The Invention of Order

“A critically important book, The Invention of Order offers a spatial reading of the modern/colonial world system, revealing the constitutive relations between the categories of peoples and the organization and representation of space. With lively examples, Deere fills in the large gaps left by Foucault, Harvey, Bachelard and other theorists of spatiality. The idea that a people control the meaning of their land had to be overcome for colonialist and capitalist dispossession, and this fight is far from over.” - Linda Martín Alcoff, author of Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self

“The Invention of Order presents a novel analysis of modern colonial projects, adding to current scholarship on the temporal and spatial significance of colonial conquest. Don Thomas Deere’s treatment of how this spatiality gives rise to and shapes colonial frames of reason, subject-formation, and the body is vital for any study of both the singularity of modern forms of colonial violence as well as the articulation of the radical nature of decolonial alternatives.” - Kris F. Sealey, author of Creolizing the Nation