In Plantation Memories, Grada Kilomba episodically describes and contextualizes experiences of everyday racism of Black people in white-dominated, post/colonial societies. Her analysis incorporates approaches from psychoanalysis and postcolonial theory, working with concepts such as “trauma” and “memory.”
“Everyday racism […] is experienced as a violent shock which suddenly places the Black subject in a colonial scene – depriving one’s link with society. Unexpectedly, the past comes to coincide with the present and the present is experienced as if one were in that agonizing past, as the title Plantation Memories announces.” (Quote from the publisher’s description). A work based on the book is recommended for all those who deal with postcolonial theory and critical whiteness and for those who want to deal with (the) effects of everyday racism.
Grada Kilomba 2008. Plantation Memories. Episodes of Everyday Racism. Münster: Unrast.
If you don’t have a bookstore worth supporting near you, you can also buy the book from the alternative non-profit online bookstore links-lesen.de, which supports political projects with the profits. The link to the book is: http: //www.links-lesen.de/article/978-3-89771-485-4