Primal Figures: Muslims in the SA Imagination: From slavery to post-apartheid - Softcover

Baderoon, Gabeba

Softcover

ISBN 10: 186814769X ISBN 13: 9781868147694

Publisher: Wits University Press, 2014

Synopsis

How do Muslims fit into South Africa's well-known narrative of colonialism, apartheid, and postapartheid? South Africa is known for apartheid, but the country's foundation was laid by 176 years of slavery from 1658 to 1834, which formed a crucible of war, genocide, and systemic sexual violence that continues to shape the country today. Enslaved people from East Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, many of whom were Muslim, would eventually constitute the majority of the population of the colony. Drawing on an extensive popular and official archive, Regarding Muslims analyzes the role of Muslims from South Africa's founding moments to the contemporary period and points to the resonance of these discussions elsewhere. It argues that the 350-year archive of images documenting the presence of Muslims in South Africa is central to understanding the formation of concepts of race, sexuality, and belonging. In contrast to the themes of extremism and alienation that dominate Western portrayals of Muslims, Regarding Muslims explores an extensive repertoire of picturesque Muslim figures in South African popular culture, which oscillates with more disquieting images that occasionally burst into prominence during moments of crisis. This pattern is illustrated through analyses of etymology, popular culture, visual art, jokes, bodily practices, oral narratives, and literature. The book ends with the complex vision of Islam conveyed in the postapartheid period.

About this title

About the Author:

Gabeba Baderoon is a South African poet and scholar and the author of the poetry collections, The Dream in the Next Body and A Hundred Silences, and the monograph Regarding Muslims: from slavery to post-apartheid (Wits, 2014). In 2014, her short story "The Year of Sleeping Badly" was selected as one of the "Best Short Stories of South Africa's Democracy." Baderoon received the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry and held the Guest Writer Fellowship at the Nordic Africa Institute in 2005. She is a member of the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund, and teaches Women's Studies and African Studies at Pennsylvania State University. See www.gabeba.com for further details about her work.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 186814769X
• ISBN 13: 9781868147694
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224