Description

That Heavy Machine: Reprising the Colonial Apparatus in 21st-Century Social Control

The 21st century has witnessed a range of penal and quasi-penal measures of astonishing severity. These strategies of exclusion, such as post-prison civil commitment statutes, mark a profound shift in the long-established structure of rights and obligations under which citizens live. This article proposes that such strategies reflect the reemergence of a colonial form of power and the rationalities and apparatus that support it. The subject of these new strategies of exclusion is in many ways a “new colonial subject” of power. The author develops a theoretical frame for understanding colonial power and state-subject relations and applies it to three contemporary measures of exclusion.

penal theory, exclusion, colonialism, colonial power, governmentality

Citation: Social Justice Vol. 32, No. 1 (2005): 41-52.