The Global Present
Achille Mbembe reflects on the global present and observes a recurring demand for durability in a planet in need of political and aesthetic repair.
Achille Mbembe
Achille Mbembe is a Cameroonian philosopher and political theorist based at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. He has written extensively in African history and politics and critical theory, including On the Postcolony (2001); Critique of Black Reason (2017); Necropolitics (2019); and Out of the Dark Night: Essays on Decolonization (2019). His books have been translated into various languages. A member of the American Academy of Science, he is the winner of the 2018 Gerda Henkel Award and the 2018 Ernst Bloch Award.
Borders and the Barrier of the Skin
A key contradiction of globalization is its facilitation of the movement of goods while the movement of people is increasingly restricted. Furthering this tendency, biometric technologies have expanded the traditional notion of the border, regulating the circulation of gendered, racialized, and classed bodies.