Includes bibliographical references and index.

Law and disorder in the postcolony: an introduction / John L. Comaro ff and Jean Comaroff -- The mute and the unspeakable: political subject ivity, violent, crime, and "the sexual thing" in a South African mining community / Rosalind C. Morris -- "I came to sabotage your reasoning!" : violence and resignifications of justice in Brazil / Teresa P.R. Cald eira -- Death squads and democracy in Northeast Brazil / Nancy Scheper- Hughes -- Some notes on disorder in the Indonesian postcolony / Patrici a Spyer -- Witchcraft and the limits of the law: Cameroon and South Afr ica / Peter Geschiere -- The ethics of illegality in the Chad Basin / J anet Roitman -- Criminal obsessions, after foucault: postcoloniality, p olicing, and the metaphysics of disorder / Jean Comaroff and John L. Co maroff -- On politics as a form of expenditure / Achille Mbembe -- Cont ributors -- Index.