Archaeology of Colonisation

From Aesthetics to Biopolitics

Carlos Rivera-Santana

This book rethinks the history of colonisation by focusing on the formation of the European aesthetic ideas of indigeneity and blackness in the Caribbean, and how these ideas were deployed as markers of biopolitical governance. Using Foucault’s philosophical archaeology as method, this work argues that the European formation of indigeneity and blackness was based on aesthetically casting Aboriginal and African peoples in the Caribbean as monsters yet with a similar degree of Western civilisation and ‘culture’. By focusing on the aesthetics of the first racial imageries that produced indigeneity and blackness this work takes a radical departure from the current Social Darwinian theorisations of race and racism. It reveals a new connection between the global origins of colonisation and local post-Enlightenment histories.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 202 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-78660-900-7 • Hardback • August 2019 • $166.00 • (£129.00)

978-1-5381-4797-9 • Paperback • March 2022 • $38.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-78660-901-4 • eBook • August 2019 • $36.00 • (£30.00)

Series: Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture and Politics

Subjects: Social Science / Indigenous Studies, Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism

Archaeology of Colonisation

From Aesthetics to Biopolitics

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

This book rethinks the history of colonisation by focusing on the formation of the European aesthetic ideas of indigeneity and blackness in the Caribbean, and how these ideas were deployed as markers of biopolitical governance. Using Foucault’s philosophical archaeology as method, this work argues that the European formation of indigeneity and blackness was based on aesthetically casting Aboriginal and African peoples in the Caribbean as monsters yet with a similar degree of Western civilisation and ‘culture’. By focusing on the aesthetics of the first racial imageries that produced indigeneity and blackness this work takes a radical departure from the current Social Darwinian theorisations of race and racism. It reveals a new connection between the global origins of colonisation and local post-Enlightenment histories.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 202 • Trim: 6¼ x 9

978-1-78660-900-7 • Hardback • August 2019 • $166.00 • (£129.00)

978-1-5381-4797-9 • Paperback • March 2022 • $38.00 • (£30.00)

978-1-78660-901-4 • eBook • August 2019 • $36.00 • (£30.00)

Series: Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture and Politics

Subjects: Social Science / Indigenous Studies, Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural, Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism

Author

Carlos Rivera Santana is assistant professor of Hispanic Studies at the College of William & Mary, Williamsburg. He was previously a research associate at CENTRO Hunter College, CUNY.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Archaeology of Colonisation

Part 1: Origins: Colonial Aesthetics (The Caribbean)

2. Aesthetics of Ugliness

3. Monstrous Anthropology

4. Blackness

Part 2: Command (Queensland, Australia)

5. Biopolitics in Colonisation: The Inequality of Human Races

6. The Blanket Approach

7. State of Exception in Australia

8. Conclusion: Colonisation

Reviews

This book offers an innovative and exciting extension of postcolonial analysis, ranging from aesthetics to biopolitics and demonstrating the continued applicability and range of postcolonial theory. In particular, the use of biopolitics to examine colonialism’s continued legacy of racial inequality is illuminating.
— Bill Ashcroft, University of New South Wales

Carlos Rivera Santana’s book offers an innovative decolonial analysis, combining biopolitics with a focus on the aesthetic construction of ugliness and beauty, or what he calls “manufactured fictions.” Taking Queensland Australia as his case study allows him to focus on one of the most recent colonial operations. This meticulously researched, rigorously argued work will expand our analysis of power in the contemporary world.
— Linda Martín Alcoff, Professor of Philosophy, Hunter College, City University of New York

Carlos Rivera Santana offers a compelling and original discussion of colonisation beyond the common Anglo-American discourses of racialized hierarchies. Through meticulous research, this book innovates an account of processes of colonisation from interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives, which lay emphasis to non-discursive practices of power. The re-reading of Foucault and biopolitics via ‘decolonial’ thinking is to be welcomed.
— Sanjay Sharma, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Communications, Brunel University

Archaeology of Colonisation

From Aesthetics to Biopolitics

Carlos Rivera-Santana

Archaeology of Colonisation

From Aesthetics to Biopolitics

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