Status Updates From Home Rule: National Soverei...

happy new year

One of those books that explains so much of the dynamics that we see in the present its a wonder it's not better known.

The scope of this book is similar to that of Harsha Walia's (Border & Rule would pair well with this): no continent goes untouched. I think Sharma does something that I don't often see in socialist texts, which is assign agency to the Global South rather than viewing it from purely a subordinate perspective. I'll definitely be revisiting this, and it's certainly made me reconsider and question my own politics.

In this final chapter, Sharma calls for a planetary commons and a decolonial movement "seeking neither territory nor sovereignty but land and the ability to enjoy a livelihood on it without exclusion." A world without borders, nations, and states is crucial to realizing the end of capitalism and racism.

I can certainly see chapter 8 being controversial. Sharma discusses nationalisms from above and from below, detailing the political landscape in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. She firmly rejects all forms of nationalism, including movements for Indigenous national sovereignty in settler colonies (hence the potentially controversial aspect), because they are undergirded by autochthony.

Sharma critiques the concept of necolonialism because it merely serves as an alibi for the failed project of national liberation. She argues that neocolonialism frames the problem as not having *enough* national sovereignty when nation-states are actually structurally incapable of anything resembling decolonization. It also frames "foreigners" as the problem, thus reifying racist nationalisms.

These first two chapters describe the creation of Natives and Migrants — and thus the foundations of our contemporary bordering regime — through the interwoven processes of imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism. Immigration controls "came on the heels of the end of African slavery and the search for new state technologies for labor discipline." These controls were always racialized, including in Latin America.

So apparently she plans on problematizing the concept of neocolonialism? Huh, I'll be interested in seeing that take.

But the introduction alone was really thought-provoking. Interested in seeing how she discusses Indigenous nationalism.