IMPERIAL DEBRIS: Reflections on Ruins and Ruination

TLDR

Imperial formations are dynamic, racialized relations of force that persist beyond formal exclusions, functioning as processes of becoming rather than fixed entities, and manifest through mechanisms such as guardianship, trusteeships, delayed autonomy, and interventions framed as humanitarian or security measures. The article examines imperial formations to document the ongoing processes of decimation, displacement, and reclamation. The analysis reframes imperial rule by focusing on imperial formations, shifting from fixed sovereignty to gradated sovereignty and highlighting technologies of imperial rule such as sliding and contested scales of differential rights.

Abstract

In this article, I look at “imperial formations” rather than at empire per se to register the ongoing quality of processes of decimation, displacement, and reclamation. Imperial formations are relations of force, harboring political forms that endure beyond the formal exclusions that legislate against equal opportunity, commensurate dignities, and equal rights. Working with the concept of imperial formation, rather than empire per se, the emphasis shifts from fixed forms of sovereignty and its denials to gradated forms of sovereignty and what has long marked the technologies of imperial rule—sliding and contested scales of differential rights. Imperial formations are defined by racialized relations of allocations and appropriations. Unlike empires, they are processes of becoming, not fixed things. Not least they are states of deferral that mete out promissory notes that are not exceptions to their operation but constitutive of them: imperial guardianship, trusteeships, delayed autonomy, temporary intervention, conditional tutelage, military takeover in the name of humanitarian works, violent intervention in the name of human rights, and security measures in the name of peace.