SUBJECT, SUBJECTION, AND SUBJECTIVITY TENDAYI SITHOLE submitted in accordance with ...

450 Pages·2014·2.09 MB·English

by  Sithole, Tendayi

ACHILLE MBEMBE: SUBJECT, SUBJECTION, AND SUBJECTIVITY

TENDAYI SITHOLE

submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF LITERATURE AND PHILOSOPHY
in the subject
AFRICAN POLITICS
at the
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA

SUPERVISOR: PROF. SABELO J. NDLOVU-GATSHENI

03 September 2014
DECLARATION

Student number: 3546-827-0

I, Tendayi Sithole, declare that this thesis—Achille Mbembe: subject, subjection,
and subjectivity—is my own work, and that all the sources that I have used or quoted
have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references.

_____________________ 03 September 2014
Signature

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ABSTRACT

This thesis examines the political thought of Achille Mbembe. It deploys decolonial
critical analysis to unmask traces of coloniality with regard to the African existential
conditions foregrounded in the conception of the African subject, its subjection, and
subjectivity. The theoretical foundation of this thesis is decolonial epistemic
perspective—the epistemic intervention that serves as a lens to understand
Mbembe’s work and—that is the theoretical foundation outside the Euro-North
American “mainstream” canon foregrounded in coloniality. Decolonial epistemic
perspective in this thesis is deployed to expose three kinds of coloniality in
Mbembe’s work, namely: coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge and
coloniality of being. The thrust of this thesis is that Mbembe’s political thought is
inadequate for the understanding of the African existential condition in that it does
not fully take coloniality into account. In order to acknowledge the existence of
coloniality through decolonial critical analysis, the political thought of Mbembe is
examined in relation to modes of self-writing, power in the postcolony, the politics
of violence in Africa, Frantz Fanon’s political thought, and the idea of South Africa
as major themes undertaken in this thesis. Decolonial critical analysis deals with
foundational questions that have relevance to the existential condition of the African
subject and the manner in which such an existential crisis can be brought to an end.
These foundational questions confront issues like—who is speaking or writing, from
where, for whom and why? This thesis reveals that Mbembe is writing and thinking
Africa from outside the problematic ontology of the African subject and, as such,
Mbembe precludes any form of African subjectivity that challenges the Euro-North
American canon. This then reveals that Mbembe is not critical of coloniality and this
has the implications in that subjection is left on the wayside and not accounted for.
Having explored the genealogy, trajectory and horisons of decolonial critical
analysis to understand the political thought of Mbembe, this thesis highlights that it
is essential to take a detour through the shifting of the geography of reason. Herein
lies the originality of this thesis, and it is here that Africa is thought from within a
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standpoint of decolonial critical analysis and not Africa that is thought from the
Euro-North American canon. Therefore, the shifting of the geography of reason is
necessary for the authorisation of the subjectivity of the African subject in order to
combat subjection.
Key terms: Africanity, colonialism, coloniality, decoloniality, empire, Fanon,
fetishism, locus of enunciation, necropower, populism, racism, subject, subjection,
subjectivity, war machines, violence

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DEDICATION

Papa, Mma Sithole and my ancestors, this is for you for being my number one fans.
My loved little angels, Tendayi Jnr., Chanise and the one who is on his way and yet to be
named, this is dedicated to you with love.
In memory of my fallen comrade scholar, Kasay A. Sentime (1972-2013), may your soul
rest in peace, and please do continue to decolonise in that other part of the world.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Modimo, ke leboha ha o sekehetse thapelo tsaka tsebe. Jwale ke fofile jwalo ka ntsu.
Prof. Sabelo J. “Munt’omdala” Ndlovu-Gatsheni, many thanks for this amazing guidance
filled with an admixture of light-hearted laughter and moments of profound seriousness.
We talked and debated at odd hours and often at odd places where your incisive
comments, suggestions and constructive criticism lent shape to this work. I am glad that I
always had a pen and paper in hand! Thanks for not doubting my abilities and challenging
me to think outside the colonial episteme and to emphasise that I must think from where
my feet are grounded—the African existential reality.
Pearl Dastile, Everisto Benyera, Morgan Ndlovu, Edith Phaswana, and William Mpofu
thanks for those moments of decolonial debates and the black condition. Salute goes to all
comrade scholars who are engaged in decolonial struggles against epistemic racism,
epistemic violence and epistemic deafness. Mabogo More, Maurice Vambe, Mogobe
Ramose, and Tlhalo Raditlhalo, thank you dear Professors for opening your doors to host
me during the low and high points of this journey, your encouragement and support is
worth noting. Madame Dean Rosemary Moeketsi, salute! Dineo Seroba, many thanks!
Beschara Karam and Ernestina Nkooe thanks for dragging me back to the world of film—
a necessary escapism.
Lucky Mpungose, Zandisiwe Radebe, Andile Mngxitama, Sphiwe Mkhize, Athi Joja,
Tlhagiso Molantoa, Sarah Chiumbu, Kenneth Tafira and Glenda Daniels I am grateful for
your revolutionary love and thought. Mbalenhle Cele, Peter Moloi, and Lindani Bhengu
thanks for many years of amity. Tshepo Lebele, ke a leboha ngwaneso. To companions
and the humanity I encountered during this journey; together we stopped, we talked, we
listened, we thought, we read, we debated, and we clarified whether formally and
informally. Please note that you are acknowledged as well, albeit seemingly under
erasure. Ba ha Sithole, ha kena mantswe. Feela nkare, ho tswa botebong ba pelo yaka, ke
leboha tshehetso, lerato, thoholetso, kgothatso ha mmoho le thapelo tsa lona ka mehla.
Ona ke mokolokotwane wa lona oo ke o hlomileng!
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GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Africanity: is the way of thinking and writing from the standpoint that privileges Africa as a
starting point of subjectivity and analysis thereof. As a form of African subjectivity,
Africanity is combative towards the Euro-North American empire’s ways of thinking and
writing African subjectivity, and it should not be mistaken as a either a reactive or corrective
discourse, but the affirmation of African subjectivity where African subjects are writing from
their own existential conditions.
Coloniality: coloniality denotes the long standing power patterns that originate from
colonialism and that are now exercised in the absence of the colonial administration
(Maldonado-Torres 2007). Coloniality is not colonialism, and it can be traced long before
colonialism. It mutates itself with the nature of the regime and it is now exercising
oppression covertly as opposed to overtly as in the advent of colonialism. The forms of
coloniality engaged in this thesis are colonialty of power, coloniality of knowledge and
coloniality of being.
Deathscapes: this denotes spaces where death occurs and where the law has been suspended
through what Agamben (2005) refers to as the state of exception. It is spaces where the life
of those who are killed is meaningless and their death cannot be accounted for. Deathscapes
are not only war zones (Palestine, Iraq, Iran, and Democratic Republic of Congo just to
highlight a few) but the very existential locations where the everyday life is prone to death as
a result of structural violence against those who have their humanity questioned.
Decolonial epistemic perspective: this means the political intervention that seeks to
challenge injustices and inhumanity brought by coloniality, thereby placing African subjects
at the centre, to understand their subjectivity as ways to counter subjection and imagine
possible worlds and knowledges. It is the epistemic system that privileges epistemologies that
have been distorted, bastardised, ignored, and rendered irrelevant by the Euro-North
American episteme. It privileges the subjectivity of the subject from its own existential
locale and it is foregrounded outside modernity emphasising the fact that there is no
monolithic knowledge, but what (Santos 2007) refers to as ecologies of knowledges. In this
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thesis is deployed as the epistemic lens to expose three kinds of coloniality in Mbembe’s
work, namely: coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge, and coloniality of being.
Empire: in this thesis the concept empire is means the political formation of the
asymmetrical power and geographic location that resides in Euro-North America. It is, as
Hard and Negri (2000) state, the political configuration that controls global exchanges, and it
is a sovereign subject that governs the world.
Fetishism: in this thesis the concept denotes the manner in which power through coercion
and violence is exercised through fear but while masking that fear by the oppressive regime.
Power is projected, though its performativity (see performativity of power below) and it is
done so in a form of excess. However, this form of excess exposes the fact that there is
absence of power in the real sense of the term because those who oppress rule by fear and
paranoia that they might lose power. So, their power is impotent in that it lacks any form of
security and for it to survive it must unleash violence.
Mutual zombification: this concept was coined by Mbembe (1992; 2001a) to refer to is the
impotence or the state of powerlessness of the ruler and the ruled as each having robbed the
other of vitality and the leaving both impotent. In this thesis, it is used to understand power
relations in the postcolony between the ruler and the ruled, and the response and articulation
of that powerfrom both sides.
Necropower: is the logic of conferring life and taking it at free will in the form of killing
resulting to death (Mbembe 2003). This concept has the same connotation with the notion of
what Agamben (1998) refers to as bare life. Both necropower and bare life have their
genealogical roots from Foucaldian notion of biopolitics. It is in this thesis that necropower
is used to refer to the politics of death.
Perfomativity of power: this concept means how power is exercised in a political regime. In
this thesis, the concept is foregrounded in the postcolony to mean that the way power is
exercised through the means of subjection by most of the postcolonial rulers, it takes
dramaturgical forms in that it visibilises its authority. In such a way, this power is not only
exercised but performed.
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Politics of eatery: this concept refers to the the manner in which those who are in the helms
of power live in the politics of excessive consumption at the expense of those who live in
penury. This is the signification of the form of eating which is pervasive in the postcolony
and which borders on excess and waste. The nature and character of this eating can be
understood in terms of bribery, theft, looting, extortion, expropriation, rent-seeking,
cronyism, patronage, graft and embezzlement among many other forms.
Populism: in this thesis populism is not understood from the liberal conception that reduces
it to being archaic, primitive, dangerous, and exotic. Instead, populism is understood from
Laclau’s (2005) conception way of constructing the political subject and in particular,
African subjectivity.
Postcolony: this concept has been coined by Mbembe (1992; 2001a) to refer to the
interpenetration of epochs—that is, pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Africa in one
historical juncture. The postcolony is not after colonialism and it is not also synonymous
with postcolonial or postcoloniality which means the epoch resulting from the colonial
aftermath.
Structural violence: is a form of violence that is not in a physical form but mechanistically
inherent in social forces raging from poverty, disease, racism, and mortality (Farmer 2002).
Structural violence is the violence that is not visible and it is hidden in structures. It makes
those who are affected by it to be incapacitated to see, name, describe and explain it as it
institutionalised, naturalised and normalised in everyday existence.
Subject: in this thesis, the term is used in the ontological sense to mean the totality of
elements constitutive of a human being. The subject is therefore used in two senses—that is,
the African subject and the black subject, and these two senses are here used
interchangeably.
Subjection: the position of power and also the uses of power that create conditions of life
that are informed by and reproduce oppression, subordination, injustice, and dehumanisation
to name just a few. In most cases it is informed by the idea of race and its logic of
operationalisation—racism.
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Subjectivity: denotes the way in that knowledge practices are informed by conditioned ways
of knowing and consciousness as the way of understanding the self, the lived experience and
the world that the self inhabits. It also denotes the formation of the African subject in the
political act of resisting and combating subjection.
War machines: this concept is an overall inclusive terms to refer to rebels, insurgents,
privatees, ex-combatants, private security firms to name but a few. It is the concept that was
coined by Deleuze and Gauttari (1987) to refer to political units external to the state
apparatus which have means of violence. War machines are amoebic in nature, and they are
most often referred to as “soldiers for rent” in that they are not aligiant to any nation state,
but are loyal to the contractors they serve and the highest bidder.

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