Marie Muschalek, "Violence as Usual: Policing and the Colonial State in German Southwest Africa" (Cornell UP, 2019)
Slaps 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,\xa0Violence as Usual: Policing and the Colonial State in German Southwest Africa\xa0(Cornell UP, 2019) uncovers the workings of a powerful state that was built in an improvised fashion by low-level state representatives.\nMarie 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,\xa0Violence as Usual\xa0re-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 that modern states operate exclusively according to modes of rationalized functionality.\xa0Violence as Usual\xa0offers an unusual assessment of the history of rule in settler colonialism and an alternative to dominant narratives of an ostensibly weak colonial state.\nNicole Coleman is\xa0Assistant Professor of German\xa0at Wayne State University. She tweets\xa0@drnicoleman.\xa0\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices\nSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law