Colonial bones: The 2006 burial of Savorgnan de Brazza in the Congo

Abstract

The Franco-Congolese agreement to enshrine the corpse of Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza in a grand memorial tomb in Brazzaville (2006) has been decried by many observers as neo-colonial farce. This article interprets France?s agenda to propose a ?suave reconquest? of its former colonies, and Sassou Nguesso?s forceful mobilization of national and regional support. Beyond the immediate political significance of the episode, however, the article proposes new ideas on the ways in which modern states, North and South, depend on ?tournaments of value? that assign polarized worth to persons, and often back up international deals with transactions in sanctified human remains. The tactic, forged in part during the colonial era, illuminates important aspects of today?s global imaginaries of domination. Brazza?s bones work, in France and Africa, as a carnal fetish that, borrowing form various philosophies of power, merges Western and African beliefs in the body politic.