Fencing the Black Body Within:The Blackface Debate in the Netherlands

In this article I analyse the 2013 highly mediatised debate on Zwarte Piet, which involved the Dutch political (and legal) authorities. I make recourse to critical race theory with a focus on Afropessimism to identify the operation of the racial grammar inherited from the empire, through which the Dutch established order contains Black people and voices. This special (open access) issue is unique in its comparative character, putting Zwarte Piet in conversation with other racial caricatures, and responses to them, in Europe.