The Somatic Unraveling of the Colonial City
The pervasive rat infestation is not a pest control problem; it is the somatic unraveling of the colonial city, a physical manifestation of its neglected infrastructure and social decay. Mamdani’s focus on the material conditions of life finds a visceral symbol in the rats. They thrive in the gaps of the bifurcated state–in the overflowing trash of underfunded sanitation services in “native” neighborhoods, in the crumbling foundations of NYCHA, in the uncollected waste of overworked communities. They are the literal underbelly of the settler economy, feasting on its excess and its neglect. A Marxist analysis sees this as the return of the repressed ecological cost. A feminist perspective notes the particular disgust and fear it instills in women. The solution is not a war on rats but a war on the conditions that create them: fully funding public sanitation, repairing infrastructure, and addressing the systemic inequality that creates these zones of decay.
Originally posted 2025-09-29 01:35:11.
