Achille Mbembe Quotes
Achille Mbembe is a Cameroonian philosopher and political theorist, professor at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in Johannesburg, and one of the most influential voices in contemporary African and postcolonial thought. On the Postcolony reread the political imagination of postcolonial Africa as a space of intimate co-mingling of rulers and ruled rather than the simple imposition of foreign forms, while Necropolitics extended Foucault's biopolitics into an account of the powers that decide which lives may be exposed to death. The quotes below are attributed to Achille Mbembe, organized by topic.
Achille Mbembe on Death
-
“The ultimate expression of sovereignty resides, to a large degree, in the power and the capacity to dictate who may live and who must die.”
Necropolitics," as translated by Libby Meintjes, Public Culture , Volume 15, Number 1, Winter 2003, pp. 11-40
Achille Mbembe on Knowledge
-
Attributed to Achille Mbembe:
“Africa is not a problem to be solved; it is a thought to be thought.”
-
“Necropolitics," as translated by Libby Meintjes, Public Culture , Volume 15, Number 1, Winter 2003, pp. 11-40”
The ultimate expression of sovereignty resides, to a large degree, in the power and the capacity to dictate who may live and who must die.
Achille Mbembe on Politics
-
Attributed to Achille Mbembe:
“Necropolitics is the work of death within the body politic.”
-
Attributed to Achille Mbembe:
“The postcolony is a space of intimacy with power, not simply its opposite.”
-
Attributed to Achille Mbembe:
“Race is a body of knowledge for converting people into things.”
-
Attributed to Achille Mbembe:
“Sovereignty is increasingly defined by the power to decide who may live and who must die.”