Tainted tools : New materialisms as a decolonial project

Tainted Tools addresses the tension between new materialisms’ decolonial ambitions and its perception as a White discourse. Framing the new materialist method as ‘decolonising from within’, the book examines its benefits and dangers. Rather than pointing to failures of decolonial allyship, the book charts pathways to greater theoretical solidarity. -- .

Tainted Tools offers a provocative intervention into the tense relationship between new materialist and decolonial thought. Although both seek to challenge dominant European categories and hierarchies, they are often treated as incompatible. New materialisms, in particular, have been criticised for sustaining a white, universalised vision of the human and overlooking the racialised histories embedded in the “nonhuman.” The book traces these tensions to an earlier encounter between new materialist and decolonial projects forged through experimental combinations of Marx and Nietzsche. Once used to counter fascism, Stalinism and colonialism, this politically charged fusion gradually became depoliticised, leaving unresolved contradictions. Rather than reviving these early formations, the book brings their strategies into dialogue with contemporary new materialist and decolonial approaches to build greater theoretical solidarity in times of crisis. -- .