Decolonial anxieties in a postcolonial world: an interview with Achille Mbembe

Abstract

In his latest book, philosopher Achille Mbembe recasts the notion of ‘brutalism’ drawn from architecture in order to describe a contemporary situation in which humanity’s essence is transformed at the same time as its very existence is threatened. ‘Brutalism’s ultimate project is the transformation of humanity into matter and energy’, writes Mbembe in his latest book, entitled Brutalisme. His writing starts out ‘from racialized bodies’ – for which neoliberalism constitutes a ‘gigantic pumping and carbonization mechanism’. But it also seeks to bring both Western and non-Western epistemologies into play in order to release the energies and ideas that can help confront the contemporary feeling of vertigo. Indeed, under the effect of unprecedented technologies, separatist political projects and economic pressures straining bodies and deforming minds, humanity’s essence is being transformed at the same time as its very existence is threatened. In this interview, Mbembe also responds to the anxieties expressed in many a newspaper column over postcolonial and decolonial discourses, as well as the recent reconfigurations of identity politics.