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Zusatztext "As depressing as this conclusion is, the author makes a compelling case for his interpretation. He brilliantly weaves the present into the past, and explains convincingly the foundation of anxieties that prevail in Chatsworth." ---Surendra Bhana, Journal of Natal and Zulu History Informationen zum Autor Thomas Blom Hansen is professor of anthropology and the Reliance-Dhirubhai Ambani Professor of South Asian Studies at Stanford University, where he also directs the Center for South Asia. His books include The Saffron Wave and Wages of Violence (both Princeton). Klappentext "With profound insight, Hansen explores the struggles of South African Indians to take possession of their new political and cultural liberty since the end of apartheid. Showing how they are haunted by a past they cannot openly mourn and bereft of the ambiguous certainties once ensured by a racist state, this compelling and highly original book calls on us to rethink the complex challenges that attend the meaning of freedom everywhere." --Jean Comaroff, University of Chicago "This excellent book provides a subtle and convincingly argued analysis of the 'embarrassment' inherent in belonging to a community which was marginal-within-marginal to the South African mainstream. In exploring complicities and dependencies as well as forms of resistance, and in fusing together issues of politics, popular culture, and religion, it takes a substantial step beyond much of the literature on postapartheid South Africa." --Deborah James, London School of Economics and Political Science " Melancholia of Freedom is an extraordinarily powerful and eloquent account of postapartheid realities. Given the depth and breadth of this sensitive and insightful book, and the vast array of important issues covered, it will no doubt become a classic ethnographic text on contemporary South Africa." --Steven Robins, University of Stellenbosch Zusammenfassung Offers an analysis of the uncertainties, dreams, and anxieties that have accompanied postapartheid freedoms in Chatsworth, a formerly Indian township in Durban. This title tells the stories of ordinary Indians whose lives were racialized and framed by the township, and how these residents domesticated and inhabited this urban space. Inhaltsverzeichnis List of Illustrations ix Preface and Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Under the Gaze: Freedom and Race after Apartheid 3 Freedom and Sovereignty after Apartheid 9 Melancholia of Freedom 15 Between Irrelevance and Irreverence: "Our Culture" after Apartheid 17 Structure of the Book 20 Methods and Material 24 CHAPTER 1 Ethnicity by Fiat: The Remaking of Indian Life in South Africa 26 The Asiatic Question 27 The New Hygienic Indian 32 Census et Censura 35 The New Indian Social Body 38 Policing the Internal Frontier 46 Containing the Bush: Crime and Vigilantes in the Age of Democratic Policing 51 CHAPTER 2 Domesticity and Cultural Intimacy 59 From Kinship to Family 59 The New Indian Woman and the Family House 64 Tongues without Speech: Caste as Language Community 74 "Our Culture" as Embarrassment 77 Cultural Intimacy and Embarrassment: Charous and Lahnees 79 Class and Charou Names 82 Performing in the Gaze: The Indian Public Sphere 84 Joke-Work on a Saturday Morning 87 Comic Belief? Laughter and Cultural Intimacy 91 Charou 4 Eva: Domesticity Lost and Refound 95 CHAPTER 3 Charous and Ravans: A Story of Mutual Nonrecognition 97 AmaKula and amaZulu on the Colonial Estates 99 Durban! January 1949: "The Largest Race Riot in the World" 102 Cato Manor and the Urban Zulu 107 The Indian "1949 Syndrome" as a Social Text 110 The Syndrome Affirmed: Inanda 1985 116 Racism?s Two Bodies 119 Racial Practice! Indian-Style 123 Africans at Our Doorsteps 127 Somatic Anxieties 131 Nonrecognition and the Elusive Master 1...
