Taking Pictures: The Economy of Affect and Postcolonial Performativity in NoViolet Bulawayo's We Need New Names

This essay considers the dual register of the term "affective economy" and in the process hones in on the use of photography and videography in NoViolet Bulawayo's 2013 novel We Need New Names. It builds on Susan Sontag's consideration of the emotional trade in photographs to examine how the neoliberal privatization of aid and charity has created a brisk trade in and expectations about African subjects' performance of suffering. This performance fosters an affect of superiority in consuming, Northern subjects that reinforces the capricious nature of private interest and investment in the Global South. Bulawayo's novel adroitly distinguishes between performances of suffering that are meant as tokens of exchange with outsiders and the necessity of suffering as a point of emotional cathexis within the community. It offers a critical depiction of collective mourning in response to the failure of democratic elections and underscores politics' utter dependency on economics under neoliberalism.