{"id":6484,"date":"2010-04-06T02:40:08","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T02:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=6484"},"modified":"2010-12-04T00:10:19","modified_gmt":"2010-12-04T00:10:19","slug":"the-half-caste-and-the-dream-of-secularism-and-freedom-insights-from-east-african-asian-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=6484","title":{"rendered":"The half-caste and the dream of secularism and freedom: Insights from East African Asian writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The half-caste and the dream of secularism and freedom: Insights from East African Asian writing<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Scrutiny2<\/a>
\nVolume 13, Issue 2<\/a> (September 2008)
\npages 16 – 35
\nDOI: 10.1080\/18125440802485987<\/p>\n

Dan Ojwang<\/a><\/strong>, Senior Lecturer of African Literature
\nUniversity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa<\/em><\/p>\n

Focusing on the work of Bahadur Tejani<\/a>, Peter Nazareth<\/a> and Moyez Vassanji<\/a>, this article attempts to account for the popularity of tropes of miscegenation<\/a> in the literature produced by East African writers of South Asian descent. The appearance of the figure of the half-caste<\/a> in this body of writing is especially striking given the fact that miscegenation was much derided in colonial discourse and viewed in fear by traditionalists within the diaspora who saw in it a violation of the integrity of communal boundaries. This article argues that the invocation of miscegenation, and related ideas, was an attempt on the part of this group of writers to reconsider the meanings of citizenship and belonging along the broad lines of secular humanism. In some important sense, the halfcaste symbolized a quest for freedom from the authority of tradition and the naturalization of cultural difference during colonialism.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read or purchase the article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The half-caste and the dream of secularism and freedom: Insights from East African Asian writing Scrutiny2 Volume 13, Issue 2 (September 2008) pages 16 – 35 DOI: 10.1080\/18125440802485987 Dan Ojwang, Senior Lecturer of African Literature University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa Focusing on the work of Bahadur Tejani, Peter Nazareth and Moyez Vassanji, this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1295,12,1196,8],"tags":[20761,2717,2716,2719,2718,2715],"class_list":["post-6484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","tag-africa","tag-bahadur-tejani","tag-dan-ojwang","tag-moyez-vassanji","tag-peter-nazareth","tag-scrutiny2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}