Acknowledgments

I started writing Democracy and Empire: Labor, Nature, and the Reproduction of Capitalism in the summer of 2018 and developed and completed it during an itinerant period of my life, split between the United States, Germany, and Argentina. In each of these sites I was welcomed by a nurturing community of scholars, friends, and family that supported my writing and kept me grounded, for which I am infinitely grateful. In Columbus, the Migration, Mobility, and Immobility Project, the Global Arts and Humanities Society of Fellows, the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and the Political Science Department (all at Ohio State) supported the archival research and writing of most of the book. I completed the last revisions of the manuscript in Baltimore, Maryland, where new and old interlocutors and friends welcomed me into Johns Hopkins’s interdisciplinary racial capitalism group, its political theory community, and the Political Science Department. I could not have completed the book in a better place, one infused with the energy of a new and exciting chapter in my career.

While in Germany I enjoyed the support of the Humboldt Foundation and the collegiality of my hosts in Delmenhorst (Kerstin Schill, Susanne Fuchs, and Wolfgang Stenzel at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg), Berlin (Stefan Gosepath at the Center for Practical Philosophy, Free University of Berlin), and Munich (Monika Betzler, Marius Baumann, Korbinian Rüger, and Petra Weishaar at the Center for Ethics and Philosophy in Practice, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich). In Buenos Aires, Juan Negri and Carlos Gervasoni at Torcuato di Tella University and Javier Burdman and Juan Pablo Scarfi at the University de San Martín kept me intellectually engaged as I started the last stretch of writing. The Ohio State Political Science Department and the Munich Center for Ethics and Philosophy in Practice co-sponsored a book manuscript workshop, where Duncan Bell, Ajay Chaudhary, Michael Dawson, Jane Gordon, and Shatema Threadcraft provided brilliant commentary on the full manuscript. Conversations with Charisse Burden-Stelly, Michael Dawson, Onur Ulas Ince, Lois McNay, and Ray Rocco shaped the project at crucial junctures.

I am especially grateful to Benjamin McKean, who read every chapter, sometimes several times, and provided the acute, generous, and constructive feedback to which I have grown accustomed. He also co-organized with me three mini-conferences at Ohio State and the American Political Science Association 2019 meeting where parts of this book were presented. I shared different portions of the book at Dartmouth College, Emory University, Free University of Berlin, Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg, Johns Hopkins University, Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Ohio State University, Oxford University, Princeton University, Northwestern University, the University of Bremen, the University of Chicago, the University of Connecticut, the University of Michigan, and the University of Pittsburgh. Multiple meetings of the American Political Science Association, as well as the Caribbean Philosophical Association, the German Political Science Association, and the Western Political Science Association provided fora for discussion of several chapters. At these venues, I benefited from the insights of Nicole CuUnjieng Aboitiz, Begüm Adalet, Chris Allison, Isabel Altamirano Jimenez, Lawrie Balfour, Rainer Bauböck, Duncan Bell, Jane Bennett, Robin Celikates, Sam Chambers, Ajay Chaudhary, Derrick Darby, Thomas Davis, Lisa Disch, Oliver Eberl, Madeleine Elfenbein, Philipp Erbentraut, Antje Ellerman, Graham Gallagher, Adom Getachew, Julian Go, Bob Gooding-Williams, Michael Goodhart, Stefan Gosepath, Wendy Hesford, Jared Holley, Murad Idris, Siddhant Issar, Tamara Jugov, Magana Kabugi, Emily Katzenstein, Desmond King, Matthias Koenig, Nazlı Konya, Regina Kreide, Aishwari Kumar, George Lawson, Jared Loggins, Catherine Lu, Michael MacKenzie, Emma Mackinnon, Karuna Mantena, Andrew March, Usdin Martínez, Paloma Martinez-Cruz, Tristram McPherson, Bill Mullen, Ila Nagar, Martin Nonhoff, Ella Myers, David Owen, José Pérez, Jennifer Pitts, Lucia Rafanelli, Elaine Richardson, Burcu Savun, Amy Schuman, Lester Spence, Kailash Srinivasan, Jacqueline Stevens, Talia Sharpp, Robbie Shilliam, Josh Simon, Nazmul Sultan, Melanie Tanielian, Taylor Tate, Simon Tunderman, Sarah Van Beurden, Bob Vitalis, Joel Wainwright, Alex Wendt, Elizabeth Wingrove, and Jonathan Woon.

Adding to the collective character of this project and my debts to others is the excellent research assistance of students at Ohio State, including Katelyn Armstrong, Hyeji Kim, Dana Luciano, Kerstin Norris, José Pérez, and Jared Rabinowitz. Alyson Price was, as usual, generous and perceptive in her engagement with my writing and contributed her archivist talents when I had to secure additional documents from the British Library. My writing was kept steady by my accountability partners: Amna Akbar, Consuelo Amat, Murad Idris, Paloma Martinez-Cruz, Jennifer Mitzen, Jimena Valdez, and Sara Watson. Two cohorts of graduate students in my Racial Capitalism Seminar at Ohio State joined me in reading and reflecting about racial capitalism, read and commented on earlier versions of two chapters, and, in December of 2022, were the first readers of the completed manuscript. An earlier version of Chapter 1 was published in Perspectives on Politics, where it benefited from the advice of Daniel O’Neill and three anonymous reviewers. The first half of Chapter 2 appeared in the journal Political Theory, where Lawrie Balfour and two anonymous reviewers provided invaluable guidance. I am thankful to Cambridge University Press and Sage Publishing, respectively, for allowing the reproduction of this material as part of Democracy and Empire.

Throughout this period, my partner Philipp was the most constant and supportive companion and got me through it all. Our daughter Lea not only put up mostly graciously with our moves, but enthusiastically set roots in diverse places. Fresh and longstanding friends made these stays memorable by taking me away from books and screens. Luisa, Lucienne, Felix, Emilia, Johan, and Elias made for the best Berlin Covid bubble anyone could have desired, and Gjergj and Lejda brought me along in their adventures in Munich and its environs. Laura, Constanza, and Romina showed me around the best new spots in Buenos Aires and filled them with old and new memories. For the first time in my academic career, I wrote while living close to extended family in Munich and Buenos Aires, adding needed joy to pandemic times. Ortrun’s good humor and regular baking provided a perfect weekend respite, as did Rahel and Ronald’s company and conversation. I will not forget the seemingly endless summer weekends spent alongside Paula, Joaquín, Fernando, and Gabriela in Zárate. My parents, exceptional hosts and curious interlocutors, reminded me of where I came from and where I want to go. I dedicate this book to them.