Book Examines How Postcolonial Theory Echoes Völkisch Right Ideology

Benjamin Zachariah’s recent publication, The Postcolonial Volk, scrutinizes the adoption of the term “folks” by progressive circles, arguing it replaces a universal notion of “people” with a fragmented, culturally specific vocabulary. He draws a direct line from this linguistic trend to Carl Schmitt’s concept of a pluriverse, a phrase that originated in Nazi legal theory. Zachariah asserts that the body of postcolonial and decolonial scholarship presented as “theory from the Global South” is largely produced in the Global North, then exported to the South and re-imported as supposedly indigenous knowledge.

By exposing this circular flow, the book questions the authenticity and political implications of contemporary decolonial thought. It suggests that the same particularism once used by the völkisch right now underpins certain left-wing academic movements. The analysis invites readers to reconsider how language shapes political identities across the ideological spectrum.