Condition Report: Symposium on Building Art Institutions in Africa is a collection of essays resulting from of the symposium held in Dakar in 2012. They address the changing role of art institutions and initiatives in Africa, where the cultural and artistic context is characterized by a predominance of government led art programs and infrastructure.

The last decade has witnessed the emergence of a variety of independent art spaces using a wide range of formats to promote art and critical exchange. These initiatives draw a new cartography of artistic action in Africa. This reader looks at the structural and programmatic issues at play within those institutions. Models and profiles of art institutions developed in other regions of the world are also examined. The publication also discusses how former colonial powers define and implement their strategies of cultural representation and exchange in post-colonial areas, and how these in turn influence local dynamics of cultural action.

Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Goethe-Institut.

***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021*** 'A vibrant and compelling framework for feminism in our times' - Judith Butler For too long feminism has been co-opted by the forces they seek to dismantle. In this powerful manifesto, Francoise Verges argues that feminists should no longer be accomplices of capitalism, racism, colonialism and imperialism: it is time to fight the system that created the boss, built the prisons and polices women's bodies. A Decolonial Feminism grapples with the central issues in feminist debates today: from Eurocentrism and whiteness, to power, inclusion and exclusion. Delving into feminist and anti-racist histories, Verges also assesses contemporary activism, movements and struggles, including #MeToo and the Women's Strike. Centring anticolonialism and anti-racism within an intersectional Marxist feminism, the book puts forward an urgent demand to free ourselves from the capitalist, imperialist forces that oppress us.

'A robust, decolonial challenge to carceral feminism' - Angela Y. Davis ***Winner of an English PEN Award 2022*** The mainstream conversation surrounding gender equality is a repertoire of violence: harassment, rape, abuse, femicide. These words suggest a cruel reality. But they also hide another reality: that of gendered violence committed with the complicity of the State. In this book, Francoise Verges denounces the carceral turn in the fight against sexism. By focusing on 'violent men', we fail to question the sources of their violence. There is no doubt as to the underlying causes: racial capitalism, ultra-conservative populism, the crushing of the Global South by wars and imperialist looting, the exile of millions and the proliferation of prisons - these all put masculinity in the service of a policy of death. Against the spirit of the times, Francoise Verges refuses the punitive obsession of the State in favour of restorative justice.

'A robust, decolonial challenge to carceral feminism' - Angela Y. Davis ***Winner of an English PEN Award 2022*** The mainstream conversation surrounding gender equality is a repertoire of violence: harassment, rape, abuse, femicide. These words suggest a cruel reality. But they also hide another reality: that of gendered violence committed with the complicity of the State. In this book, Francoise Verges denounces the carceral turn in the fight against sexism. By focusing on 'violent men', we fail to question the sources of their violence. There is no doubt as to the underlying causes: racial capitalism, ultra-conservative populism, the crushing of the Global South by wars and imperialist looting, the exile of millions and the proliferation of prisons - these all put masculinity in the service of a policy of death. Against the spirit of the times, Francoise Verges refuses the punitive obsession of the State in favour of restorative justice.

For too long feminism has been co-opted by the forces they seek to dismantle. In this powerful manifesto, Francoise Verges argues that feminists should no longer be accomplices of capitalism, racism, colonialism and imperialism: it is time to fight the system that created the boss, built the prisons and polices women's bodies. A Decolonial Feminism grapples with the central issues in feminist debates today: from Eurocentrism and whiteness, to power, inclusion and exclusion. Delving into feminist and anti-racist histories, Verges also assesses contemporary activism, movements and struggles, including #MeToo and the Women's Strike. Centring anticolonialism and anti-racism within an intersectional Marxist feminism, the book puts forward an urgent demand to free ourselves from the capitalist, imperialist forces that oppress us.

In the 1960s thousands of poor women of color on the (post)colonial French island of Reunion had their pregnancies forcefully terminated by white doctors; the doctors operated under the pretext of performing benign surgeries, for which they sought government compensation. When the scandal broke in 1970, the doctors claimed to have been encouraged to perform these abortions by French politicians who sought to curtail reproduction on the island, even though abortion was illegal in France. In The Wombs of Women-first published in French and appearing here in English for the first time-Francoise Verges traces the long history of colonial state intervention in black women's wombs during the slave trade and postslavery imperialism as well as in current birth control politics. She examines the women's liberation movement in France in the 1960s and 1970s, showing that by choosing to ignore the history of the racialization of women's wombs, French feminists inevitably ended up defending the rights of white women at the expense of women of color. Ultimately, Verges demonstrates how the forced abortions on Reunion were manifestations of the legacies of the racialized violence of slavery and colonialism.

In the 1960s thousands of poor women of color on the (post)colonial French island of Reunion had their pregnancies forcefully terminated by white doctors; the doctors operated under the pretext of performing benign surgeries, for which they sought government compensation. When the scandal broke in 1970, the doctors claimed to have been encouraged to perform these abortions by French politicians who sought to curtail reproduction on the island, even though abortion was illegal in France. In The Wombs of Women-first published in French and appearing here in English for the first time-Francoise Verges traces the long history of colonial state intervention in black women's wombs during the slave trade and postslavery imperialism as well as in current birth control politics. She examines the women's liberation movement in France in the 1960s and 1970s, showing that by choosing to ignore the history of the racialization of women's wombs, French feminists inevitably ended up defending the rights of white women at the expense of women of color. Ultimately, Verges demonstrates how the forced abortions on Reunion were manifestations of the legacies of the racialized violence of slavery and colonialism.

In Monsters and Revolutionaries Francoise Verges analyzes the complex relationship between the colonizer and colonized on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion. Through novels, iconography, and texts from various disciplines including law, medicine, and psychology, Verges constructs a political and cultural history of the island's relations with France. Woven throughout is Verges's own family history, which is intimately tied to the history of Reunion itself. Originally settled by sugar plantation owners and their Indian and African slaves following a seventeenth-century French colonial decree, Reunion abolished slavery in 1848. Because plantation owners continued to import workers from India, Africa, Asia, and Madagascar, the island was defined as a place based on mixed heritages, or metissage. Verges reads the relationship between France and the residents of Reunion as a family romance: France is the seemingly protective mother, La Mere-Patrie, while the people of Reunion are seen and see themselves as France's children. Arguing that the central dynamic in the colonial family romance is that of debt and dependence, Verges explains how the republican ideals of the French Revolution and the Enlightenment are seen as gifts to Reunion that can never be repaid. This dynamic is complicated by the presence of metissage, a source of anxiety to the colonizer in its refutation of the "purity" of racial bloodlines. For Verges, the island's history of slavery is the key to understanding metissage, the politics of assimilation, constructions of masculinity, and emancipatory discourses on Reunion.