Talking about your colonial ex: Simone Bignall, ‘Deleuzian Concepts for Ex-colonialism’, in Henry Somers-Hall, Jeffrey A. Bell (eds), The Deleuzian Mind, Routledge, 2025 | settler colonial studies blog

Talking about your colonial ex: Simone Bignall, ‘Deleuzian Concepts for Ex-colonialism’, in Henry Somers-Hall, Jeffrey A. Bell (eds), The Deleuzian Mind, Routledge, 2025

25May25

Abstract: This essay elaborates how a Deleuzian mind conceives the becoming of history in terms of ‘end’ or ‘exit’. A novel focus on ‘exiting’ from histories of colonialism offers an important paradigm shift away from the prevailing models of ‘post-colonial reconciliation’ and ‘de-colonisation’ that provide the concepts and language most often used for thinking about transforming colonialism. Such models have a limited application in settler-colonial nations, where the colonial imposition on Indigenous peoples is not in any way ‘post’, but rather is ongoing. Here, I articulate the idea of a discontinuous process of ‘exit-from-colonisation’ – or ‘ex-colonialism’ – that builds from Deleuzian understandings of temporality, existence, politics and philosophical activity. I argue that ‘ex-colonialism’ addresses three key problems in settler-colonisation: the need to disrupt historical progression from a troubled origin; the issue of co-constitution in contexts where unhappy relationships prevail; and the systemic or structural nature of the reforms required to accommodate political and legal pluralism in jurisdictions characterised by a post-colonial imposition of legal, political and cultural uniformity in the form of the settler-colonial nation-state. We will see how Deleuzian concepts for ex-colonialism align with First Nations’ aspirations for self-determination and release a line of flight from colonial power formations, distinct from – and resistant to – continuous (post-)colonialism.

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