J. Harmon Africa-Asia 2018.pdf (original) (raw)
Related papers
(Dis)unity in diversity: How common beliefs about ethnicity benefit the white Mauritian elite
White Africans are particularly associated with the troubles South Africa and Zimbabwe have faced throughout their histories. The story of the Franco-Mauritians, the white elite of Mauritius, and how they have fared during more than forty years since the Indian Ocean island gained independence, is much less known. However, their case is relevant as a distinctive example when attempting to understand white Africans in postcolonial settings. Unlike whites elsewhere on the continent, Franco-Mauritians did not apply brute force in order to defend their position in the face of independence. Yet the society that emerged from the struggle over independence is one shaped by dominant beliefs about ethnicity. As this article shows, despite a number of inverse effects Franco-Mauritians have benefited from this unexpected twist, and part of the explanation for their ability to maintain their elite position lies therefore in the complex reality of ethnic diversity in postcolonial Mauritius.
South Asian Diaspora, 2018
In today’s western multicultural societies, Eurocentric notions of ‘black’ and ‘white’ have polarized the debate about racial relations and effaced the complexities of interaction between South Asian migrant communities and people of other ethnic and racial backgrounds. This special issue is geared toward exploring how the complexity of contemporary race relations between the South Asian and the African communities, as well as its legacy in Africa, the Caribbean, and the India Ocean, find expression through literary and cultural narratives. Engaging with a variety of colonial and postcolonial contexts – namely Mauritius, South Africa, Bengal, Barbados, Kenya, and Trinidad – our contributors attempt to address gaps in the exploration of race relations from within the South Asian diasporic imaginary and to understand race relations in the context of British colonial-capitalist expansion and of its postcolonial and global inflections.
Polanyi Goes to Mauritius: Economy and Society in the Postcolony
Explorations in Economic Anthropology: Key Issues and Critical Reflections. Edited by Deema Kaneff and Kirsten W. Endres, 2021
Difficult to categorise in terms of regional societal formations, the Creole societies created by plantation slavery offer an intriguing mix of cultural streams – European, creolised African, Indian, Chinese, sometimes Levantine. While plantocracies still dominate economically in some of these societies, they have diversified economically. In Mauritius, where the largest ethnic group are Hindus of North Indian origin, new economic elites and rising classes have emerged since independence in 1968. Although Hindus in Mauritius are politically dominant, they cannot be considered an economic elite. Arriving as indentured labourers, they were propertyless upon termination of their contract, and many continue to make a living as smallplanters or plantation workers. There has nevertheless been considerable economic mobility among Mauritian Hindus in the last decades, and this chapter compares their economic practices and values to those of the Creoles, relating the discussion to Hann's conceptualisation of Eurasia.
Glimpses of Indian Culture in Modern Mauritius
ShodhaSamhita : Journal of Fundamental & Comparative Research, 2023
Indian diaspora is the largest diaspora in the world. India is one of the countries with the most significant global migration. Around 30 million Indian-origin people are residing all over the world. India has had a long history of migration since ancient times. In the old times, Indians migrated to other countries to spread their religion. Most Indians migrated during the colonial period as indentured labourers. Indian immigration to Mauritius started in 1834 when the British abolished slavery. Many Indians migrated to Mauritius as indentured labourers, some of whom were free passengers. Indenture labourers tried to preserve their own culture in Mauritius. Now Mauritius has the most prominent Hindu population. Indo-Mauritian people celebrate all Indian festivals collectively. The present paper discusses the impact of the transnational culture in Mauritius. One of the significant things is understanding the situation of the Indian language in Mauritius.
Over the last 15 years, relations between Africans and Asians have multiplied, beginning with booming trade and increasing investments in Africa from Asia, that have been supplemented by a broad range of recently emerging social, political and cultural interactions. Globalization not only entails the rise of large-scale economic and political communities but also an historic increase in identities born of human travel and the concepts and ideas stemming from it. An intensification in market-orientated economic interests between Asia and Africa has simultaneously given birth to significant inter-regional migrations including African traders in Guangzhou and Yiwu in China, African students in Kuala Lumpur, Chinese investors across Africa, and Vietnamese contract workers in Angola. We can see the use of Chinese traditional medicine in African urban settings and can ask about implications of Chinese goods being traded. What are effects on consumption patterns in rural contexts? In some instances, regional dynamics also spill-over into transregional relations. Relations between states are re-negotiated on all political levels and in all policy fields, accompanied and simultaneously challenged by new forms of collaboration of transnational civil society networks, including in matters such as environmental protection. Additionally, alternative geographic imaginaries of community are re-activated, not least of all the Indian Ocean and the various Africa-Asia linkages it has produced. Such relationships also overlap with earlier historical patterns of Africa-Asia interaction -both real and imagined -including transmigrations such as Arabic maritime conduits and the role of colonial powers in bringing Asian labour to Africa.
Africa-Asia Relations: Some Historical, Cultural, and Linguistic Connections
Ansted University, Penang, Malaysia, on August, 2001
1. Abstract In this talk I outline some historical, cultural, and linguistic links and similarities between some African and Asian societies. I then show that despite these not-so-tenuous historical, cultural, and linguistic relations between Africa and Asia, there has not been as much interaction and cooperation between the two largest continents as compared to between these continents and other parts of the world. I will then propose a more global, universalist framework in which African and Asian institutions can cooperate to tackle ...
Post-Colonialism: The So-Called Malaise Creole in Mauritius
2014
Mauritius is a former French and British colony in the Indian Ocean. Now, this island has become a multicultural and multi-ethnic society due to several waves of immigration from Europe, Africa and Asia, all through the past three centuries. Each wave of immigration brought in new people along with their cultures, religions and languages. Nevertheless, not all the migrants settled in Mauritius of their own accord. Some were slaves; some came as free workers and others as colonisers. Today, in Mauritius, the differences in the arrival of modern Mauritians’ ancestors are still felt like balls and chains for some communities, or else some sub-communities. Colonisers came to Mauritius bringing in slaves, hence starting imperialism, or in other words, colonialism, to qualify the domination of so-called strong people over socalled weaker people. That situation paved the way for the foundation of Mauritius. Without colonisation and colonialism, Mauritius might not have existed as it is tod...
Afro-Asian Worlds: Introduction
2016
Asia-Africa Conference is an iconic photograph of a rickshaw driver looking up at a large billboard, featuring a map of the 29 participating nations stretching from China to Ghana. Bandung was once a colonial resort town, nestled in the mountainous tea plantations of West Java, and gained notoriety during the Indonesian Revolution, when Indonesians burned down part of their own town in response to the Dutch reoccupation of the city. Over six days in April, however, the modernist hillside bungalows housed not wealthy Dutchmen but the leaders of Asia's largest powers. The city itself was overrun with diplomats, statesmen, journalists, and photographers enacting a spectacular moment of resurgence for nations emerging from colonial rule. In his opening address, President Sukarno roused conference delegates with a fiery oratory to mobilize the spiritual, moral, and political strength of Asia and Africa for peace in a world "made bitter by fear." 1 Amidst the tumultuous years of the early Cold War, this was a *We would like to extend our utmost thanks to our collaborators in the Afro-Asian Networks Collective-the contributors of this special issue as well as Leslie James-for the many conversations that led to this special issue and the project as a whole. Our collaborative research week and ensuing workshops would not have been possible without a research network grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. 1 Asia-Africa speaks from Bandung (Djakarta: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Indonesia, 1955), 19.