Sexual violence in racial capitalism

Alison Phipps is professor of political sociology and Head of SPIRE at York St John University, and honorary professor in the Centre for Women’s Studies at the University of York

Phipps’ new book doesn’t only explore how the material and ideological presence of racial capitalism is rapacious, but also why. While never dodging complexity, Phipps provides an eloquent and accessible analysis of sexual violence as a political-economic strategy of power. It is a ‘must read’.– Joanna Bourke, author of Disgrace: Global Reflections on Sexual ViolenceIn her characteristically bold and highly original style, Phipps shows how sexual violence is an essential feature of racial capitalist systems – not an extra or an accident. The book sets itself an ambitious task of explaining the political economy of sexual violence, which also undergirds racial capitalism. Violence is ongoing as power is never absolute, which also makes resistance and change possible. Phipps writes in a smart and accessible way and in asking new, true and difficult questions, she continues to be a pioneer when it comes to taking seriously the how and why of sexual violence in racial capitalism.– Srila Roy, Professor of Sociology, University of the WitwatersrandThis book confirms even further my ongoing sense that we are in a golden age of feminist theorizing. Besides being the most ambitious work of theory I've encountered in many years, and despite tackling a subject that makes most of us flinch or look away, Sexual violence in racial capitalism somehow manages to be persuasive, gentle, humble, and humane – at the same time as intellectually exciting. From the pre-capitalist scene of enclosure to the colonial plantation, and from the bourgeois family-form to the neoliberal garment factory, Alison Phipps asks and answers the question that has eluded and vexed feminists for decades: is rape merely incidental, or rather instrumental, to our present mode of production? Even to attempt, let alone pull off, what Phipps has achieved in this book is exceedingly rare and inexpressibly valuable: an integrated account of the work accomplished by planetary violence's sexual forms, all around us, every day. Required reading!– Sophie Lewis, author of Enemy Feminisms: TERFs, Policewomen, and Girlbosses Against LiberationAs we grapple with differentiated forms of racialised and gendered state violence, Phipps illuminates how acts of enclosure, extraction, expropriation, and exploitation link the dynamics of racial capitalism to sexual violence. This book provides a searingly rich, politically grounded analysis of colonialism, social reproduction, enslavement, transnational labour practices, genocide, femicide, and technofeudalism to demonstrate how sexual violence is not simply an outcome of, but is central to, racial capitalism. Sexual violence in racial capitalism is an important read for scholars, activists, and communities keen to better understand instutionalised violence and intersecting systems of power as we work towards challenging them. – Dr Senthorun Raj, Reader in Human Rights Law, Manchester Metropolitan University

• Introduction 1. Sexual violence as a strategy of enclosure: An anti-origin story2. The coloniality of sexual violence 3. Capitalism, sexual terror, and the Blackening of sexual threat 4. Sexual violence, social reproduction, surplus value: Shit, bodies, and flesh 5. Binding the neoliberal assemblage: Super-exploitation, super-extraction, and sexual violence 6. Sexual violence as the pretext for disposal: Sex exceptionalism, sexual exceptionalism, states of exception 7. Sexual violence in The Stack: Cloud kings, angry serfs and the technofeudal covenant Conclusion