Ours is a birth-time and a period of transition to a new era. (Hegel 1977: ¶11)

Twilight of the Idols – in plain words: the old truth is coming to an end. (Nietzsche 1992: 86)

Critiques of colonialism and of associated forms of imperialism – territorial, cultural, epistemological and so forth – are well established and provide ongoing fuel for the deconstructive task of decolonisation. However, certainly in the former imperial centres, conceptual tools for imagining modes of constructive agency suited to the reconstruction of post-imperial forms of society remain woe-fully underdeveloped. For example, in their collaborative work on Empire, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt argue that ‘the multitude’ must ‘confront directly and with an adequate consciousness the central repressive operations of Empire. It is a matter of recognising and engaging the imperial initiatives and not allowing them continually to re-establish order.’ However, when they ask what ‘specific and concrete practices will animate this political project?’ they admit: ‘We cannot say at this point’ (Hardt and Negri 2000: 399–400). Without an alternative conceptualisation of agency and ethical practices of social construction, attempts to transform cultures infused with the legacy of colonialism often remain in hiatus, structured by a form of agency that has been complicit with practices of Empire, and which postcolonial society must surely reject.