Migrant necropolitics at the table: "Civilized cannibalism" in mahi binebine's cannibales

Abstract

In Cannibales, the Maghrebi Francophone author Mahi Binebine revisits the encounter between the so-called “cannibals” and the European colonizer in the context of illegal immigration where bodies become commodities exchangeable for social improvements creating a different form of cannibalism. It is no longer the usual dichotomy between the civilized and the savage that is at work but rather a “civilized” European imperialist who feeds himself on a migrant’s flesh. This article argues that this representation works as a “colonial fragment” from the past but contextualized in today’s globalization. Binebine’s morbid depiction of an ambivalent postcolonial cannibalistic encounter translates as a representation of migrants in terms of cannibalistic necropolitics. The illegal migrant has no choice but to be swallowed by a narcissistic exocannibalism which seeks to incorporate what it feeds on to a total unity suggesting a bleak future not only for illegal migrants but for globalization as possibly devouring itself.