Papers by Anisha Sankar
Counterfutures, 2022
All Incomplete is a continuation of Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s dialogue in The Undercommons:... more All Incomplete is a continuation of Fred Moten and Stefano Harney’s dialogue in The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study. The book has cult status in what is identifiably Aotearoa’s undercommons (or what Arcia Tecun calls in Te Moana Nui a Kiwa ‘the undercurrents’). With All Incomplete Moten and Harney move beyond the university, creating a lexicon for fugitive thought – fugitive here signalling the opposite of settling. Their propositions for thought and sociality are important to think with and through, especially in a settler colonial context like Aotearoa. I follow their notion of ‘black study’ as it develops through All Incomplete to link together some of their main ideas in this book, arguing that black study constitutes a mode of what Jackie Wang calls ‘communist affect’ – a mode of being-for-others that reveals a kind of ‘already-existing communism’ in the present. I then look to some of the up-takes of the ideas that The Undercommons introduced in Aotearoa, considering the contributions of All Incomplete for our own context.
Parrhesia, 2019
The importance of a radicalized dialectics, as part of a broader project of epistemic decolonizat... more The importance of a radicalized dialectics, as part of a broader project of epistemic decolonization, asserts itself in the face of global political stagnancy of combative struggle and conflict at levels of class, race and nation. These ‘frozen dialectics’ come at a time where the logic of democratic capitalism imbues the polis with convictions in formalized liberal emancipation. In response to this crisis, this paper reflects on an imagined dialogue between Frantz Fanon and Walter Benjamin through the radicalized dialectical thread that runs through the work of each. Their union in conceptualizing historical consciousness points to a moment in both: Fanon’s allusion that racism is the suspension of history, and Benjamin’s idea of dialectics at a standstill. Fanon’s diagnosis of the Manichaean colonial reality is transcended only by his allusion to an arguably Messianic desire as conceived by Benjamin. What this contributes to the reclamation of dialectical struggle is a reassessment of the temporality that dictates dialectical reason, and serves to emphasise the Messianic nature of Fanon’s decolonial vision. To support this imagined dialogue I draw on the work of Jean-Paul Sartre and George Ciccariello-Maher. I argue that the challenges posed to a singular, teleological and determinist dialectic will serve as the foundation for reclaiming a dialectical methodology that considers the complexity, multiplicity and open-ended creative potential of dialectic ruptures.
Book chapters by Anisha Sankar
Towards a Grammar of Race in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2022
Towards a Grammar of Race in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2022
This essay gathers threads from Lisa Lowe’s Intimacies of Four Continents and Epeli Hau’ofa’s Our... more This essay gathers threads from Lisa Lowe’s Intimacies of Four Continents and Epeli Hau’ofa’s Our Sea of Islands to suggest a reclaiming of the complex global histories of colonial capitalism that emphasise the inseparability of Aotearoa’s political context to that of the rest of the world. I suggest here that this shared history can reveal much about the nature of our struggle, and forge new (or renew old) intimacies that offer the basis for a radical solidarity that transgresses national borders, not just on the ethical imperative of solidarity against all oppression, but a coalition that is strengthened knowing, as Black studies scholar and poet Fred Moten says, ‘this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly, you stupid motherfucker, you know?’ In emphasising global shared histories of conquest and assimilation through the systems of colonialism and capitalism, I argue that we must understand race not just in terms of the discourse of race relations or racial discrimination, which are the most prominent in Aotearoa New Zealand, but in relation to the way in which it works as a global mechanism of power, what philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva calls ‘an analytics of raciality’, to put towards a renewed and refreshed understanding of race in Aotearoa today.
Towards a Grammar of Race in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2022
Simon Barber (Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Otago. He curr... more Simon Barber (Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) is a lecturer in sociology at the University of Otago. He currently teaches environmental sociology, thinking through Indigenous and Marxist theory in relation to climate catastrophe, as well as a course on social theory and one on colonisation. In both his teaching and research Simon attempts to think through the lineaments of an Indigenous historical materialism and a critical theory that is adequate to the place of our thinking, Aotearoa. The following conversation with Anisha Sankar presents a sense of Simon’s personal experience, his engagement with international and global literature on race, and the way this engagement helps him make sense of racial capitalism in the context of Aotearoa.
Whose Futures? Economic and Social Research Aotearoa, 2020
This chapter explores questions surrounding Indigenous political imaginings, which reveal tension... more This chapter explores questions surrounding Indigenous political imaginings, which reveal tensions with questions of the future that do not align with decolonial emancipatory visions. This dialogue spans across the intersections of popular discourse, activism, and critical scholarship that creatively imagine elsewhere.
Masters Thesis by Anisha Sankar
Notes on Fanon's Dialectics, 2019
This thesis is a study of the dialectics of Martinican philosopher, psychiatrist, and revolutio... more This thesis is a study of the dialectics of Martinican philosopher, psychiatrist, and revolutionary, Frantz Fanon. Amidst one-dimensional and reductive readings of Fanon, this thesis proposes a twofold task – to think Fanon dialectically, and to think dialectics in terms of Fanon. To think Fanon dialectically, I map three moments in the evolution of Fanon’s thought which correspond to the three parts in which this thesis is presented: (1) Roots, (2) Fanon’s Dialectics, and (3) Living Thought. Part One considers roots of Fanon’s thought, traced back to the dialectics of Aimé Césaire, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Fanon’s lived experience. These roots set up the reading of Fanon that follows in Part Two, by addressing the methods and intentions of those from which he draws. Part Two argues that methodologically speaking, Fanon’s work revolves around a dialectics of disalienation, revealing the sites in which contradictions exist under colonial capitalism. Here, I identify three sites his work explores: the ontological, the psycho-existential, and the situational. I call these ‘sites of rupture’ to signal my interpretation of Fanon’s analysis as a demand for disalienation at each of these sites, by way of privileging the moment of rupture. Doing so ultimately presents Fanon as a theorist of rupture. Finally, Part Three looks to three contemporary theorists who engage with Fanon’s thought in a way that reworks his dialectics in new situations. It considers the work of Lewis Gordon, George Ciccariello-Maher, and Glen Coulthard as embodying a ‘revolutionary Fanonism’, engaging Fanon in ongoing struggles of decolonisation. A consideration of the evolution of Fanon’s dialectics is done in the spirit of a dialectical approach to knowledge. Doing so refuses to render his thought static, instead testifying to the strength and malleability of his method. The principles of Fanon’s method demand its engagement with the social reality in which it finds itself. Overall, this study presents notes towards the revitalisation of an anticolonial dialectics.
Course syllabus by Anisha Sankar
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a comprehensive overview of traditional an... more The purpose of this course is to provide students with a comprehensive overview of traditional and contemporary theoretical perspectives on violence and death. Students will be encouraged to reflect critically on what constitutes violence and death, but also on the factors that mediate our frame of recognition for these concepts. The course will emphasise a structural analysis of violence and death that grounds students’ understanding of the concepts within the historical and material factors that enable them. Particular emphasis will be given to factors of race, class and gender. Part one covers critical theories of violence and death, with a special focus on colonial violence, imperialism, and war. Part two offers contextualisations of violence and death, giving students insight into how different theorists approach particular incidents, events, or moments of violence and death in their area of inquiry, and how they draw meaning from it. Each lecture will use a particular theorist or theorical approach as a point of entry into a wider critical dialogue relevent to the themes of violence and death in society today.
Edited books by Anisha Sankar
A search for new ways to talk about race in Aotearoa New Zealand brought together this powerful g... more A search for new ways to talk about race in Aotearoa New Zealand brought together this powerful group of scholars, writers and activists. For these authors, attempts to confront racism and racial violence often stall against a failure to see how power works through race, across our modern social worlds. The result is a country where racism is all too often left unnamed and unchecked, voices are erased, the colonial past ignored and silence passes for understanding.
By 'bringing what is unspoken into focus', Towards a Grammar of Race seeks to articulate and confront ideas of race in Aotearoa New Zealand – an exploration that includes racial capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness. A recurring theme across the book is the inescapable entanglement of local and global manifestations of race.
Each of the contributors brings their own experiences and insights to the complexities of life in a racialised society, and together their words make an important contribution to our shared and future lives on these shores.
Contributors to this book: Pounamu Jade Aikman, Faisal Al-Asaad, Mahdis Azarmandi, Simon Barber, Garrick Cooper, Morgan Godfery, Kassie Hartendorp, Guled Mire, Tze Ming Mok, Adele Norris, Nathan Rew, Vera Seyra, Beth Teklezgi, Selome Teklezgi and Patrick Thomsen.
Bridget Williams Books, 2022
This anthology confronts the failure to see how power works through race, across our modern socia... more This anthology confronts the failure to see how power works through race, across our modern social worlds. By 'bringing what is unspoken into focus', Towards a Grammar of Race seeks to articulate and confront ideas of race in Aotearoa New Zealand. A recurring theme across the book is the inescapable entanglement of local and global manifestations of race.
Each of the contributors brings their own experiences and insights to the complexities of life in a racialised society, and include: Pounamu Jade Aikman, Faisal Al-Asaad, Mahdis Azarmandi, Simon Barber, Garrick Cooper, Morgan Godfery, Kassie Hartendorp, Guled Mire, Tze Ming Mok, Adele Norris, Nathan Rew, Vera Seyra, Beth Teklezgi, Selome Teklezgi and Patrick Thomsen.
BWB link: https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/grammar-of-race/
Uploads
Papers by Anisha Sankar
Book chapters by Anisha Sankar
Masters Thesis by Anisha Sankar
Course syllabus by Anisha Sankar
Edited books by Anisha Sankar
By 'bringing what is unspoken into focus', Towards a Grammar of Race seeks to articulate and confront ideas of race in Aotearoa New Zealand – an exploration that includes racial capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness. A recurring theme across the book is the inescapable entanglement of local and global manifestations of race.
Each of the contributors brings their own experiences and insights to the complexities of life in a racialised society, and together their words make an important contribution to our shared and future lives on these shores.
Contributors to this book: Pounamu Jade Aikman, Faisal Al-Asaad, Mahdis Azarmandi, Simon Barber, Garrick Cooper, Morgan Godfery, Kassie Hartendorp, Guled Mire, Tze Ming Mok, Adele Norris, Nathan Rew, Vera Seyra, Beth Teklezgi, Selome Teklezgi and Patrick Thomsen.
Each of the contributors brings their own experiences and insights to the complexities of life in a racialised society, and include: Pounamu Jade Aikman, Faisal Al-Asaad, Mahdis Azarmandi, Simon Barber, Garrick Cooper, Morgan Godfery, Kassie Hartendorp, Guled Mire, Tze Ming Mok, Adele Norris, Nathan Rew, Vera Seyra, Beth Teklezgi, Selome Teklezgi and Patrick Thomsen.
BWB link: https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/grammar-of-race/
By 'bringing what is unspoken into focus', Towards a Grammar of Race seeks to articulate and confront ideas of race in Aotearoa New Zealand – an exploration that includes racial capitalism, colonialism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness. A recurring theme across the book is the inescapable entanglement of local and global manifestations of race.
Each of the contributors brings their own experiences and insights to the complexities of life in a racialised society, and together their words make an important contribution to our shared and future lives on these shores.
Contributors to this book: Pounamu Jade Aikman, Faisal Al-Asaad, Mahdis Azarmandi, Simon Barber, Garrick Cooper, Morgan Godfery, Kassie Hartendorp, Guled Mire, Tze Ming Mok, Adele Norris, Nathan Rew, Vera Seyra, Beth Teklezgi, Selome Teklezgi and Patrick Thomsen.
Each of the contributors brings their own experiences and insights to the complexities of life in a racialised society, and include: Pounamu Jade Aikman, Faisal Al-Asaad, Mahdis Azarmandi, Simon Barber, Garrick Cooper, Morgan Godfery, Kassie Hartendorp, Guled Mire, Tze Ming Mok, Adele Norris, Nathan Rew, Vera Seyra, Beth Teklezgi, Selome Teklezgi and Patrick Thomsen.
BWB link: https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/grammar-of-race/