About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherOxford University Press, Incorporated

ISBN-100197619401

ISBN-139780197619407

eBay Product ID (ePID)2321072141

Product Key Features

Book TitleUneasy Embrace : Africa, India and the Spectre of Race

Number of Pages256 Pages

LanguageEnglish

Publication Year2021

TopicDiscrimination & Race Relations, Africa / General, General

GenreSocial Science, History

AuthorShobana Shankar

Book SeriesAfrican Arguments Ser.

FormatTrade Paperback

Dimensions

Item Height1 in

Item Weight14.3 Oz

Item Length5.6 in

Item Width8.6 in

Additional Product Features

Reviews"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 "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 "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, "the author has written a book that will serve as a touchstone for Africa-India relations. More than simply a transnational history, it is a call for India and Indians to be more aware of, and sensitive to, the thought and practice of Africans and the African diaspora, as a way of moving beyond a portrayal of Africa as a passive recipient of a "civilizing" India." -- NATHANIEL MATHEWS, International Journal of African Historical 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 "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 "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, "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

Dewey Edition23

TitleLeadingAn

Dewey Decimal303.4825406

Table Of ContentPreface Note on Terminology and Language Map Introduction Chapter 1 A Cultural Economy Between the Black Atlantic and Indian Ocean Atlantic African Thinkers Alongside Gandhi Great Migration Masala Blackness and Islam in West Africa Conclusion Chapter 2 Fears of Indian Independence Danger in a Growing Diaspora Desires for Cultural Independence India's Eyes towards the West Conclusion Chapter 3 Race as Postcolonial Strategy India's Strange Failure Humanizing India The Birth of Afro-Dravidian Studies Conclusion Chapter 4 Third World Science: Diasporic Dreams and Disillusionment Abdus Salam's West African Tutelage Sectarian conflict and South Asian Diaspora Foundation of the ICTP Pan-African Power Surprising Victory for Indigenous Knowledge Chapter 5 Hinduism's Black Atlantic Itinerary Modern Mysticism Ghanaian Guru Gone Global Chapter 6 Négritude Beats Bollywood Indouphilie, an Entertainment Industry Négritude's Critical Gaze Codifying African Classics: The Move Away from Indian Aesthetics Projections of Pride Conclusion

SynopsisThe entwined histories of Blacks and Indians defy easy explanation. From Ghanaian protests over Gandhi statues to American Vice President Kamala Harris's story, this relationship - notwithstanding moments of common struggle - seethes with conflicts that reveal how race reverberates throughout the modern world.Shobana Shankar's groundbreaking intellectual history tackles the controversial question of how Africans and Indians make and unmake 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 widening Indian networks in West Africa and the Black Atlantic, forcing a racial reckoning over the course of the twentieth century. While decolonization brought Africans and Indians together to challenge Euro-American white supremacy, discord over caste, religion, sex and skin color simmered beneath the rhetoric of Afro-Asian solidarity. This book examines the cultural movements, including Pan-Africanism and popular devotionalism, through which Africans and Indians made race consciousness, alongside economic cooperation, a moral priority. Yet rising wealth and nationalist amnesia now threaten this postcolonial ethos. Calls to dismantle statues, from Dakar to Delhi, are not mere symbolism. They express new solidarities which seek to salvage dissenting histories and to preserve the possibility of alternative futures., The entwined histories of Blacks and Indians defy easy explanation. From Ghanaian protests over Gandhi statues to American Vice President Kamala Harris's story, this relationship--notwithstanding moments of common struggle--seethes with conflicts that reveal how race reverberates throughout the modern world. Shobana Shankar's groundbreaking intellectual history tackles the controversial question of how Africans and Indians make and unmake 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 widening Indian networks in West Africa and the Black Atlantic, forcing a racial reckoning over the course of the twentieth century. While decolonization brought Africans and Indians together to challenge Euro-American white supremacy, discord over caste, religion, sex and skin color simmered beneath the rhetoric of Afro-Asian solidarity. This book examines the cultural movements, including Pan-Africanism and popular devotionalism, through which Africans and Indians made race consciousness, alongside economic cooperation, a moral priority. Yet rising wealth and nationalist amnesia now threaten this postcolonial ethos. Calls to dismantle statues, from Dakar to Delhi, are not mere symbolism. They express new solidarities which seek to salvage dissenting histories and to preserve the possibility of alternative futures, A definitive cultural and political history of how race and racialization have brought Africans and Indians together, yet also driven them apart.