How have forms of interpersonal violence shifted since The Postcolony?
This paper addresses the macabre, a spectacular form of violence discussed in Mbembe’s work. It places necropolitics in the long duree, seeking to understand if and how violence has changed using well-known examples from the continent. This takes the focus away from state power and look at how people exercise power over death in everyday life through slow spectacle and visible death. I am particularly interested in forms of expression and display that do not only take into account violence by the state, but also interpersonal violence amongst people abandoned by the state. I consider whether this period can be characterised as one dominated by the democratization of the enthusiasm to torture.