Michael Neocosmos

From "Foreign Natives" to "Native Foreigners". Explaining Xenophobia in Post-apartheid South Africa. 2nd Ed

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

The events of May 2008 in which 62 people were killed simply for being "foreign" and thousands were turned overnight into refugees shook the South African nation. This book is the first to attempt a comprehensive and rigorous explanation for those horrific events. It argues that xenophobia should be understood as a political discourse and practice. As such its historical development as well as the conditions of its existence must be elucidated in terms of the practices and prescriptions which structure the field of politics. In South Africa, the history of xenophobia is intimately connected to the manner in which citizenship has been conceived and fought over during the past fifty years at least. Migrant labour was de-nationalised by the apartheid state, while African nationalism saw the same migrant labour as the foundation of that oppressive system. Only those who could show a family connection with the colonial and apartheid formation of South Africa could claim citizenship at liberation. Others were excluded and seen as unjustified claimants to national resources. Xenophobiaís conditions of existence, the book argues, are to be found in the politics of post-apartheid nationalism where state prescriptions founded on indigeneity have been allowed to dominate uncontested in conditions of an overwhelmingly passive conception of citizenship. The de-politicisation of an urban population, which had been able to assert its agency during the 1980s through a discourse of human rights in particular, contributed to this passivity. Such state liberal politics have remained largely unchallenged. As in other cases of post-colonial transition in Africa, the hegemony of xenophobic discourse, the book contends, is to be sought in the specific character of the state consensus.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Codesria
• Seitenzahl: 188
• Erscheinungstermin: 2. Juni 2010
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 10mm
• Gewicht: 295g
• ISBN-13: 9782869783072
• ISBN-10: 2869783078
• Artikelnr.: 30511573

Autorenporträt

Michael Neocosmos is Emeritus Professor in Humanities at Rhodes University in South Africa and Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Connecticut Humanities Institute in the United States. He is the author of many articles and short books on development, politics, philosophy, and sociology with reference to Africa. He has written several books including From Foreign Natives to Native foreigners: explaining xenophobia in South Africa (Dakar: Codesria, 2010) and Thinking Freedom in Africa: toward a theory of emancipatory politics (Wits University Press 2016).This last book was awarded the Frantz Fanon Prize by the Caribbean Philosophical Association in 2017. He has just finished editing an Anthology of African Political Thought from Ancient Egypt to the Present to be published by Codesria. He is currently working on a book called The Dialectics of Emancipation and Africa: political theory and political practice to be published by Daraja Press. Michael Neocosmos est professeur émérite en sciences humaines à l'université de Rhodes en Afrique du Sud et professeur associé à l'université de Connecticut aux États Unis. Il est l'auteur de plusieurs ouvrages dont From Foreign Natives to Native foreigners : explaining xenophobia in South Africa (Dakar: Codesria, 2010) et Thinking Freedom in Africa: toward a theory of emancipatory politics (Wits University Press 2016).Ce dernier a reçu le prix Frantz Fanon de l'Association Philosophique des Caraïbes. Il vient de terminer une anthologie de la pensée politique africaine depuis l'Égypte ancienne à nos jours pour le Codesria. Il travaille sur un livre intitulé The Dialectics of Emancipation and Africa: political theory and political practice pour Daraja Press.