Democracy’s Subjections

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Colonial Modernity and the Gendered Subject of Violence

Häftad, Engelska, 2026

AvLyn Ossome

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In this ground-breaking study, Lyn Ossome offers an authoritative, interdisciplinary theory of how postcolonial capitalist democracies reproduce the gendered forms of violence essential to colonial rule.Focussing on postcolonial African states, and using an interdisciplinary methodology that combines insights from political studies, feminist political economy, historical studies, and literary studies, Ossome shows how postcolonial, capitalist democracies in Africa, like their colonial antecedents, use various identity-markers to determine whose rights and bodies are violable, to what extent, and whether and how the violated have a right to resist. Ossome buttresses her critique through evidence gathered from colonial archives in Kenya, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, as well as through critical comparisons of three artistic responses to gender-based violence and rape in South Africa and India, all of which shows how her insights might apply across the postcolonial Global South.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2026-09-03
Mått156 x 232 x 18 mm
Vikt280 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor240
FörlagBloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN9781350545229

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AcknowledgementsPrefaceIntroductionChapter 1: Gender in Colonial HistoriographyChapter 2: Colonial Modernity and the Gendered Subject of ViolenceChapter 3: Customary Law and the Gendered Constitution of Violable SubjectsChapter 4: “Captive Maternals” and the Modern Subject of Gendered ViolenceChapter 5: Democracy’s Identitarian Problem: A Consideration of South AfricaChapter 6: “The Art of the Unspeakable”: An Anatomy of Gendered Violence in Postcolonial South Africa and IndiaEpilogue: Democracy’s SubjectionsReferences

A powerful and incisive account of democracy’s entanglement with violence in the postcolony, this book lays bare the limits of the liberal democratic project in the postcolonial context. A must-read for anyone rethinking postcolonialism’s fraught relationship to Enlightenment legacies, it shows how democracy is often deployed as an alibi for violence by modern states, especially gendered violence carried out in its name. Centering women as both subjects of violation and as laboring, gendered agents of anti- and postcolonial struggle, the book makes a vital intervention in postcolonial feminist scholarship. Drawing on experiences from colonial and postcolonial Africa, it challenges readers to rethink both the promises and the failures of the democratizing process. Urgent, original, and deeply thought-provoking, it will reshape debates across disciplines.