Forensics of Capital - by Michael Ralph (Paperback)

About the Book

In this ambitious and sophisticated work, anthropologist Michael Ralph uses the case of Senegal often held to be an exceptional democracy in Africato illustrate the mechanisms of credit and debt enforcement common to the emergence of all nation-states. Each chapter systematically addresses various pillars of what are termed the structures of liability, thereby managing to convey the idea that senses of belonging and exclusion i.e. citizenship, are as influenced by the economic sphere as the supposedly distinct cultural one. Ralph then goes beyond this and attaches it to the national level, i.e. sovereignty, as well, asserting that diplomatic standing in the arena of nation-states is also tied to questions of access and respect on the international credit markets. He argues that no country carries just governance in its essencejustice emerges from clear and reliable methods of accountability. In a world where democracy is adjudicated at the interface between national legislation and international standing in a regime of nations, all citizens of the world play a role in shaping the critical theories and methods required to ensure that protocols for international governance and lending are as accessible and democratic as they purport to be, and that governmentswhoever they may beface strict censure when they are not. This book represents an important intervention into several fields of studies, ranging from African Studies to Economic History to Anthropology."

Book Synopsis

As one of Africa's few democracies, Senegal has long been thought of as a leader of moral, political, and economic development on the continent. We tend to assume that any such nation has achieved favorable international standing due to its own merits. In Forensics of Capital, Michael Ralph upends this kind of conventional thinking, showing how Senegal's diplomatic standing was strategically forged in the colonial and postcolonial eras at key periods of its history and is today entirely contingent on the consensus of wealthy and influential nations and international lending agencies.

Ralph examines Senegal's crucial and pragmatic decisions related to its development and how they garnered international favor, decisions such as its opposition to Soviet involvement in African liberation-despite itself being a socialist state-or its support for the US-led war on terror-despite its population being predominately Muslim. He shows how such actions have given Senegal an inflated political and economic position and status as a highly credit-worthy nation even as its domestic economy has faltered. Exploring these and many other aspects of Senegal's political economy and its interface with the international community, Ralph demonstrates that the international reputation of any nation-not just Senegal-is based on deep structural biases.

Review Quotes

"Forensics of Capital" uncovers new theoretical and ethnographic pathways that will have important implications for both African studies and anthropology scholarship. It draws from various sources and resources to identify critical moments, events, and key social actors; investigates issues of risk, liability, citizenship, sovereignty, leadership, historical injustices, violence, (un)employment, and displacement; and proposes an original cartography of the formation of modern Senegal. This bold, concise, and innovative book presents a compelling profile of the Senegal exception / success story narrative based on a scrupulous and captivating probing of forensic anthropology in an African context by one of the most astute and versatile theorists. --Mamadou Diouf, Columbia University"

"Forensics of Capital"takes you on a whirlwind tour of five hundred years of West African history to show how polities and markets have been made in the cauldron of an expanding world economy. Wolof merchants and French railroad builders, fifteenth-century Spanish kings and twenty-first-century American presidents, unemployed Dakar youth, and US military strategists all appear on Ralph s brilliant"tableau vivant."They engage in petty violence, grand strategizing, infrastructure construction, and profit seeking, creating in the process a messy world of coercion and contract, of states and markets, that is at the very heart of modern capitalism. --Sven Beckert, Harvard University"

"Forensics of Capital"is a top-notch intervention into several fields, ranging from African studies to anthropology to economic history. It effortlessly takes the reader along for a ride on the tangled history that has led to the current sovereign state of Senegal. But part of its ambitious theoretical contribution lies precisely here: by employing a novel argument about forensic profiles, Ralph ably shows that"all"nation-states have a similarly tangled emergence. --Gustav Peebles, New School"

""Forensics of Capital" is a top-notch intervention into several fields, ranging from African studies to anthropology to economic history. It effortlessly takes the reader along for a ride on the tangled history that has led to the current sovereign state of Senegal. But part of its ambitious theoretical contribution lies precisely here: by employing a novel argument about 'forensic profiles, ' Ralph ably shows that "all"nation-states have a similarly tangled emergence."--Gustav Peebles, New School

About the Author

Michael Ralph is associate professor of social and cultural analysis at New York University.