This book offers a creative re-reading of Frantz Fanon as an affirmative proponent of radical democracy.
This book offers a unique re-reading of Frantz Fanon as an affirmative proponent of radical democracy. It is the discovery of a Fanon who is occupied with creation, not destruction, and who insists that people must retain their power and use it to manage their lives together. This aspect of Fanon is often overlooked as other dimensions, such as colonialism, race, and power, are at the forefront. The re-reading of Fanon staged in this book sets out to recover the important motif of democracy in Fanon as a crucial contribution to brokering social change and action in the face of democratic erosion today. The book proposes democracy as a new, creative way forward. But it insists that we understand democracy radically, as a way of life in which we do not destroy what we are against. Instead we create, together, new democratic lives in common. As such, it will be an important resource not only for researchers, students, and instructors in cultural and postcolonial studies but also social theory, contemporary sociology, American politics, and race and ethnicity studies.
Reviews
This short but powerful book makes an excellent and useful contribution to Fanon studies and to radical democracy studies. It is a timely and accessible book that will make clear the importance of Fanons ideas and practices for the world today.
Nigel Gibson, Professor of Africana Thought, Postcolonialism and African Studies, Emerson College, and author of Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination (2003)
This book adds new perspectives on the relevance of democracy in Fanons work and the relationship between the destructive and democratic Fanon. It also goes beyond mainstream scholarship on liberal democracy by highlighting radical understandings of democracy as a way of life in which people retain their power and use it to directly manage their affairs themselves in Fanons revolutionary writings and actions. A key feature of this book is its emphasis on how Fanons ideas and practices can contribute to reinventing democracy for the benefit of all people around the world, especially the damned, unheard, and colonized of the earth a message that will be crucial for us to hear in todays climate.
Sean Taudin Chabot, Professor of Sociology, Eastern Washington University
1. Introduction
2. My Project of Democracy
3. A Disempowered Left
4. The
Major Fanon
5. The Minor Fanon
6. Conclusion
Mark Purcell is Professor in the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the University of Washington, USA, where he researches urban politics, political theory, social movements, and democracy. He is the author of The Down-Deep Delight of Democracy (2013), Recapturing Democracy (2008), and numerous articles in journals including International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Urban Geography, Environment and Planning, Antipode, Urban Studies, Political Geography, Review of International Political Economy, and Planning Theory.
