Riotous Deathscapes

“This is, quite simply, one of the most remarkable books I have read in a long time. Written in anger, despair, and disenchantment, this book is nonetheless about hope. From the spectacularly scenic but stunningly poor South African region of Mpondoland, Hugo Canham finds what he calls Mpondo theory, a body of knowledge that eschews capitalist notions of ownership and instead favors communal, environmentally conscious uses of the land and the ocean. If South Africa has been waiting for the postapartheid text par excellence, the sad, powerful, and insightful Riotous Deathscapes could well be that text.” - Jacob Dlamini, author of The Terrorist Album: Apartheid’s Insurgents, Collaborators, and the Security Police

“Hugo ka Canham’s Riotous Deathscapes is a Mpondo theory-method that ‘looks askance,’ ‘crafts rampant dying as a way of living,’ and ‘draws on black and indigenous ways of being and resisting.’ Canham’s work is particular (to Mpondoland and then to other African and global South communities) and it is diasporic; it is a profound vernacular theory of being in an antiblack world.” - Christina Sharpe, author of In the Wake: On Blackness and Being

"Darkly and lyrically written, Hugo ka Canham’s Riotous Deathscapes is a transdisciplinary treatise theorizing Blackness through death. It offers Afrocentric theoretical and methodological resources for history, anthropology, and Black and indigenous studies, as well as critical perspectives for living in the wake of violence." - Casey Golomski, American Historical Review

"The volume Riotous Deathscapes is an experience; trying to review it is akin to describing a meal or experience, a war zone or a love affair, in words. . . . I want to thank Hugo Canham for this language—a delicate corporeal recognition of touch, membranes, exchange of molecules and language, maybe conquest, assault, a mugging or perhaps a love affair, as a theory-method for re-visioning a world of deep, tragic, unpredictable, and often joyful interdependencies." - Michelle Fine, South African Journal of Psychology

"Canham’s monograph, Riotous Deathscapes, is an exceptional, theoretically challenging and highly complex read for anyone interested in death studies, Black studies and rethinking the practices of the academy. . . . It is incredibly lyrical and has a prose style that exceeds the boundaries of convention with ease and joy. There is a combination of memoir, critical thinking and recovered histories, written in exquisitely elegant but sometimes non-standard prose, combined with high-level academic discourse. It is a dizzying and affective read." - Claire Nally, Contemporary European History

“Canham achieves his goal of writing beyond the strictures of time and moving beyond the telling of colonial histories from a colonial point of view and successfully demonstrates that riotous deathscapes are ways of living and dying and are ‘self-affirmative cultural practices’ that allow one to move toward freedom. By standing and writing at the site of history and histories, Canham creates a most profound narrative of return through which he links landscape, beauty, trauma, and survival.”

"A groundbreaking work. . . . Canham’s book is a success due to its depth of research, creativity, poetic narrative, and intriguing selection of featured topics." - Grace Naa Korkoi Amoah, Mortality