Philosophizing Contestation
Refusal, Disobedience, Resistance, Decolonization
Will be published approx. on 19. March 2026
Book
Hardback
272 pages
978-1-6669-7028-9 (ISBN)
Description
This collection elaborates contemporary possibilities for, and evaluates the concept of, contestation, highlighting tensions that emerge with thinking about the concept itself, various modes of contestation, and the terminology that surrounds the concept of contestation.
Contestation often carries with it the air of liberation or emancipation-of an egalitarian struggle pushing back against forces of domination, subjugation, and hierarchy. Coming from across the critical humanities and social sciences, the contributors focus on conceiving of contestation in such a way that those struggles do not in the end reduce themselves, theoretically or practically, to further exclusion. Must fighting on behalf of one cause or population necessarily involve the exclusion of another? Is a horizon of universal emancipation conceivable for contestation? What distinguishes critique from criticism? To flesh out the notion of contestation in this light, the contributors consider the different potential modes of contestation, the domains of analysis within which contestation can occur, and the productiveness of understanding contestation as a form of engagement.
The chapters bring perspectives that are theoretical and practical, philosophical and historical, engaging a variety of theories and practices, issues of identity to racial politics and from cultural criticism to conceptions of historiography. The volume itself exhibits contestation.
Contestation often carries with it the air of liberation or emancipation-of an egalitarian struggle pushing back against forces of domination, subjugation, and hierarchy. Coming from across the critical humanities and social sciences, the contributors focus on conceiving of contestation in such a way that those struggles do not in the end reduce themselves, theoretically or practically, to further exclusion. Must fighting on behalf of one cause or population necessarily involve the exclusion of another? Is a horizon of universal emancipation conceivable for contestation? What distinguishes critique from criticism? To flesh out the notion of contestation in this light, the contributors consider the different potential modes of contestation, the domains of analysis within which contestation can occur, and the productiveness of understanding contestation as a form of engagement.
The chapters bring perspectives that are theoretical and practical, philosophical and historical, engaging a variety of theories and practices, issues of identity to racial politics and from cultural criticism to conceptions of historiography. The volume itself exhibits contestation.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-6669-7028-9 (9781666970289)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
01/2026
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€94.99
Available for download
E-Book
01/2026
1st Edition
Bloomsbury Academic
€94.99
Available for download
Person
Adam Burgos is assistant professor of philosophy at Bucknell University, USA.
Content
About the Editor
About the Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Contestations and the Unmaking of Politics (Adam Burgos, Bucknell University, USA)
Section 1: Contesting Contestation
Chapter 1:
Freedom as Ontological Resistance: An Existential Account of Frederick Douglass' Fight with Covey (Charles Des Portes, University of Leeds, UK)
Chapter 2:
Marginalia on Militant Democracy, (Un)Civil Disobedience, and the Right to Resistance (Eraldo Souza dos Santos, University of California, Irvine, USA)
Section 2: Contesting Practices
Chapter 3:
Health Empires Behind Bars: Carceral Humanism and the Rise of Correctional Medicine (Andrea Pitts, University of Buffalo, USA)
Chapter 4:
Injustice, Infrastructure, and Contestation in Health (Takunda Matose, Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, USA)
Chapter 5:
The Idea of Latin American Refugees and Understanding the Moral Force of Their Asylum Claims (Eric Bayruns Garcia McMaster University, Canada)
Chapter 6:
The Israeli Black Panthers, Darhe Jesarim, and Collective Responsibility for Intra-Jewish White Supremacy (Geoff Adelsberg, Edgewood College, USA)
Section 3: Contesting Concepts
Chapter 7:
Dystopia and Countermemory, Decolonial and Afropessimist: Approximations from Yuderkys Espinosa Minoso and Saidiya Hartman (Rocio Zambrana, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico)
Chapter 8:
Unmasking the Coloniality of Whiteness: Law and Mexican American Racialization
(Sabeen Ahmed, Swarthmore College, USA and Sergio Gallegos-Ordorica, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, USA)
About the Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Contestations and the Unmaking of Politics (Adam Burgos, Bucknell University, USA)
Section 1: Contesting Contestation
Chapter 1:
Freedom as Ontological Resistance: An Existential Account of Frederick Douglass' Fight with Covey (Charles Des Portes, University of Leeds, UK)
Chapter 2:
Marginalia on Militant Democracy, (Un)Civil Disobedience, and the Right to Resistance (Eraldo Souza dos Santos, University of California, Irvine, USA)
Section 2: Contesting Practices
Chapter 3:
Health Empires Behind Bars: Carceral Humanism and the Rise of Correctional Medicine (Andrea Pitts, University of Buffalo, USA)
Chapter 4:
Injustice, Infrastructure, and Contestation in Health (Takunda Matose, Cincinnati Children's Hospital and Medical Center and the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, USA)
Chapter 5:
The Idea of Latin American Refugees and Understanding the Moral Force of Their Asylum Claims (Eric Bayruns Garcia McMaster University, Canada)
Chapter 6:
The Israeli Black Panthers, Darhe Jesarim, and Collective Responsibility for Intra-Jewish White Supremacy (Geoff Adelsberg, Edgewood College, USA)
Section 3: Contesting Concepts
Chapter 7:
Dystopia and Countermemory, Decolonial and Afropessimist: Approximations from Yuderkys Espinosa Minoso and Saidiya Hartman (Rocio Zambrana, University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico)
Chapter 8:
Unmasking the Coloniality of Whiteness: Law and Mexican American Racialization
(Sabeen Ahmed, Swarthmore College, USA and Sergio Gallegos-Ordorica, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, USA)