, I examine the persistence of possession as a rationale for ownership in the settler colonial context of East Jerusalem.
This article examines the imposition of title by registration in the colony of South Australia as... more This article examines the imposition of title by registration in the colony of South Australia as a technique of dispossession. The author argues that the logic of abstraction that underlies the move towards a system of title by registration is mirrored in the abstract figure of the Savage, parallel logics that informed the doctrine of terra nullius. Further, the author argues that the settler colony was and remains central to the development of modern property law, with the Torrens system having been established in South Australia some 70 years before a similar system could be realised nationally in the UK.
Adam Hanieh's latest offering is a welcome account of the Arab Revolutions that continue to unfol... more Adam Hanieh's latest offering is a welcome account of the Arab Revolutions that continue to unfold in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere throughout the Middle East. The 'Arab Spring' is understood here as a movement that ignited and inspired protest and revolt beyond the regional boundaries of the Middle East: from the indignados in Spain to Syntagma Square in Athens, from the student protests in Quebec to Gezi Park in Istanbul and beyond.
Brenna Bhandar Published on Harvard Law Review blog: https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/lethalityp... more Brenna Bhandar Published on Harvard Law Review blog: https://blog.harvardlawreview.org/lethalityproperty-race-reflections-on-cheryl-harriss-whiteness-as-property/ I have lost count of how many times I've read Whiteness as Property, taught it, and drawn upon its insights in my own work. I can say that the first few times I read it, so long ago now, I read it too quickly, filled as I was with the anticipation, excitement even, of finding an explanation, a conceptual framework, for how to understand the complex articulation of race, ownership and labor; that messy and painful amalgam of transgenerational experience that seems to determine the life chances of so many people, including myself, my parents, and my grandparents; indeed, those of most people who I knew as a child growing up in a city whose property titles still bore the traces of the de jure racial segregation of an earlier time, and whose de facto imperial spatial configurations remain pretty much intact. By beginning her analysis with reflections on her grandmother's experiences as a worker who had to "pass" as white in order to secure and keep her job, Professor Harris enabled many of us to connect a painful present and personal realities to larger historical processes and events. The narrative at the beginning of Harris's article is saturated with a sensibility of how the world is constituted through relations of ownership that contaminate overlapping spheres of embodiment, affect, emotion, urban infrastructure, wage labour, and the intimate and propertied spaces of home and kinship. The article deftly teaches us how racedespite its many mutations and re-articulationshas retained its power as a juridical and affective regime through which labor relations and property ownership were organised and valued long after slavery and indentureship had ended, long after the end of the plantation, long after the sun had set on the British empire.
It is a rare moment when critics of exercises such as the Research Excellence Framework feel vind... more It is a rare moment when critics of exercises such as the Research Excellence Framework feel vindicated by a government-commissioned review. Nicholas Stern's review of the REF, though broadly in favour of it, includes some important criticisms. It acknowledges that the REF has functioned to the disadvantage of women, Black and Minority Ethnic academics, and academics with disabilities; that it devalue s interdisciplinary research; and that its narrow conception of 'impact' has been geared towards policy changes and the commercialisation of academic work.
You are invited to a one-day workshop with internationally renowned scholar-activists Roxanne Dun... more You are invited to a one-day workshop with internationally renowned scholar-activists Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Gary Kinsman to present their decades-long work in the fields of Indigenous rights, settler colonialism, queer politics, and feminist theory. The aim of the workshop is to explore modes of dispossession of land, resources, and ways of living of Indigenous communities; political struggles and forms of resistance across diverse social movements (queer communities, feminists, anti-racist coalitions, etc); and crucially the contradictory and key position of the law as both a tool for social transformation and fundamentally a keystone of historically inscribed dispossession. The day-long workshop will also include presentations from SOAS postgraduate students across Law, Centre for Gender Studies, Development Studies and Politics. We are honoured to have both speakers at this workshop and look forward to your participation. Spaces are limited, to RSVP please email RZ2@soas.ac.uk
This two-day symposium explores the relationship between the material, cultural, psychic and symb... more This two-day symposium explores the relationship between the material, cultural, psychic and symbolic dimensions and effects of dispossession. Building on a range of critical feminisms, the papers, collective discussions and keynote addresses will take forward and build on the rich and dynamic traditions of black, indigenous and post-colonial feminisms, queer theory and materialist feminisms.
s concept of plasticity has influenced and inspired scholars from across disciplines. The contrib... more s concept of plasticity has influenced and inspired scholars from across disciplines. The contributors to Plastic Materialities-whose fields include political philosophy, critical legal studies, social theory, literature, and philosophy-use Malabou's innovative combination of post-structuralism and neuroscience to evaluate the political implications of her work. They address, among other things, subjectivity, science, war, the malleability of sexuality, neoliberalism and economic theory, indigenous and racial politics, and the relationship between the human and non-human. Plastic Materialities also includes three essays by Malabou and an interview with her, all of which bring her work into conversation with issues of sovereignty, justice, and social order for the first time. Thursday, 4th June 2015, 6:30pm Blackwell's Holborn, London, WC1V 6EP Order online: www.combinedacademic.co.uk Order by telephone: call Marston on +44 (0)1235 465500 UK postage £2.95 for first book and 50p for each one thereafter, Europe postage £4.50 for first book and £1.50 for each one thereafter. * Price subject to change Sign up to receive new book information and special offers at www.combinedacademic.co.uk
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of race, property and capitalist abstraction,
exploring how attention to the forms of property may
permit novel and politically urgent insights into the
relationship between capitalism and race, addressing
a critical area of social contestation in which
processes of racialization are intensely present, but
in which they are also frequently ‘disappeared’.We
revisit the place of property in Marxist theories of
abstraction, to consider whether it can provide us
with some of the instruments to think the present conjuncture, but also to explore the ways in which a consideration of the racial logics of property may require us to recalibrate our understanding of the violence of abstraction.
fact – structures our thought, emotions and actions. The idea of self-ownership, whether in a Lockean vein or as a dialectical struggle for mastery over one’s self in relation to an other,
persists across a wide spectrum of philosophical discourses on subjectivity; particularly among those in which propriety and impropriety, appropriation and dispossession, and
forms of status are acknowledged as central aspects of contemporary social relations and political subjectivity. In this article, I examine the persistence of possession as a rationale for ownership in the settler colonial context of East Jerusalem.