Sarah Balakrishnan
Biographic Data
| ID | 80850 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarah Balakrishnan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarah |
| FAMILY NAME | Balakrishnan |
| SIGNATURE | BALAKRISHNAN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | Duke University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8134-5737 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Archives in Stone: Cemeteries, Burial, and Urban Ownership in Late Colonial Ghana
While many scholars have examined the influence of European law, writing, and record-keeping on African land rights and property, few have analyzed semi-textual records such as cemetery gravestones. This essay argues that urban cemeteries, introduced by the British colonial state to the Gold Coast Colony (southern Ghana) in the nineteenth century, became archives in stone. As one of the few public records forums available inside Gold Coast towns,…
The Taviefe Massacre, 1888: Violence and Colonial Rule in British Ghana
Between June 18 and 24, 1888, the British colonial government of the Gold Coast killed an estimated eight hundred people on the small borderland town of Taviefe. This essay studies the massacre at Taviefe as a central event in the colonization of the Gold Coast. Although Taviefe existed on the margins of the colony-and in fact, it would soon be consigned to German rule-the massacre shocked Gold Coast communities everywhere, signaling that Europea…
Kintu, Days Come and Go, and The Deep Blue Between
Afrocentrism: A Perspective of Positive Development Among Black Youth
Prison of the Womb: Gender, Incarceration, and Capitalism on the Gold Coast of West Africa, c. 1500-1957
To date, studies of imprisonment and incarceration have focused on the growth of male-gendered penal institutions. This essay offers a provocative addition to the global study of the prison by tracing the emergence of a carceral system in West Africa in the nineteenth century that was organized around the female body. By examining archival testimonies of female prisoners held in what were called 'native prisons' in colonial Gold Coast (southern G…
The jailhouse divergence: Why debtors’ prisons disappeared in 19th century Europe and flourished in West Africa
It has been argued that the debtors’ prison was abolished in 19th century Europe and North America because the institution contradicted the principles of modern capitalism; by confining debtors for unpaid loans, it punished the poor while hampering the creditor, who could not be repaid by a debtor rotting in jail. This essay revises these assumptions through a study of debtors’ prisons in 19th century Ghana. It argues that, in both Europe and Wes…
Building the Ancestral Public: Cemeteries and the Necropolitics of Property in Colonial Ghana
This essay studies changes to mortuary practices in colonial Gold Coast (southern Ghana) beginning with the British state’s creation of town cemeteries in the late nineteenth century. It argues that the colonial state enforced cemetery burial because they realized Gold Coast people would never sell their land if it contained the remains of their elders; cemeteries were therefore a crucial tool in the transformation of land into private property f…
Of Debt and Bondage: From Slavery to Prisons in the Gold Coast, C . 1807–1957
Contrary to the belief that prisons never predated colonial rule in Africa, this article traces their emergence in the Gold Coast after the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. During the era of ‘legitimate commerce’, West African merchants required liquidity to conduct long-distance trade. Rather than demand human pawns as interest on loans, merchants imprisoned debtors’ female relatives because women's sexual violation in prison incentivized …
Afrocentrism Revisited: Africa in the Philosophy of Black Nationalism
In the 1990s, the political tradition of Afrocentrism came under attack in the Western academy, resulting in its glaring omission from most genealogies of Black thought today. This is despite the fact that Afrocentrism had roots dating back to the 15th century, shaping movements like Pan-Africanism and Négritude. It is also despite the fact that the tradition resulted in important cornerstones of Black American life: the holiday of Kwanzaa, the d…
Afropolitanism and the end of Black nationalism
This chapter demonstrates Afropolitanism's departure from a long genealogy of Afro-emancipatory thought. It argues that, contrary to the fundamental unity proposed by Pan-Africanism, Afropolitanism reopens the question of who constitutes the African, especially regarding the ancestors of those dispersed from the continent by slavery. In disentangling Blackness from Africa, Afropolitanism disavows longstanding racial solidarities that have cohered…
The Afropolitan Idea: New Perspectives on Cosmopolitanism in African Studies
This essay locates the concept of Afropolitanism, introduced in the mid‐2000s by Achille Mbembe and Taiye Selasi, inside a longer historiography on cosmopolitanism in Africa. Used to describe the multifarious ways that Africa is enmeshed in the world, today ‘Afropolitanism’ connects Africa's global metropolises, transnational cultures and mobile populations under a single analytic term, signifying the radical diversity that Africa possesses now a…
The Afropolitan Idea: New Perspectives on Cosmopolitanism in African Studies
This essay locates the concept of Afropolitanism, introduced in the mid‐2000s by Achille Mbembe and Taiye Selasi, inside a longer historiography on cosmopolitanism in Africa. Used to describe the multifarious ways that Africa is enmeshed in the world, today ‘Afropolitanism’ connects Africa's global metropolises, transnational cultures and mobile populations under a single analytic term, signifying the radical diversity that Africa possesses now a…
Building the Ancestral Public: Cemeteries and the Necropolitics of Property in Colonial Ghana
This essay studies changes to mortuary practices in colonial Gold Coast (southern Ghana) beginning with the British state’s creation of town cemeteries in the late nineteenth century. It argues that the colonial state enforced cemetery burial because they realized Gold Coast people would never sell their land if it contained the remains of their elders; cemeteries were therefore a crucial tool in the transformation of land into private property f…
Of Debt and Bondage: From Slavery to Prisons in the Gold Coast, C . 1807–1957
Contrary to the belief that prisons never predated colonial rule in Africa, this article traces their emergence in the Gold Coast after the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. During the era of ‘legitimate commerce’, West African merchants required liquidity to conduct long-distance trade. Rather than demand human pawns as interest on loans, merchants imprisoned debtors’ female relatives because women's sexual violation in prison incentivized …
Afrocentrism Revisited: Africa in the Philosophy of Black Nationalism
In the 1990s, the political tradition of Afrocentrism came under attack in the Western academy, resulting in its glaring omission from most genealogies of Black thought today. This is despite the fact that Afrocentrism had roots dating back to the 15th century, shaping movements like Pan-Africanism and Négritude. It is also despite the fact that the tradition resulted in important cornerstones of Black American life: the holiday of Kwanzaa, the d…
Prison of the Womb: Gender, Incarceration, and Capitalism on the Gold Coast of West Africa, c. 1500-1957
To date, studies of imprisonment and incarceration have focused on the growth of male-gendered penal institutions. This essay offers a provocative addition to the global study of the prison by tracing the emergence of a carceral system in West Africa in the nineteenth century that was organized around the female body. By examining archival testimonies of female prisoners held in what were called 'native prisons' in colonial Gold Coast (southern G…
The Afropolitan Idea: New Perspectives on Cosmopolitanism in African Studies
This essay locates the concept of Afropolitanism, introduced in the mid‐2000s by Achille Mbembe and Taiye Selasi, inside a longer historiography on cosmopolitanism in Africa. Used to describe the multifarious ways that Africa is enmeshed in the world, today ‘Afropolitanism’ connects Africa's global metropolises, transnational cultures and mobile populations under a single analytic term, signifying the radical diversity that Africa possesses now a…
Afropolitanism and the end of Black nationalism
This chapter demonstrates Afropolitanism's departure from a long genealogy of Afro-emancipatory thought. It argues that, contrary to the fundamental unity proposed by Pan-Africanism, Afropolitanism reopens the question of who constitutes the African, especially regarding the ancestors of those dispersed from the continent by slavery. In disentangling Blackness from Africa, Afropolitanism disavows longstanding racial solidarities that have cohered…
Of Debt and Bondage: From Slavery to Prisons in the Gold Coast, C . 1807–1957
Contrary to the belief that prisons never predated colonial rule in Africa, this article traces their emergence in the Gold Coast after the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. During the era of ‘legitimate commerce’, West African merchants required liquidity to conduct long-distance trade. Rather than demand human pawns as interest on loans, merchants imprisoned debtors’ female relatives because women's sexual violation in prison incentivized …
Afrocentrism Revisited: Africa in the Philosophy of Black Nationalism
In the 1990s, the political tradition of Afrocentrism came under attack in the Western academy, resulting in its glaring omission from most genealogies of Black thought today. This is despite the fact that Afrocentrism had roots dating back to the 15th century, shaping movements like Pan-Africanism and Négritude. It is also despite the fact that the tradition resulted in important cornerstones of Black American life: the holiday of Kwanzaa, the d…
The jailhouse divergence: Why debtors’ prisons disappeared in 19th century Europe and flourished in West Africa
It has been argued that the debtors’ prison was abolished in 19th century Europe and North America because the institution contradicted the principles of modern capitalism; by confining debtors for unpaid loans, it punished the poor while hampering the creditor, who could not be repaid by a debtor rotting in jail. This essay revises these assumptions through a study of debtors’ prisons in 19th century Ghana. It argues that, in both Europe and Wes…
Building the Ancestral Public: Cemeteries and the Necropolitics of Property in Colonial Ghana
This essay studies changes to mortuary practices in colonial Gold Coast (southern Ghana) beginning with the British state’s creation of town cemeteries in the late nineteenth century. It argues that the colonial state enforced cemetery burial because they realized Gold Coast people would never sell their land if it contained the remains of their elders; cemeteries were therefore a crucial tool in the transformation of land into private property f…
Afrocentrism: A Perspective of Positive Development Among Black Youth
Prison of the Womb: Gender, Incarceration, and Capitalism on the Gold Coast of West Africa, c. 1500-1957
To date, studies of imprisonment and incarceration have focused on the growth of male-gendered penal institutions. This essay offers a provocative addition to the global study of the prison by tracing the emergence of a carceral system in West Africa in the nineteenth century that was organized around the female body. By examining archival testimonies of female prisoners held in what were called 'native prisons' in colonial Gold Coast (southern G…
Kintu, Days Come and Go, and The Deep Blue Between
Archives in Stone: Cemeteries, Burial, and Urban Ownership in Late Colonial Ghana
While many scholars have examined the influence of European law, writing, and record-keeping on African land rights and property, few have analyzed semi-textual records such as cemetery gravestones. This essay argues that urban cemeteries, introduced by the British colonial state to the Gold Coast Colony (southern Ghana) in the nineteenth century, became archives in stone. As one of the few public records forums available inside Gold Coast towns,…
The Taviefe Massacre, 1888: Violence and Colonial Rule in British Ghana
Between June 18 and 24, 1888, the British colonial government of the Gold Coast killed an estimated eight hundred people on the small borderland town of Taviefe. This essay studies the massacre at Taviefe as a central event in the colonization of the Gold Coast. Although Taviefe existed on the margins of the colony-and in fact, it would soon be consigned to German rule-the massacre shocked Gold Coast communities everywhere, signaling that Europea…
Political science (9 works) · History (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · African history and culture studies (6 works) · Colonialism (6 works) · Colonialism, slavery, and trade (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Archaeology (5 works) · Law (5 works)