Publications [#183489] of Irene Silverblatt

Papers Submitted

1. I.M. Silverblatt, "Haunting the Modern Andean State: Colonial Legacies of Race and Civilization”, in Estados Decentrados: Formacion y deformacion politica en los andes (September, 2010)
   (last updated on 2010/12/03)

   Abstract:
   Contemporary Andean polities are haunted by colonial legacies. Looking at state-making from the off-centered view-point of emerging colonial institutions helps make sense of the trajectory of horrors and irrationalities – as well as idioms of political legitimacy and justice – that have profoundly marked modern Andean life. European state-making was chained to imperial endeavors and Spanish political ideologies, like those of Spain’s early modern competitors, reflect modernity’s beginnings in this dialectic of state-making and colonialism. My essay explores how colonial apparatuses of statecraft, washed in the dictates of imperial control, made race-thinking – and the imperatives of “civilization” -- part of the body politic. And, while this essay can be suggestive at best, I hope it pushes us to ask why -- and how -- these beginnings have not been central to our perceptions of modern experience or modern states