Reparative Feminisms, Repairing Feminism—Reparation, Postcolonial Violence, and Feminism
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Abstract
During the summer of 2005, as with every summer in New York City, a person couldn’t enter a bar or dance club without hearing a predetermined set of summer hits. This past summer, the host was composed of Mariah Carey’s seductively thumping ‘‘It’s Like That,’’ Kelly Clarkson’s rousing anthem ‘‘Since U Been Gone,’’ The Killers’ exhausting ‘‘Mr Brightside,’’ and Gwen Stefani’s pumped up ‘‘Hollaback Girl.’’ Rounding out this chorus of lately come (and lately comeback) divas was the surprising inclusion of a song bursting with DIY electroclash beats, rousing military horn sections, and the gunfire-quick rhymes of British rapper Maya ‘‘M.I.A.’’ Arulpragasam. Flashpoint: a Saturday night in the West Village’s now defunct indie-rock party ‘‘Mishapes’’ at Lukes & Leroys. Somewhere, around midnight, the driving pulse of Interpol’s desperately creepy love ballad ‘‘Slow Dance’’ gives way to a jettison of automatic-fire beats as M.I.A.’s voice breaks across the crowd to command attention: ‘‘London: Quiet down, I need to make a sound/New York: Quiet down, I need to make a sound/Kingston: Quiet down, I need to make a sound/Brazil: Quiet down, I need to make a sound’’ (M.I.A. 2005). The crowd falls silent for the near ten seconds of this introduction before the triumphantly