Description
Book SynopsisSlaps in the face, kicks, beatings, and other forms of run-of-the-mill violence were a quotidian part of life in German Southwest Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century. Unearthing this culture of normalized violence in a settler colony, Violence as Usual uncovers the workings of a powerful state that was built in an improvised fashion by low-level state representatives.
Marie A. Muschalek''s fascinating portrayal of the daily deeds of African and German men enrolled in the colonial police force called the Landespolizei is a historical anthropology of police practice and the normalization of imperial power. Replete with anecdotes of everyday experiences both of the policemen and of colonized people and settlers, Violence as Usual re-examines fundamental questions about the relationship between power and violence. Muschalek gives us a new perspective on violence beyond the solely destructive and the instrumental. She overcomes, too, the notion tha
Trade Review
Violence as Usual offers an important contribution to the role of localized violence and the evolution of the colonial state in German Southwest Africa... Marie Muschalek provides a compelling narrative that will hopefully inspire more scholarship on local actors and their role in Germany's global empire.
* Central European History *
[T]his is a timely book that offers a fine-grained and theoretically rich analysis of police violence in an imperial setting.
* Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books *
Violence as Usual is packed with illuminating information on the societies of the Herero, the Nama, and the German settlers themselves. Moreover, the book lays the groundwork for future studies.
* African Studies Review *
As a piece of historical research and writing, this book is a jewel. It is both historically rigorous and thoughtfully encompasses the perspectival issues which African history needs to engage in the twenty-first century.
* H-Net *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction: Everyday Violence and the Colonial State
1. Honor, Status, Masculinity: Violent Identity Formations
2. Soldier-Bureaucrats: The Primacy of Proper Bearing
3. Of Whips, Shackles, and Guns: Tools and Technologies of Policing
4. Police Work: Daily Routines and the Art of Making Do
5. Policing Work: Violent Regulation of the Labor Market
Conclusion: Histories of Colonial Violence
Notes
Bibliography
Index
