Democracys Subjections

Colonial Modernity and the Gendered Subject of Violence
An authoritative, interdisciplinary, intersectional theory of how postcolonial capitalist democracies reproduce the gendered violence essential to colonial rule.

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.

Through an interdisciplinary methodology traversing political studies, feminist political economy, historical 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. The book critically reflects on the dilemmas and contradictions produced by the colonial encounter and its subju