An Uneasy Embrace
Africa, India and the Spectre of Race
Format:Paperback
Publisher:C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd
Published:26th Aug '21
£22.00
Available for immediate dispatch.
The entwined histories of Blacks and Indians defy easy explanation. From Black Lives Matter protests against Gandhi statues to Kamala Harris's historic election, this relationship--notwithstanding moments of common struggle--seethes with conflicts that reveal important lessons about race in the modern world. Shobana Shankar's groundbreaking intellectual history tackles the controversial question of how Africans and Indians see their differences. Drawing on archival and oral sources from seven countries, she traces how economic tensions surrounding the Indian diaspora in East and Southern Africa collided with the twentieth century's widening Indian networks in West Africa and the Black Atlantic. Decolonisation brought a reckoning with Euro-American racial hierarchies, as well as discord over caste, religion, sex and skin colour, simmering beneath the rhetoric of Afro-Indian solidarity. This book illuminates how postcolonial peoples remade race by reinvigorating cultural movements, from Pan-Africanism to popular devotionalism, in Africa, India and the United States. This new race consciousness was meant as a redemption from the moral dangers of economic rivalry. Yet rising wealth and nationalist amnesia now threaten this postcolonial ethos. Calls to dismantle statues, from Accra to Washington DC, are not merely symbolic. They seek to preserve dissenting histories, and the possibility of alternative futures.
Shortlisted for the International Studies Association's Global Development Section Book Award
'A deeper, democratised vision of Afro-Indian collaboration' -- The Wire
'A timely, wide-ranging and compelling text that deserves wide attention and is sure to provoke debate.' -- Africa is a Country
[A] must-read for all scholars interested in histories of Africa-India connections and those who seek evidence that ideas from the past continue to exist with the potential to forge pathways toward solidarity and progress in the Global South.’ -- The Journal of African History
‘An immensely readable account of some lesser-known connections between the Indian subcontinent and the African(a) world, which engages constructively with historical and sociological themes in both African and South Asian studies.’ -- Canadian Journal of African Studies
'Shobana Shankar is a first-rate academic and this book makes an important contribution to the growing literature on the Indian Ocean world. Thought-provoking, properly researched and well written, An Uneasy Embrace pushes the academic boundaries.' -- Goolam Vahed, Professor of History, University of KwaZulu Natal, and author of 'History of the Present: A Biography of Indian South Africans, 1994-2019'
'"An Uneasy Embrace" is an ingenious narrative and a meticulously researched account of the unexplored cultural, political and racial conversations between Indians and West Africans. Unique in its interdisciplinary methodology and subject matter, it will have an appeal across disciplines.' -- Renu Modi, Professor and Director, Centre for African Studies, University of Mumbai
'In this original, rich and captivating book, Shobana Shankar brilliantly illuminates the complex and multilayered cultural economy and circulations between India and Africa, the Black Atlantic and Indian Ocean, and African and Indian diasporas.' -- Paul Tiyambe Zeleza, Vice Chancellor, United States International University-Africa
'This brave book is a welcome addition to the growing intellectual exploration of race-caste theories. Original in scope and informed by passionate research, it will become one of the most sought-after works on African-Indian studies.' -- Suraj Yengde, Harvard University, author of 'Caste Matters'
ISBN: 9781787385696
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
256 pages