From a world history perspective, the most noticeable trend in the history of the late 19th century was the domination of Europeans over Non­Europeans. This domination took many forms ranging from economic penetration to outright annexation. No area of the globe, however remote from Europe, was free of European merchants, adventurers, explorers or western missionaries. Was colonialism good for either the imperialist or the peoples of the globe who found themselves subjects of one empire or another? A few decades ago, the answer would have been a resounding no. Now, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the more or less widespread discrediting of Marxist and Leninist analysis, and the end of the Cold War, political scientists and historians seem willing to take a more positive look at Nineteenth Century Imperialism. One noted current historian, Niall Ferguson has argued that the British Empire probably accomplished more positive good for the world than the last generation of historians, poisoned by Marxism, could or would concede. Ferguson has argued that the British Empire was a \" liberal \" empire that upheld international law, kept the seas open and free, and ultimately benefited everyone by ensuring the free flow of trade. In other words, Ferguson would find little reason to contradict the young Winston Churchill's assertion that the aim of British imperialism was to: give peace to warring tribes, to administer justice where all was violence, to strike the chains off the slave, to draw the richness from the soil, to place the earliest seeds of commerce and learning, to increase in whole peoples their capacities for pleasure and diminish their chances of pain. It should come as no surprise that Ferguson regards the United States current position in the world as the natural successor to the British Empire and that the greatest danger the U.S. represents is that the world will not get enough American Imperialism because U.S. leaders often have short attention spans and tend to pull back troops when intervention becomes unpopular. It will be very interesting to check back into the debate on Imperialism about ten years from now and see how Niall Ferguson's point of view has fared! The other great school of thought about Imperialism is, of course, Marxist. For example, Marxist historians like E.J. Hobsbawm argue that if we look at the l9th century as a great competition for the world's wealth and …

The New Imperialism

What is the meaning of Africa and of being African? What is and what is not African philosophy? Is philosophy part of Africanism ? These are the kind of fundamental questions which this book addresses. North America: Indiana U Press

The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge

Neoliberalism as Exception: Mutations in Citizenship and Sovereignty by Aihwa Ong

The condition of the working class in England.

It can be said that we inhabit a post-human world—an existence characterised by smartphones and social media, genetically modified food and IVF babies, life-extending technologies and prosthetic enhancements. In The Posthuman (2013), Rosi Braidotti offers a roadmap for navigating the global effects of this post-human predicament—one in which clear distinctions between the human and the non-human no longer hold, the nature–culture divide is destabilised, and man’s privileged status is under attack. The situation we find ourselves in, Braidotti argues, is neither dystopian technological nightmare nor futuristic fantasy but one that requires complex and nuanced critical responses to issues of subjectivity, ethics and politics. In the four chapters comprising The Posthuman, Braidotti outlines her vision of the post-human future based on an affirmative politics, which ‘combines critique with creativity in the pursuit of alternative visions and projects’ (54). As a feminist antihumanist, Braidotti expresses little nostalgia for the concept of ‘Man’ and its associated individualism, Eurocentrism and anthropocentrism. Chapter 1 ‘Post-Humanism: Life Beyond the Self’ charts the Humanist/anti-humanist debates to draw attention to the crisis of the human and the opportunity it affords to imagine alternative subjectivities grounded in relationality and the interconnection between the self and others (49). Methodologically, Braidotti adopts a feminist politics of location in her critique of various Humanist traditions. There is a profound reflexivity to her writing as she guides the reader through the intellectual trajectory that has resulted in her nomadic, affirmative politics. It is a legacy that incorporates social movements of the 1960s/1970s, as well as the continental feminism of Irigaray and Kristeva. Spinoza and Deleuze and Guattari also feature as philosophical touchstones from which she advances her vision for the posthuman as a ‘relational subject constituted in and by multiplicity, that is to say a subject that works across differences and is also internally differentiated, but still grounded and accountable’ (49). By framing her argument within the narrative of her own intellectual story, the book conveys an immediacy and intimacy not often found in academic prose. Stylistically, it is as though we are inside her head—a post-human experience, indeed. Her writing is as expansive and impressive as you would expect—a swarm of ideas assuredly curated into a compelling argument for generating new forms of subjectivity and ethical relations to confront the challenges of a post-human existence. Consistent with existing feminist appraisals of the post-human (Halberstam and Livingston 1995; Hayles 1999; Toffoletti 2007), Braidotti acknowledges the complexity of the post-human predicament, seeking alternative frameworks to think about post-human subjectivity in non-dualistic ways. What Braidotti brings to these debates is an emphasis on materialism by way of Spinozist monism. In championing the relational, embodied and embedded qualities of post-human existence, Braidotti reprises the concept of zoe—a generative and vitalist force that allows for connections and affinities to be made across

Book review : the posthuman

Preface vii Acknowledgments xiii 1. The Proliferation of Borders 1 2. Fabrica Mundi 27 3. Frontiers of Capital 61 4. Figures of Labor 95 5. In the Space of Temporal Borders 131 6. The Sovereign Machine of Governmentality 167 7. Zones, Corridors, and Postdevelopmental Geographies 205 8. Producing Subjects 243 9. Translating the Common 277 References 313 Index 349

Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor

“New Keywords: Migration and Borders” is a collaborative writing project aimed at developing a nexus of terms and concepts that fill-out the contemporary problematic of migration It moves beyond traditional and critical migration studies by building on cultural studies and post-colonial analyses, and by drawing on a diverse set of longstanding author engagements with migrant movements The paper is organized in four parts (i) Introduction, (ii) Migration, Knowledge, Politics, (iii) Bordering, and (iv) Migrant Space/Times The keywords on which we focus are: Migration/Migration Studies; Militant Investigation; Counter-mapping; Border Spectacle; Border Regime; Politics of Protection; Externalization; Migrant Labour; Differential inclusion/exclusion; Migrant struggles; and Subjectivity

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New Keywords: Migration and Borders

The research hypothesis that we call border as method offers a fertile ground upon which to test the potentiality and the limits of the topological approach. In this article we present our hypothesis and address three questions relevant for topology. First, we ask how the topological approach can be applied within the heterogeneous space of globalization, which we argue does not obey the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion. Second, we address the claim of neutrality that is often linked to the topological approach. Our point is that in mapping a space of flows and porous borders, the topological approach must be grasped in its ambivalence; it can become a tool for control as well as a tool for the expansion of freedom and equality. Finally, we argue that it is useful, perhaps even necessary, to locate the topological approach on the border, investigating concrete practices of border crossing that challenge the very possibility of a neutral mapping.

Between Inclusion and Exclusion: On the Topology of Global Space and Borders

‘To speak of the autonomy of migration’, Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos write, ‘is to understand migration as a social movement in the literal sense of the words, not as a mere response to economic and social malaise.’ They go on: ‘The autonomy of migration approach does not, of course, consider migration in isolation from social, cultural and economic structures. The opposite is true: migration is understood as a creative force within these structures’ (2008: 202). To engage with the autonomy of migration thus requires a ‘different sensibility’, a different gaze , I would say. It means looking at migratory movements and conflicts in terms that prioritize the subjective practices, the desires, the expectations, and the behaviours of migrants themselves. This does not imply a romanticization of migration, since the ambivalence of these subjective practices and behaviours is always kept in mind. New dispositifs of domination and exploitation are forged within migration considered as a social movement, as well as new practices of liberty and equality. The autonomy of migration approach in this regard needs to be understood as a distinct perspective from which to view the ‘politics of mobility’ – one that emphasizes the subjective stakes within the struggles and clashes that materially constitute the field of such a politics. It shows, to employ the terms proposed by Vicki Squire in the introduction to this book, how the ‘politics of control’ itself is compelled to come to terms with a ‘politics of migration’ that structurally exceeds its (re)bordering practices. Indeed, it allows for an analysis of the production of irregularity not as a unilateral process of exclusion and domination managed by state and law, but as a tense and conflict-driven process, in which subjective movements and struggles of migration are an active and fundamental factor. Mainstream accounts of migrant movements or struggles often employ the lens of citizenship and contend that migrants want to become citizens. The autonomy of migration approach does something different from this. It looks at the fact that migrants –documented and undocumented – act as citizens and insist that they are already citizens (Bojadžijev and Karakayali 2007: 205). This requires a conceptualisation of citizenship which is distinct from the one employed by mainstream studies, where the latter is centred upon a concern for the integration of migrants within an already existing legal and political framework. In contrast, we stress the importance of practices and claims of those who are not necessarily citizens in juridical terms for the development of an understanding of the transformation of the legal framework of citizenship itself. This opens up the possibility of conceptualizing the movements and struggles of irregular migrants as central to the construction and transformation of citizenship as an ‘institution in flux’ (Balibar 2001; Isin 2002 and 2009; Mezzadra 2004). Nevertheless, from my point of view (and this is where I differ from the position adopted by Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos), the autonomy of migration approach has to be further developed in relation to our understanding of the role played by mobility in the history and the contemporary reality of capitalism. Far from reducing ‘mobile subjectivities to a productionist subjectivity of capitalism’ (Papadopoulos; Stephenson;

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The gaze of autonomy: capitalism, migration and social struggles

Understanding the intensification and expansion of extractive industries in contemporary capitalism requires an approach attentive not only to the literal forms of extraction prevalent in mining and agribusiness but also to new fronts of extraction emerging in activities such as data mining and biocapitalism. This article introduces the concept of operations of capital to trace connections between the expansive logic of extraction and capitalist activity in the domains of logistics and finance. Arguing that extractive operations are at large across these domains, we explore their relevance for capital’s relation with its multiple outsides. The resulting analysis provides a basis for mapping struggles against the changing forms of dispossession and exploitation enabled by extraction.

Sandro Mezzadra

Papers

Border as Method, or, the Multiplication of Labor

New Keywords: Migration and Borders

Between Inclusion and Exclusion: On the Topology of Global Space and Borders

The gaze of autonomy: capitalism, migration and social struggles

On the multiple frontiers of extraction: excavating contemporary capitalism