ABSTRACT

This wide-ranging collection of essays elaborates on some of the most pressing issues in contemporary postcolonial society in their transition from conflict and contestation to dialogue and resolution. It explores from new angles questions of violent conflict, forced migration, trafficking and deportation, human rights, citizenship, transitional justice and cosmopolitanism. The volume focuses more specifically on the gendering of violence from a postcolonial perspective as it analyses unique cases that disrupt traditional visions of violence by including the history of empire and colony, and its legacies that continue to influence present-day configurations of gender, race, nationality, class and sexuality. Part One maps out the gendered and racialized contours of conflict zones, from war zones, prisons and refugee camps to peacekeeping missions and humanitarian aid, reframing the field and establishing connections between colonial legacies and postcolonial dynamics. Part Two explores how these conflict zones are played out not just outside but also within Europe, demonstrating that multicultural Europe is fraught with different legacies of violence and postcolonial melancholia. Part Three gives an idea of the kind of future that can be offered to post-conflict societies, defined as contact zones, by exploring opportunities for dialogue, restoration and reconciliation that can be envisaged from a gendered and postcolonial perspective through alternative feminist practices and the work of art and their redemptive power in mobilizing social change or increasing national healing processes. Though strongly anchored in postcolonial critique, the chapters draw from a range of traditions and expertise, including conflict studies, gender theory, visual studies, (new) media theory, sociology, race theory, international security studies and religion studies.

chapter |23 pages

Introduction

New Frames of Gendered Violence

part I|83 pages

Conflict Zones

chapter 1|19 pages

Neoliberal Discourses on Violence

Monstrosity and Rape in Borderland War

chapter 2|18 pages

Thin Ice

Postcoloniality and Sexuality in the Politics of Citizenship and Military Service

chapter 3|18 pages

American Humanitarian Citizenship

The “Soft” Power of Empire

part II|66 pages

European Frictions

chapter 5|15 pages

Uses and Abuses of Gender and Nationality

Torture and the French-Algerian War

chapter 6|19 pages

Migrating Sovereignties and Mirror States

From Eritrea to L'Aquila

chapter 7|16 pages

Doing “Integration” in Europe

Postcolonial Frictions in the Making of Citizenship

chapter 8|14 pages

Coffin Exchange

part III|89 pages

Contact Zones

chapter 9|19 pages

“Invisible Wars”

Gendered Terrorism in the US Military and the Juárez Feminicidio

chapter 10|18 pages

Political Transitions and the Arts

The Performance of (Post)Colonial Leadership in Philip Miller's Cantata REwind and in Wim Botha's Portrait Busts

chapter 11|15 pages

Justice by Any Means Necessary

Vigilantism among Indian Women

chapter 12|16 pages

On Love and Shame

Two Photographs of Female Protesters

chapter 13|19 pages

Rethinking the “Arab Spring” through the Postsecular

Gender Entanglements, Social Media, and the Religion–Secular Divide