Violence in the Postcolony: Entangled Histories of Africa

Where present-day media has depicted violent conditions in Africa as a spectacle born out of political instability, postcolonial scholars have discussed violence as a dialectic of law and disorder, a regime structured by the biopolitical state, or as a performative tool used to challenge ethical and political norms.While the latter approaches rely on historical trajectories of violence, popular and academic discourse's shared emphasis on the state often loses sight of Africans' social histories and lived experiences of violence. Violence in the Postcolony expands this discussion, presenting a set of microhistories, ethnographic accounts, and analyses of cultural forms to reflect on the postcolonial condition of Africa.Ambitious and expansive in its scope and scale, it brings together original contributions from a group of eminent scholars and includes case studies from North, West, and Southern Africa, as well as the African Great Lakes region.Through multidisciplinary frameworks, the