Do South Africans Exist?
Nationalism, Democracy and the Identity of ‘the People’
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Wits University Press
Published:30th Apr '07
Should be back in stock very soon
Do South Africans Exist? addresses a gap in contemporary studies of nationalism and the nation, providing a critical study of South African nationalism, against a broader context of African nationalism in general. Narratives of resistance, telling of African peoples oppressed and exploited, presume that 'the people' preceded the period of nationalist struggle. This book explores how an African 'people' came into being in the first place, particularly in the South African context, as a collectivity organised in pursuit of a political, and not simply cultural, end. The author argues that the nation is a political community whose form is given in relation to the pursuit of democracy and freedom, and that if democratic authority is lodged in 'the people', what matters is the way that this 'people' is defined, delimited and produced. He argues that the nation precedes the state, not because it has always existed, but because it emerges in and through the nationalist struggle for state power. Ultimately, he encourages the reader to re-evaluate knee-jerk judgements about the failure of modernity in Africa.
Philosophically grounded, theoretically nuanced, politically controversial and yet urgently relevant, Do South Africans Exist? contains within its pages the four elements necessary to make it an absolute 'must read'. Focussed on the question of what constitutes South Africanness, what makes us a nation, its argument is relevant to probably every major debate about contemporary South Africa. Ultimately this book is about the South African political experiment and the potential for its consolidation. - ADAM HABIB, Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa Do South Africans Exist? makes a spiky, original and distinctive contribution to the existing literature on nationalism and nation-building in South Africa. It traverses several disciplines - political philosophy, historicised political science, and critical theory - and in doing so, reintroduces the particular case of African nationalism into the more general understanding of nations and nationalism. Chipkin uses lively, forceful prose to handle complex issues. - COLIN BUNDY, Green College, Oxford, UK This book is a major contribution to political theory, of democracy and of nationalism, drawing upon a perceptive analysis of South African experience. - GORAN THERBORN, University of Cambridge, UK
ISBN: 9781868144457
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
272 pages