Exorbitance: A Speculative Ethnography of Inheritance

by Deborah A. Thomas

Exorbitance draws on legacies of the Caribbean to examine how the concept of inheritance attunes us to forms of autonomy and interdependence that circulate in and around statements of sovereignty. Deborah A. Thomas places sovereignty beyond the state and parameters of institutions, positioning it instead as practices, performances, and processes that refuse law and dominion and draw attention to alternative genealogies of governance, community, and ceremony. Using the Caribbean region as a case study, she demonstrates how bodily knowledge influences theories and actions of sovereignty. Foregrounding embodied methods and insights to envision a more radical humanist anthropology, Thomas argues that we are heir not only to colonial logics, but also the means to refuse and retool them.

272 pages, Paperback

Published October 21, 2025