Thomas’ utilization of reparations as a framework for research serves to further dismantle the persistent manifestations of biological determinism. It’s clear that her ethnographic work aims to dispel the belief that Jamaican culture is the core reason for these postcolonial streaks of violence. Thomas argues too that “reparations could help to expose how and why biopolitical strategies of social control never fully eclipse disciplinary modes of power within postcolonial Atlantic worlds” (7). I’m interested to know what you all think about the dynamic between these two methods of social control. Apart from her framework, I find her discussion on what makes the violence exceptional to be intriguing. As Joseph Roach puts it, the violence expends a “human surplus” as well as an excess of “social energy” (11). How can we use this concept of exceptional violence to analyze the modern development of once colonized nations?
After reading these chapters, I’m left to consider how we rationalize the violence that targets people of color in the U.S. I find that our perceptions fall in line with what Veena Das speaks of as the “routine violence of everyday life” (26). This is not to say that the violence in Jamaica and the U.S. are entirely comparable situations, though I do think that black deaths at the hands of law enforcement and the media coverage surrounding them lends to the wide acceptance of state sanctioned violence in everyday life. It’s no wonder that we can also accept the violence our government has propagated around the world.