This collection of essays evaluates Agamben's work from a postcolonial perspective. Svirsky and Bignall assemble leading figures to explore the rich philosophical linkages and the political concerns shared by Agamben and postcolonial theory.

Acknowledgements; Introduction: Agamben and Colonialism, Simone Bignall and Marcelo Svirsky; I. Colonial States of Exception; Imperialism, Exceptionalism and the Contemporary World, Yehouda Shenhav; 1. The Management of Anomie: The State of Exception in Post-communist Russia, Sergei Prozorov; 2. The Cultural Politics of Exception, Marcelo Svirsky; II. Colonial Sovereignty; 4. Indigenising Agamben: Rethinking Sovereignty in Light of the 'Peculiar' Status of Native Peoples, Mark Rifkin; 5. Reading Kenya's Colonial State of Emergency after Agamben, Stephen Morton; 6. Colonial Sovereignty, Forms of Life and Liminal Beings in South Africa, Stewart Motha; III. Bare Life and Bio-Politics; 7. Encountering Bare Life in Italian Libya and Colonial Amnesia in Agamben, David Atkinson; 8. Abandoning Gaza, Ariella Azoulay and Adi Ophir; 9. Colonial Histories: Biopolitics and Shantytowns in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area, Silvia Grinberg; IV. Method, History and Potentiality; 10. Metropolis and Colonisation, Leland de la Durantaye; 11. 'The Work of Men is Not Durable': History, Haiti and the Rights of Man, Jessica Whyte; 12. Potential Postcoloniality: Sacred Life, Profanation and the Coming Community, Simone Bignall; Notes on Contributors; Index.