Jenna N. Hanchey, "The Center Cannot Hold: Decolonial Possibility in the Collapse of a Tanzanian NGO" (Duke UP, 2023)

New Books in Sociology · Aug 29, 2023 · 1h 2m

In The Center Cannot Hold: Decolonial Possibility in the Collapse of a Tanzanian NGO (Duke UP, 2023), Jenna N. Hanchey examines the decolonial potential emerging from processes of ruination and collapse. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in rural Tanzania at an internationally funded NGO as it underwent dissolution, Hanchey traces the conflicts between local leadership and Western paternalism as well as the unstable subjectivity of Western volunteers—including the author—who are unable to withstand the contradictions of playing the dual roles of decolonializing ally and white savior. She…