Race, violence and biopolitics in Francophone postcolonial contexts

Genocide, ethnic cleansing, biopolitics, necropolitics, ethnopolitics, métissage, ethnoclass, pigmentocracy, constitute a postcolonial vocabulary of race. This volume considers the contexts of Africa, America, the Caribbean and Europe, and problematizes the construction of race and power. It focuses on the transformative potential of the literary form to perform, disturb and challenge established hierarchies. The articles cast light on global transnational flows of peoples, such as indenture and migration, and open up new avenues for future investigation, to include the refugee camp, Aboriginal reserves, Chinese indenture, and other South-East Asian and Middle Eastern forms of indenture, across the Americas, or the construction of whiteness in other colonial contexts such as India and South Africa. Reading these situations through a biopolitical lens encompasses a range of theories. Biopolitical readings provide new insights into a range of postcolonial situations, and point the way to new inquiries into dominant powers’ persistant and insidious grip over life.