"In March, 2018, voters in Sierra Leone went to the polls to elect a new president. These were arguably the first post-war elections in this West African state in which the dominant parties did not threaten to remobilize veterans of the country's long recent war. But this did not mean the end of violence in Sierra Leonean political campaigns. Violence and the threat of violence remain an integral part of the political imaginary in national politics. Drawing on film footage from the final rally days of the various political parties, I explore in this talk the fundamental role of violence in Sierra Leone's political aesthetics."

The Michigan Anthropology Colloquia Series presents speakers on current topics in the field of anthropology