Sovereign Acts

The tragicomedy of democracy bloodily imposed in Iraq and Afghanistan is a long-lived reality for Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, Puerto Ricans, and ever-rising numbers of black and brown peoples recolonized through incarceration here. What hope for the people living within US imperial boundaries for whom the presumption of sovereignty was long ago erased—always in the service of building or protecting this democratic nation? What hope for the many immigrants who become “illegal” on entry? What claim have they to sovereignty? How can a framework like sovereignty, used historically to exploit, dispossess, and even exterminate people, also constitute actual liberation?Editor Frances Negrón-Muntaner and the contributors to Sovereign Acts argue that it can. Moving the idea of sovereignty beyond the narrow confines of the nation-state, beyond the concept of a power one either has or lacks, this paradigm-shifting work examines the new ways colonized people resist current forms of domination, placing both their subjugation and their resistance within broader contemporary political contexts. A valuable contribution to the debate around indigenous conceptions of sovereignty, Sovereign Acts goes on to investigate the relationships between sovereignty, gender, sexuality, representation, and body.Realities on the ground in Samoa, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam cannot be elided with what has come to be recognized as the broad undermining of democracy for us all. Yet, in addressing these realities, Sovereign Acts speaks to a more inclusive “we.” As we organize for all people’s right to self-governance and land, sovereignty can be grasped and enacted in our lives.Frances Negrón-Muntaner, editor of None of the Above, is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, scholar, and media activist who has received Ford, Truman, Scripps Howard, Rockefeller, and Pew fellowships. She has published widely on Latino culture, media, and politics.