Duress: Imperial Durabilities in Our Times

by Ann Laura Stoler

How do colonial histories matter to the urgencies and conditions of our current world? How have those histories so often been rendered as leftovers, as "legacies" of a dead past rather than as active and violating forces in the world today? With precision and clarity, Ann Laura Stoler argues that recognizing "colonial presence" may have as much to do with how the connections between colonial histories and the present are expected to look as it does with how they are expected to be. In Duress, Stoler considers what methodological renovations might serve to write histories that yield neither to smooth continuities nor to abrupt epochal breaks. Capturing the uneven, recursive qualities of the visions and practices that imperial formations have animated, Stoler works through a set of conceptual and concrete reconsiderations that locate the political effects and practices that imperial projects produce: occluded histories, gradated sovereignties, affective security regimes, "new" racisms, bodily exposures, active debris, and carceral archipelagos of colony and camp that carve out the distribution of inequities and deep fault lines of duress today.

Genres: Anthropology, Theory, History, Philosophy, Politics, Academic, School

448 pages, Hardcover

Published November 4, 2016

Reviews

[redhood · Rating 5 out of 5]

I quite liked this! Stoler does a brilliant job of effectively positioning coloniality within the modern world, arguing that imperialism and colonialism have not ended but have instead metamorphosed to maintain their power. I especially appreciated the way she situated her work within the phenomenological theories of Alia Al-Saji, Frantz Fanon, and, of course, Foucault.

Her emphasis on the persistence of colonialism today, through examples like the genocide of Palestinians and the Nakba, is particularly well done imo. She does excellent work examining imperial agendas within colonies in what she terms an "active mode," highlighting how dissidence is criminalized. By grounding her ideas in biopolitics and surveillance, Stoler does well to show how philosophical concepts can be made tangible and relevant to contemporary realities. As she notes, colonies mobilize fear, insecurity, and force, and her clear, well-developed examples ensure these ideas resonate strongly with the reader.

I also appreciated her exploration of the links between imperialism and sexuality, though I believe there was room to build this further and fully unite these two themes. That said, such an expansion could easily warrant a book series of its own.

[Perí · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
Necesito procesarlo a la distancia.
Quiero leerlo de nuevo en 5 años.

[Lette Hass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Muy buen libro, si alguien quiere ver de qué se trata antes de comprarlo, el capítulo 1 está disponible en: https://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/Pub...

I. CONCEPT WORK
FRAGILITIES AND FILIATIONS

CRITICAL INCISIONS
ON CONCEPT WORK AND COLONIAL RECURSIONS