Overview

Most texts on sexual violence treat capitalism as backdrop or afterthought. In contrast, political economy is the core of this book. Phipps explores the centrality of sexual violence to racial capitalist processes: the enclosure of bodies, the extraction of labour, the expropriation of land and resources, and the disposal of unwanted populations. Importantly, she argues that both sexual violence and sexual fear create social control and surplus value. Through a framework called the coloniality of sexual violence, Phipps conjoins acts of sexual violence and ideas of sexual threat in an analysis of gendered and raced property relations and the split colonial/modern psyche. She argues that fantasies of sexual danger represent the infolded violence of racial capitalism, which is why fear of revolution is often fear of rape. Revolution, however, is always imminent: violence is necessary because power is incomplete.

Full Product Details

9781526147349

Table of Contents

Reviews

Phipps’ new book doesn’t only explore how the material and ideological presence of racial capitalism is rapacious, but also why. While never dodging complexity, Phipps provides an eloquent and accessible analysis of sexual violence as a political-economic strategy of power. It is a ‘must read’. – Joanna Bourke, author of Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual Violence In her characteristically bold and highly original style, Phipps shows how sexual violence is an essential feature of racial capitalist systems – not an extra or an accident. The book sets itself an ambitious task of explaining the political economy of sexual violence, which also undergirds racial capitalism. Violence is ongoing as power is never absolute, which also makes resistance and change possible. Phipps writes in a smart and accessible way and in asking new, true and difficult questions, she continues to be a pioneer when it comes to taking seriously the how and why of sexual violence in racial capitalism. – Srila Roy, Professor of Sociology, University of the Witwatersrand -- .

Phipps’ new book doesn’t only explore how the material and ideological presence of racial capitalism is rapacious, but also why. While never dodging complexity, Phipps provides an eloquent and accessible analysis of sexual violence as a political-economic strategy of power. It is a ‘must read’. – Joanna Bourke, author of Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual Violence -- .

Author Information

Alison Phipps is professor of political sociology and Head of SPIRE at York St John University, and honorary professor in the Centre for Women's Studies at the University of York.

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