On the Subject of Citizenship: Late Colonialism in the World Today

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

This volume brings together reflections on citizenship, political violence, race, ethnicity and gender, by some of the most critical voices of our times. Detailed and wide-ranging individual reflections, take the writings of prominent Ugandan political theorist Mahmood Mamdani as a touchstone for thinking about the world from Africa. Contributors apply this theory to argue that we cannot make sense of the political contentions of difference, identity and citizenship today without understanding the legacies of colonial rule on our world. Chapters examine the persistence of the past, and how we must reckon with its tragedies, its injustices, and its utopias in order to chart a new politics; the politics of possible futures that are more inclusive and more egalitarian, and that can think of difference in more equitable ways. In a time when the call to decolonize knowledge, and politics rings loud and clear, this is both a timely and a crucial intervention.

Reviews

In any studies of contemporary Africa and indeed the postcolonial world, Mahmood Mamdanis empirically grounded and theoretically illuminating scholarship occupies a central place. It is therefore inevitable for scholars to visit and revisit Mamdanis work as they reflect on current and pertinent issues of how colonialists ruled Africa, what social orders were laid out, how violence was deployed, how knowledge was colonized, and how the colonial impinged on the postcolonial. I have nothing but praise for this volume that is focused on Mamdanis ever relevant scholarship. Suren Pillay must be commended for assembling a stellar group of scholars to reflect on Mamdanis work in the advancement of scholarship on Africa in particular and the postcolonial world in general. * Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Professor and Chair of Epistemologies of the Global South and Vice-Dean for Research of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth, Germany *

Author Bio

Suren Pillay is Associate Professor and Senior Researcher at the DST-NRF Flagship in African Humanities, the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa.