Caught Between the Zone of Being and Nonbeing. The Contemporary Economics of Cruelty

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n33.13

Alejandra del Rocío Bello-Urrego
Orcid ID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7530-2853
Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
bellourrego.alejandra@gmail.com

Abstract:

Building upon the concept of the being and nonbeing zone, developed by Partiendo Frantz Fanon, this paper aims to explore the inner workings of the border between those two zones, along with the mechanisms tying bodies to each. This is done by analysing three cases: indentured labor in the global chocolate industry, the imperial origin of war techniques at the School of the Americas, and the conquest of Colombian Caribbean by Colombian United Self-defence Armies. This analysis se draws on Fanon’s work, the notion of Rita Segato’s new forms of war and Achile Mbembe’s necropolitics perspective.

Keywords: Coloniality, government of bodies, nonbeing zone, gender, cruelty, necropolitics.