unreasonable histories by christopher j. lee
TRANSCRIPT
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 143
983150983137983156983145983158983145983155983149 983149983157983148983156983145983154983137983139983145983137983148 983148983145983158983141983155 983137983150983140 983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983137983148983151983143983145983139983137983148
983145983149983137983143983145983150983137983156983145983151983150 983145983150 983138983154983145983156983145983155983144 983137983142983154983145983139983137 983139983144983154983145983155983156983151983152983144983141983154 983146 983148983141983141
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 243
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 343
Chrisopher J Lee
Duke University Press983140983157983154983144983105983149 983105983150983140 983116983151983150983140983151983150
2014
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 443
copy 2014 Duke Universiy Press
All righs reserved
Prined in he Unied Saes o America on acid-ree paper
Designed by Krisina Kacheleypese in Chaparral Pro by seng Inormaion Sysems Inc
Library o Congress Caaloging-in-Publicaion Daa
Lee Chrisopher J
Unreasonable hisories naivism muliracial lives and he
genealogical imaginaion in Briish Arica Chrisopher J Lee
pages cm mdash (Radical perspecives)
Includes bibliographical reerences and index
983145983155983138983150 978-0-8223-5713-1 (cloh alk paper)
983145983155983138983150 978-0-8223-5725-4 (pbk alk paper)
1 Grea BriainmdashColoniesmdashAricamdashAdminisraion2 Grea BriainmdashColoniesmdashRace relaions
3 Racially mixed peoplemdashAricamdashHisory
I ile II Series Radical perspecives
98314098315632598311644 2015
9689004prime05mdashdc23 2014020690
983145983155983138 983150 978-0-8223-7637-8 (e-book)
Cover ar Guy illim Petros Village Malawi 27 2006 (op)
Petros Village Malawi 9 2006 (botom) Couresy o he aris
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983110983151983154 983149983161 983152983105983154983141983150983156983155
Jacqueline Vaughan Lee and Chong Sung Lee
983105983150983140 983145983150 983149983141983149983151983154983161 983151983110Franccedilois Manchuelle (1953ndash96)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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A Noe on Illusraions ix
A Noe on erminology xi
Acknowledgmens xiii
983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 Colonialism Naivism and he
Genealogical Imaginaion 1
23
Lower-Strata Lives Enduring Regional Practices
and the Prose of Colonial Nativism
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 1 Idioms o Place and Hisory 27
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 2 Adaimarsquos Sory 53983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 3 Coming o Age 72
- 91
Genealogical States and Colonial Bare Life
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 4 Te Naive Undefined 95
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 5 Commissions and Circumvenion 111
141
Regional Histories Uncustomary Politics and the Genealogical Imagination983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 6 Racism as a Weapon o he Weak 147
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 7 Loyaly and Disregard 175
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 8 Urbanizaion and Spaial Belonging 207
983139983151983150983139983116983157983155983145983151983150 Genealogies o Colonialism 233
Noes 249
Bibliography 305
Index 337
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book conains a number of phoographs as illusraions many of
which are rom he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom I have also
aken phoographs of various colonial-era documens from he Naional Archives o Malawi he Naional Archives o Zimbabwe and he Naional
Archives o Zambia Alhough many illusraions are images o people and
places discussed in he narraive a selec number are inended or evoca-
ive purposesmdasho capure he appearance amosphere and atiudes o a
cerain ime and place hus providing ways o seeing rom he pas Tis
book consequenly uses phoographs as a unique and serious source for
scholars o siuae hisorical narraives visually (Te work o W G Sebald
is also an influence) However given heir origin some images may be con-sidered Eurocenric in perspecive I uilize hese illusraions wih his
cavea in mind Alhough I offer commenary wih each illusraion I an-
icipae ha readers will be sensiive o boh he explici and suggesive
uses o hese images and will bear in mind he criical acknowledgmen o
heir limiaions as saed here wihou my having o repea his posiion
hroughou he ex
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book addresses he hisories o muliracial people in Briish Cenral
Arica Te erm multiracial (designaing more han one race) is commonly
employed by sociologiss and oher scholars oday insead o more daedexpressions such as mulatto andmixed race I consequenly use multiracial
in preerence over he oher wo erms When I do apply he ambiguous
descripions mixed ormixed race I oen place he words in quoes o high-
ligh my criical view o hese overused and analyically unhelpul adjec-
ives which end o obscure boh personal and social hisories as argued
in his book I similarly place pejoraive expressions such as half-caste in
quoes In he conex o souhern Arica he erm Coloured is oen ui-
lized I use i as well hough wih cauion and specificiy since his bookseeks o develop a broader comparaive conversaion beween experiences
found in souhern Africa elsewhere in Africa and oher pars of he world
Te erm Coloured is conroversial in some quarersmdashparicularly in Souh
Arica where i is viewed as par o an aparheid-era erminology Provi-
sional soluions by oher scholars have included placing he erm in quoes
(ldquoColouredrdquo) making i lower-case (coloured) and qualiying i wih prea-
ory language (so-called Coloured) all which atemp o unsetle a sric
racial meaning Tough I am deeply sympaheic o such poliics his bookexercises he erm in capialized orm given is common hisorical use in
his way and due o he ac ha lower-case and quoed orms do no nec-
essarily saeguard i rom more problemaic pracices and undersandings
Mos significanly his book emphasizes regionally specific hisorical
erms such as Anglo- African Euro- African Eur- African and Eurafrican when
appropriae Tese sel-ashioned expressions ound in he Rhodesias and
Nyasaland during he colonial period are qualiaively differen rom he
more generic sae-sancioned Coloured as addressed in he chapers haollow Many regional inellecuals and organizaions criicized his later
expression and I have aken hese local views seriously Tis book here-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xii 983105 983150983151983156983141 983151983150 983156983141983154983149983145983150983151983116983151983143983161
ore works agains he idea ha Coloured Anglo- African and Eurafrican are
inerchangeable synonymous erms Tey insead reflec differen ses o
poliics and layered hisorical experiences marked by paricular familial
culural and imperial claims indicaed hrough he prefixes of Eur and Anglo as well as he base word African In sum his book employs when ap-
propriae a disinc hisorical erminology o emphasize local and regional
orms o sel-consrucion and creaive agency as a provisional suberuge
for he predicamen of uncriically reproducing colonial sae caegories
and he poliical effecs hey can have
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 343
Chrisopher J Lee
Duke University Press983140983157983154983144983105983149 983105983150983140 983116983151983150983140983151983150
2014
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 443
copy 2014 Duke Universiy Press
All righs reserved
Prined in he Unied Saes o America on acid-ree paper
Designed by Krisina Kacheleypese in Chaparral Pro by seng Inormaion Sysems Inc
Library o Congress Caaloging-in-Publicaion Daa
Lee Chrisopher J
Unreasonable hisories naivism muliracial lives and he
genealogical imaginaion in Briish Arica Chrisopher J Lee
pages cm mdash (Radical perspecives)
Includes bibliographical reerences and index
983145983155983138983150 978-0-8223-5713-1 (cloh alk paper)
983145983155983138983150 978-0-8223-5725-4 (pbk alk paper)
1 Grea BriainmdashColoniesmdashAricamdashAdminisraion2 Grea BriainmdashColoniesmdashRace relaions
3 Racially mixed peoplemdashAricamdashHisory
I ile II Series Radical perspecives
98314098315632598311644 2015
9689004prime05mdashdc23 2014020690
983145983155983138 983150 978-0-8223-7637-8 (e-book)
Cover ar Guy illim Petros Village Malawi 27 2006 (op)
Petros Village Malawi 9 2006 (botom) Couresy o he aris
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 543
983110983151983154 983149983161 983152983105983154983141983150983156983155
Jacqueline Vaughan Lee and Chong Sung Lee
983105983150983140 983145983150 983149983141983149983151983154983161 983151983110Franccedilois Manchuelle (1953ndash96)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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A Noe on Illusraions ix
A Noe on erminology xi
Acknowledgmens xiii
983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 Colonialism Naivism and he
Genealogical Imaginaion 1
23
Lower-Strata Lives Enduring Regional Practices
and the Prose of Colonial Nativism
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 1 Idioms o Place and Hisory 27
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 2 Adaimarsquos Sory 53983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 3 Coming o Age 72
- 91
Genealogical States and Colonial Bare Life
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 4 Te Naive Undefined 95
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 5 Commissions and Circumvenion 111
141
Regional Histories Uncustomary Politics and the Genealogical Imagination983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 6 Racism as a Weapon o he Weak 147
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 7 Loyaly and Disregard 175
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 8 Urbanizaion and Spaial Belonging 207
983139983151983150983139983116983157983155983145983151983150 Genealogies o Colonialism 233
Noes 249
Bibliography 305
Index 337
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book conains a number of phoographs as illusraions many of
which are rom he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom I have also
aken phoographs of various colonial-era documens from he Naional Archives o Malawi he Naional Archives o Zimbabwe and he Naional
Archives o Zambia Alhough many illusraions are images o people and
places discussed in he narraive a selec number are inended or evoca-
ive purposesmdasho capure he appearance amosphere and atiudes o a
cerain ime and place hus providing ways o seeing rom he pas Tis
book consequenly uses phoographs as a unique and serious source for
scholars o siuae hisorical narraives visually (Te work o W G Sebald
is also an influence) However given heir origin some images may be con-sidered Eurocenric in perspecive I uilize hese illusraions wih his
cavea in mind Alhough I offer commenary wih each illusraion I an-
icipae ha readers will be sensiive o boh he explici and suggesive
uses o hese images and will bear in mind he criical acknowledgmen o
heir limiaions as saed here wihou my having o repea his posiion
hroughou he ex
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book addresses he hisories o muliracial people in Briish Cenral
Arica Te erm multiracial (designaing more han one race) is commonly
employed by sociologiss and oher scholars oday insead o more daedexpressions such as mulatto andmixed race I consequenly use multiracial
in preerence over he oher wo erms When I do apply he ambiguous
descripions mixed ormixed race I oen place he words in quoes o high-
ligh my criical view o hese overused and analyically unhelpul adjec-
ives which end o obscure boh personal and social hisories as argued
in his book I similarly place pejoraive expressions such as half-caste in
quoes In he conex o souhern Arica he erm Coloured is oen ui-
lized I use i as well hough wih cauion and specificiy since his bookseeks o develop a broader comparaive conversaion beween experiences
found in souhern Africa elsewhere in Africa and oher pars of he world
Te erm Coloured is conroversial in some quarersmdashparicularly in Souh
Arica where i is viewed as par o an aparheid-era erminology Provi-
sional soluions by oher scholars have included placing he erm in quoes
(ldquoColouredrdquo) making i lower-case (coloured) and qualiying i wih prea-
ory language (so-called Coloured) all which atemp o unsetle a sric
racial meaning Tough I am deeply sympaheic o such poliics his bookexercises he erm in capialized orm given is common hisorical use in
his way and due o he ac ha lower-case and quoed orms do no nec-
essarily saeguard i rom more problemaic pracices and undersandings
Mos significanly his book emphasizes regionally specific hisorical
erms such as Anglo- African Euro- African Eur- African and Eurafrican when
appropriae Tese sel-ashioned expressions ound in he Rhodesias and
Nyasaland during he colonial period are qualiaively differen rom he
more generic sae-sancioned Coloured as addressed in he chapers haollow Many regional inellecuals and organizaions criicized his later
expression and I have aken hese local views seriously Tis book here-
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xii 983105 983150983151983156983141 983151983150 983156983141983154983149983145983150983151983116983151983143983161
ore works agains he idea ha Coloured Anglo- African and Eurafrican are
inerchangeable synonymous erms Tey insead reflec differen ses o
poliics and layered hisorical experiences marked by paricular familial
culural and imperial claims indicaed hrough he prefixes of Eur and Anglo as well as he base word African In sum his book employs when ap-
propriae a disinc hisorical erminology o emphasize local and regional
orms o sel-consrucion and creaive agency as a provisional suberuge
for he predicamen of uncriically reproducing colonial sae caegories
and he poliical effecs hey can have
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 1343
xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Chrisopher J Lee
Duke University Press983140983157983154983144983105983149 983105983150983140 983116983151983150983140983151983150
2014
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 443
copy 2014 Duke Universiy Press
All righs reserved
Prined in he Unied Saes o America on acid-ree paper
Designed by Krisina Kacheleypese in Chaparral Pro by seng Inormaion Sysems Inc
Library o Congress Caaloging-in-Publicaion Daa
Lee Chrisopher J
Unreasonable hisories naivism muliracial lives and he
genealogical imaginaion in Briish Arica Chrisopher J Lee
pages cm mdash (Radical perspecives)
Includes bibliographical reerences and index
983145983155983138983150 978-0-8223-5713-1 (cloh alk paper)
983145983155983138983150 978-0-8223-5725-4 (pbk alk paper)
1 Grea BriainmdashColoniesmdashAricamdashAdminisraion2 Grea BriainmdashColoniesmdashRace relaions
3 Racially mixed peoplemdashAricamdashHisory
I ile II Series Radical perspecives
98314098315632598311644 2015
9689004prime05mdashdc23 2014020690
983145983155983138 983150 978-0-8223-7637-8 (e-book)
Cover ar Guy illim Petros Village Malawi 27 2006 (op)
Petros Village Malawi 9 2006 (botom) Couresy o he aris
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983110983151983154 983149983161 983152983105983154983141983150983156983155
Jacqueline Vaughan Lee and Chong Sung Lee
983105983150983140 983145983150 983149983141983149983151983154983161 983151983110Franccedilois Manchuelle (1953ndash96)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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A Noe on Illusraions ix
A Noe on erminology xi
Acknowledgmens xiii
983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 Colonialism Naivism and he
Genealogical Imaginaion 1
23
Lower-Strata Lives Enduring Regional Practices
and the Prose of Colonial Nativism
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 1 Idioms o Place and Hisory 27
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 2 Adaimarsquos Sory 53983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 3 Coming o Age 72
- 91
Genealogical States and Colonial Bare Life
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 4 Te Naive Undefined 95
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 5 Commissions and Circumvenion 111
141
Regional Histories Uncustomary Politics and the Genealogical Imagination983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 6 Racism as a Weapon o he Weak 147
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 7 Loyaly and Disregard 175
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 8 Urbanizaion and Spaial Belonging 207
983139983151983150983139983116983157983155983145983151983150 Genealogies o Colonialism 233
Noes 249
Bibliography 305
Index 337
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Tis book conains a number of phoographs as illusraions many of
which are rom he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom I have also
aken phoographs of various colonial-era documens from he Naional Archives o Malawi he Naional Archives o Zimbabwe and he Naional
Archives o Zambia Alhough many illusraions are images o people and
places discussed in he narraive a selec number are inended or evoca-
ive purposesmdasho capure he appearance amosphere and atiudes o a
cerain ime and place hus providing ways o seeing rom he pas Tis
book consequenly uses phoographs as a unique and serious source for
scholars o siuae hisorical narraives visually (Te work o W G Sebald
is also an influence) However given heir origin some images may be con-sidered Eurocenric in perspecive I uilize hese illusraions wih his
cavea in mind Alhough I offer commenary wih each illusraion I an-
icipae ha readers will be sensiive o boh he explici and suggesive
uses o hese images and will bear in mind he criical acknowledgmen o
heir limiaions as saed here wihou my having o repea his posiion
hroughou he ex
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book addresses he hisories o muliracial people in Briish Cenral
Arica Te erm multiracial (designaing more han one race) is commonly
employed by sociologiss and oher scholars oday insead o more daedexpressions such as mulatto andmixed race I consequenly use multiracial
in preerence over he oher wo erms When I do apply he ambiguous
descripions mixed ormixed race I oen place he words in quoes o high-
ligh my criical view o hese overused and analyically unhelpul adjec-
ives which end o obscure boh personal and social hisories as argued
in his book I similarly place pejoraive expressions such as half-caste in
quoes In he conex o souhern Arica he erm Coloured is oen ui-
lized I use i as well hough wih cauion and specificiy since his bookseeks o develop a broader comparaive conversaion beween experiences
found in souhern Africa elsewhere in Africa and oher pars of he world
Te erm Coloured is conroversial in some quarersmdashparicularly in Souh
Arica where i is viewed as par o an aparheid-era erminology Provi-
sional soluions by oher scholars have included placing he erm in quoes
(ldquoColouredrdquo) making i lower-case (coloured) and qualiying i wih prea-
ory language (so-called Coloured) all which atemp o unsetle a sric
racial meaning Tough I am deeply sympaheic o such poliics his bookexercises he erm in capialized orm given is common hisorical use in
his way and due o he ac ha lower-case and quoed orms do no nec-
essarily saeguard i rom more problemaic pracices and undersandings
Mos significanly his book emphasizes regionally specific hisorical
erms such as Anglo- African Euro- African Eur- African and Eurafrican when
appropriae Tese sel-ashioned expressions ound in he Rhodesias and
Nyasaland during he colonial period are qualiaively differen rom he
more generic sae-sancioned Coloured as addressed in he chapers haollow Many regional inellecuals and organizaions criicized his later
expression and I have aken hese local views seriously Tis book here-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xii 983105 983150983151983156983141 983151983150 983156983141983154983149983145983150983151983116983151983143983161
ore works agains he idea ha Coloured Anglo- African and Eurafrican are
inerchangeable synonymous erms Tey insead reflec differen ses o
poliics and layered hisorical experiences marked by paricular familial
culural and imperial claims indicaed hrough he prefixes of Eur and Anglo as well as he base word African In sum his book employs when ap-
propriae a disinc hisorical erminology o emphasize local and regional
orms o sel-consrucion and creaive agency as a provisional suberuge
for he predicamen of uncriically reproducing colonial sae caegories
and he poliical effecs hey can have
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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copy 2014 Duke Universiy Press
All righs reserved
Prined in he Unied Saes o America on acid-ree paper
Designed by Krisina Kacheleypese in Chaparral Pro by seng Inormaion Sysems Inc
Library o Congress Caaloging-in-Publicaion Daa
Lee Chrisopher J
Unreasonable hisories naivism muliracial lives and he
genealogical imaginaion in Briish Arica Chrisopher J Lee
pages cm mdash (Radical perspecives)
Includes bibliographical reerences and index
983145983155983138983150 978-0-8223-5713-1 (cloh alk paper)
983145983155983138983150 978-0-8223-5725-4 (pbk alk paper)
1 Grea BriainmdashColoniesmdashAricamdashAdminisraion2 Grea BriainmdashColoniesmdashRace relaions
3 Racially mixed peoplemdashAricamdashHisory
I ile II Series Radical perspecives
98314098315632598311644 2015
9689004prime05mdashdc23 2014020690
983145983155983138 983150 978-0-8223-7637-8 (e-book)
Cover ar Guy illim Petros Village Malawi 27 2006 (op)
Petros Village Malawi 9 2006 (botom) Couresy o he aris
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983110983151983154 983149983161 983152983105983154983141983150983156983155
Jacqueline Vaughan Lee and Chong Sung Lee
983105983150983140 983145983150 983149983141983149983151983154983161 983151983110Franccedilois Manchuelle (1953ndash96)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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A Noe on Illusraions ix
A Noe on erminology xi
Acknowledgmens xiii
983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 Colonialism Naivism and he
Genealogical Imaginaion 1
23
Lower-Strata Lives Enduring Regional Practices
and the Prose of Colonial Nativism
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 1 Idioms o Place and Hisory 27
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 2 Adaimarsquos Sory 53983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 3 Coming o Age 72
- 91
Genealogical States and Colonial Bare Life
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 4 Te Naive Undefined 95
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 5 Commissions and Circumvenion 111
141
Regional Histories Uncustomary Politics and the Genealogical Imagination983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 6 Racism as a Weapon o he Weak 147
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 7 Loyaly and Disregard 175
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 8 Urbanizaion and Spaial Belonging 207
983139983151983150983139983116983157983155983145983151983150 Genealogies o Colonialism 233
Noes 249
Bibliography 305
Index 337
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book conains a number of phoographs as illusraions many of
which are rom he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom I have also
aken phoographs of various colonial-era documens from he Naional Archives o Malawi he Naional Archives o Zimbabwe and he Naional
Archives o Zambia Alhough many illusraions are images o people and
places discussed in he narraive a selec number are inended or evoca-
ive purposesmdasho capure he appearance amosphere and atiudes o a
cerain ime and place hus providing ways o seeing rom he pas Tis
book consequenly uses phoographs as a unique and serious source for
scholars o siuae hisorical narraives visually (Te work o W G Sebald
is also an influence) However given heir origin some images may be con-sidered Eurocenric in perspecive I uilize hese illusraions wih his
cavea in mind Alhough I offer commenary wih each illusraion I an-
icipae ha readers will be sensiive o boh he explici and suggesive
uses o hese images and will bear in mind he criical acknowledgmen o
heir limiaions as saed here wihou my having o repea his posiion
hroughou he ex
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book addresses he hisories o muliracial people in Briish Cenral
Arica Te erm multiracial (designaing more han one race) is commonly
employed by sociologiss and oher scholars oday insead o more daedexpressions such as mulatto andmixed race I consequenly use multiracial
in preerence over he oher wo erms When I do apply he ambiguous
descripions mixed ormixed race I oen place he words in quoes o high-
ligh my criical view o hese overused and analyically unhelpul adjec-
ives which end o obscure boh personal and social hisories as argued
in his book I similarly place pejoraive expressions such as half-caste in
quoes In he conex o souhern Arica he erm Coloured is oen ui-
lized I use i as well hough wih cauion and specificiy since his bookseeks o develop a broader comparaive conversaion beween experiences
found in souhern Africa elsewhere in Africa and oher pars of he world
Te erm Coloured is conroversial in some quarersmdashparicularly in Souh
Arica where i is viewed as par o an aparheid-era erminology Provi-
sional soluions by oher scholars have included placing he erm in quoes
(ldquoColouredrdquo) making i lower-case (coloured) and qualiying i wih prea-
ory language (so-called Coloured) all which atemp o unsetle a sric
racial meaning Tough I am deeply sympaheic o such poliics his bookexercises he erm in capialized orm given is common hisorical use in
his way and due o he ac ha lower-case and quoed orms do no nec-
essarily saeguard i rom more problemaic pracices and undersandings
Mos significanly his book emphasizes regionally specific hisorical
erms such as Anglo- African Euro- African Eur- African and Eurafrican when
appropriae Tese sel-ashioned expressions ound in he Rhodesias and
Nyasaland during he colonial period are qualiaively differen rom he
more generic sae-sancioned Coloured as addressed in he chapers haollow Many regional inellecuals and organizaions criicized his later
expression and I have aken hese local views seriously Tis book here-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xii 983105 983150983151983156983141 983151983150 983156983141983154983149983145983150983151983116983151983143983161
ore works agains he idea ha Coloured Anglo- African and Eurafrican are
inerchangeable synonymous erms Tey insead reflec differen ses o
poliics and layered hisorical experiences marked by paricular familial
culural and imperial claims indicaed hrough he prefixes of Eur and Anglo as well as he base word African In sum his book employs when ap-
propriae a disinc hisorical erminology o emphasize local and regional
orms o sel-consrucion and creaive agency as a provisional suberuge
for he predicamen of uncriically reproducing colonial sae caegories
and he poliical effecs hey can have
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 1943
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 2043
6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983110983151983154 983149983161 983152983105983154983141983150983156983155
Jacqueline Vaughan Lee and Chong Sung Lee
983105983150983140 983145983150 983149983141983149983151983154983161 983151983110Franccedilois Manchuelle (1953ndash96)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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A Noe on Illusraions ix
A Noe on erminology xi
Acknowledgmens xiii
983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 Colonialism Naivism and he
Genealogical Imaginaion 1
23
Lower-Strata Lives Enduring Regional Practices
and the Prose of Colonial Nativism
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 1 Idioms o Place and Hisory 27
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 2 Adaimarsquos Sory 53983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 3 Coming o Age 72
- 91
Genealogical States and Colonial Bare Life
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 4 Te Naive Undefined 95
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 5 Commissions and Circumvenion 111
141
Regional Histories Uncustomary Politics and the Genealogical Imagination983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 6 Racism as a Weapon o he Weak 147
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 7 Loyaly and Disregard 175
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 8 Urbanizaion and Spaial Belonging 207
983139983151983150983139983116983157983155983145983151983150 Genealogies o Colonialism 233
Noes 249
Bibliography 305
Index 337
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Tis book conains a number of phoographs as illusraions many of
which are rom he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom I have also
aken phoographs of various colonial-era documens from he Naional Archives o Malawi he Naional Archives o Zimbabwe and he Naional
Archives o Zambia Alhough many illusraions are images o people and
places discussed in he narraive a selec number are inended or evoca-
ive purposesmdasho capure he appearance amosphere and atiudes o a
cerain ime and place hus providing ways o seeing rom he pas Tis
book consequenly uses phoographs as a unique and serious source for
scholars o siuae hisorical narraives visually (Te work o W G Sebald
is also an influence) However given heir origin some images may be con-sidered Eurocenric in perspecive I uilize hese illusraions wih his
cavea in mind Alhough I offer commenary wih each illusraion I an-
icipae ha readers will be sensiive o boh he explici and suggesive
uses o hese images and will bear in mind he criical acknowledgmen o
heir limiaions as saed here wihou my having o repea his posiion
hroughou he ex
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book addresses he hisories o muliracial people in Briish Cenral
Arica Te erm multiracial (designaing more han one race) is commonly
employed by sociologiss and oher scholars oday insead o more daedexpressions such as mulatto andmixed race I consequenly use multiracial
in preerence over he oher wo erms When I do apply he ambiguous
descripions mixed ormixed race I oen place he words in quoes o high-
ligh my criical view o hese overused and analyically unhelpul adjec-
ives which end o obscure boh personal and social hisories as argued
in his book I similarly place pejoraive expressions such as half-caste in
quoes In he conex o souhern Arica he erm Coloured is oen ui-
lized I use i as well hough wih cauion and specificiy since his bookseeks o develop a broader comparaive conversaion beween experiences
found in souhern Africa elsewhere in Africa and oher pars of he world
Te erm Coloured is conroversial in some quarersmdashparicularly in Souh
Arica where i is viewed as par o an aparheid-era erminology Provi-
sional soluions by oher scholars have included placing he erm in quoes
(ldquoColouredrdquo) making i lower-case (coloured) and qualiying i wih prea-
ory language (so-called Coloured) all which atemp o unsetle a sric
racial meaning Tough I am deeply sympaheic o such poliics his bookexercises he erm in capialized orm given is common hisorical use in
his way and due o he ac ha lower-case and quoed orms do no nec-
essarily saeguard i rom more problemaic pracices and undersandings
Mos significanly his book emphasizes regionally specific hisorical
erms such as Anglo- African Euro- African Eur- African and Eurafrican when
appropriae Tese sel-ashioned expressions ound in he Rhodesias and
Nyasaland during he colonial period are qualiaively differen rom he
more generic sae-sancioned Coloured as addressed in he chapers haollow Many regional inellecuals and organizaions criicized his later
expression and I have aken hese local views seriously Tis book here-
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xii 983105 983150983151983156983141 983151983150 983156983141983154983149983145983150983151983116983151983143983161
ore works agains he idea ha Coloured Anglo- African and Eurafrican are
inerchangeable synonymous erms Tey insead reflec differen ses o
poliics and layered hisorical experiences marked by paricular familial
culural and imperial claims indicaed hrough he prefixes of Eur and Anglo as well as he base word African In sum his book employs when ap-
propriae a disinc hisorical erminology o emphasize local and regional
orms o sel-consrucion and creaive agency as a provisional suberuge
for he predicamen of uncriically reproducing colonial sae caegories
and he poliical effecs hey can have
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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A Noe on Illusraions ix
A Noe on erminology xi
Acknowledgmens xiii
983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 Colonialism Naivism and he
Genealogical Imaginaion 1
23
Lower-Strata Lives Enduring Regional Practices
and the Prose of Colonial Nativism
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 1 Idioms o Place and Hisory 27
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 2 Adaimarsquos Sory 53983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 3 Coming o Age 72
- 91
Genealogical States and Colonial Bare Life
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 4 Te Naive Undefined 95
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 5 Commissions and Circumvenion 111
141
Regional Histories Uncustomary Politics and the Genealogical Imagination983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 6 Racism as a Weapon o he Weak 147
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 7 Loyaly and Disregard 175
983139983144983105983152983156983141983154 8 Urbanizaion and Spaial Belonging 207
983139983151983150983139983116983157983155983145983151983150 Genealogies o Colonialism 233
Noes 249
Bibliography 305
Index 337
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Tis book conains a number of phoographs as illusraions many of
which are rom he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom I have also
aken phoographs of various colonial-era documens from he Naional Archives o Malawi he Naional Archives o Zimbabwe and he Naional
Archives o Zambia Alhough many illusraions are images o people and
places discussed in he narraive a selec number are inended or evoca-
ive purposesmdasho capure he appearance amosphere and atiudes o a
cerain ime and place hus providing ways o seeing rom he pas Tis
book consequenly uses phoographs as a unique and serious source for
scholars o siuae hisorical narraives visually (Te work o W G Sebald
is also an influence) However given heir origin some images may be con-sidered Eurocenric in perspecive I uilize hese illusraions wih his
cavea in mind Alhough I offer commenary wih each illusraion I an-
icipae ha readers will be sensiive o boh he explici and suggesive
uses o hese images and will bear in mind he criical acknowledgmen o
heir limiaions as saed here wihou my having o repea his posiion
hroughou he ex
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book addresses he hisories o muliracial people in Briish Cenral
Arica Te erm multiracial (designaing more han one race) is commonly
employed by sociologiss and oher scholars oday insead o more daedexpressions such as mulatto andmixed race I consequenly use multiracial
in preerence over he oher wo erms When I do apply he ambiguous
descripions mixed ormixed race I oen place he words in quoes o high-
ligh my criical view o hese overused and analyically unhelpul adjec-
ives which end o obscure boh personal and social hisories as argued
in his book I similarly place pejoraive expressions such as half-caste in
quoes In he conex o souhern Arica he erm Coloured is oen ui-
lized I use i as well hough wih cauion and specificiy since his bookseeks o develop a broader comparaive conversaion beween experiences
found in souhern Africa elsewhere in Africa and oher pars of he world
Te erm Coloured is conroversial in some quarersmdashparicularly in Souh
Arica where i is viewed as par o an aparheid-era erminology Provi-
sional soluions by oher scholars have included placing he erm in quoes
(ldquoColouredrdquo) making i lower-case (coloured) and qualiying i wih prea-
ory language (so-called Coloured) all which atemp o unsetle a sric
racial meaning Tough I am deeply sympaheic o such poliics his bookexercises he erm in capialized orm given is common hisorical use in
his way and due o he ac ha lower-case and quoed orms do no nec-
essarily saeguard i rom more problemaic pracices and undersandings
Mos significanly his book emphasizes regionally specific hisorical
erms such as Anglo- African Euro- African Eur- African and Eurafrican when
appropriae Tese sel-ashioned expressions ound in he Rhodesias and
Nyasaland during he colonial period are qualiaively differen rom he
more generic sae-sancioned Coloured as addressed in he chapers haollow Many regional inellecuals and organizaions criicized his later
expression and I have aken hese local views seriously Tis book here-
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xii 983105 983150983151983156983141 983151983150 983156983141983154983149983145983150983151983116983151983143983161
ore works agains he idea ha Coloured Anglo- African and Eurafrican are
inerchangeable synonymous erms Tey insead reflec differen ses o
poliics and layered hisorical experiences marked by paricular familial
culural and imperial claims indicaed hrough he prefixes of Eur and Anglo as well as he base word African In sum his book employs when ap-
propriae a disinc hisorical erminology o emphasize local and regional
orms o sel-consrucion and creaive agency as a provisional suberuge
for he predicamen of uncriically reproducing colonial sae caegories
and he poliical effecs hey can have
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 1343
xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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Tis book conains a number of phoographs as illusraions many of
which are rom he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom I have also
aken phoographs of various colonial-era documens from he Naional Archives o Malawi he Naional Archives o Zimbabwe and he Naional
Archives o Zambia Alhough many illusraions are images o people and
places discussed in he narraive a selec number are inended or evoca-
ive purposesmdasho capure he appearance amosphere and atiudes o a
cerain ime and place hus providing ways o seeing rom he pas Tis
book consequenly uses phoographs as a unique and serious source for
scholars o siuae hisorical narraives visually (Te work o W G Sebald
is also an influence) However given heir origin some images may be con-sidered Eurocenric in perspecive I uilize hese illusraions wih his
cavea in mind Alhough I offer commenary wih each illusraion I an-
icipae ha readers will be sensiive o boh he explici and suggesive
uses o hese images and will bear in mind he criical acknowledgmen o
heir limiaions as saed here wihou my having o repea his posiion
hroughou he ex
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Tis book addresses he hisories o muliracial people in Briish Cenral
Arica Te erm multiracial (designaing more han one race) is commonly
employed by sociologiss and oher scholars oday insead o more daedexpressions such as mulatto andmixed race I consequenly use multiracial
in preerence over he oher wo erms When I do apply he ambiguous
descripions mixed ormixed race I oen place he words in quoes o high-
ligh my criical view o hese overused and analyically unhelpul adjec-
ives which end o obscure boh personal and social hisories as argued
in his book I similarly place pejoraive expressions such as half-caste in
quoes In he conex o souhern Arica he erm Coloured is oen ui-
lized I use i as well hough wih cauion and specificiy since his bookseeks o develop a broader comparaive conversaion beween experiences
found in souhern Africa elsewhere in Africa and oher pars of he world
Te erm Coloured is conroversial in some quarersmdashparicularly in Souh
Arica where i is viewed as par o an aparheid-era erminology Provi-
sional soluions by oher scholars have included placing he erm in quoes
(ldquoColouredrdquo) making i lower-case (coloured) and qualiying i wih prea-
ory language (so-called Coloured) all which atemp o unsetle a sric
racial meaning Tough I am deeply sympaheic o such poliics his bookexercises he erm in capialized orm given is common hisorical use in
his way and due o he ac ha lower-case and quoed orms do no nec-
essarily saeguard i rom more problemaic pracices and undersandings
Mos significanly his book emphasizes regionally specific hisorical
erms such as Anglo- African Euro- African Eur- African and Eurafrican when
appropriae Tese sel-ashioned expressions ound in he Rhodesias and
Nyasaland during he colonial period are qualiaively differen rom he
more generic sae-sancioned Coloured as addressed in he chapers haollow Many regional inellecuals and organizaions criicized his later
expression and I have aken hese local views seriously Tis book here-
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xii 983105 983150983151983156983141 983151983150 983156983141983154983149983145983150983151983116983151983143983161
ore works agains he idea ha Coloured Anglo- African and Eurafrican are
inerchangeable synonymous erms Tey insead reflec differen ses o
poliics and layered hisorical experiences marked by paricular familial
culural and imperial claims indicaed hrough he prefixes of Eur and Anglo as well as he base word African In sum his book employs when ap-
propriae a disinc hisorical erminology o emphasize local and regional
orms o sel-consrucion and creaive agency as a provisional suberuge
for he predicamen of uncriically reproducing colonial sae caegories
and he poliical effecs hey can have
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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Tis book addresses he hisories o muliracial people in Briish Cenral
Arica Te erm multiracial (designaing more han one race) is commonly
employed by sociologiss and oher scholars oday insead o more daedexpressions such as mulatto andmixed race I consequenly use multiracial
in preerence over he oher wo erms When I do apply he ambiguous
descripions mixed ormixed race I oen place he words in quoes o high-
ligh my criical view o hese overused and analyically unhelpul adjec-
ives which end o obscure boh personal and social hisories as argued
in his book I similarly place pejoraive expressions such as half-caste in
quoes In he conex o souhern Arica he erm Coloured is oen ui-
lized I use i as well hough wih cauion and specificiy since his bookseeks o develop a broader comparaive conversaion beween experiences
found in souhern Africa elsewhere in Africa and oher pars of he world
Te erm Coloured is conroversial in some quarersmdashparicularly in Souh
Arica where i is viewed as par o an aparheid-era erminology Provi-
sional soluions by oher scholars have included placing he erm in quoes
(ldquoColouredrdquo) making i lower-case (coloured) and qualiying i wih prea-
ory language (so-called Coloured) all which atemp o unsetle a sric
racial meaning Tough I am deeply sympaheic o such poliics his bookexercises he erm in capialized orm given is common hisorical use in
his way and due o he ac ha lower-case and quoed orms do no nec-
essarily saeguard i rom more problemaic pracices and undersandings
Mos significanly his book emphasizes regionally specific hisorical
erms such as Anglo- African Euro- African Eur- African and Eurafrican when
appropriae Tese sel-ashioned expressions ound in he Rhodesias and
Nyasaland during he colonial period are qualiaively differen rom he
more generic sae-sancioned Coloured as addressed in he chapers haollow Many regional inellecuals and organizaions criicized his later
expression and I have aken hese local views seriously Tis book here-
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xii 983105 983150983151983156983141 983151983150 983156983141983154983149983145983150983151983116983151983143983161
ore works agains he idea ha Coloured Anglo- African and Eurafrican are
inerchangeable synonymous erms Tey insead reflec differen ses o
poliics and layered hisorical experiences marked by paricular familial
culural and imperial claims indicaed hrough he prefixes of Eur and Anglo as well as he base word African In sum his book employs when ap-
propriae a disinc hisorical erminology o emphasize local and regional
orms o sel-consrucion and creaive agency as a provisional suberuge
for he predicamen of uncriically reproducing colonial sae caegories
and he poliical effecs hey can have
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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xii 983105 983150983151983156983141 983151983150 983156983141983154983149983145983150983151983116983151983143983161
ore works agains he idea ha Coloured Anglo- African and Eurafrican are
inerchangeable synonymous erms Tey insead reflec differen ses o
poliics and layered hisorical experiences marked by paricular familial
culural and imperial claims indicaed hrough he prefixes of Eur and Anglo as well as he base word African In sum his book employs when ap-
propriae a disinc hisorical erminology o emphasize local and regional
orms o sel-consrucion and creaive agency as a provisional suberuge
for he predicamen of uncriically reproducing colonial sae caegories
and he poliical effecs hey can have
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Tis book is in par abou ways o hinking and he consequen ways o
being ha follow from hem From he vanage poin of he presen i
is abou he hisories le behind by such experiences Wriing his bookhas also been an experience and his book also has a hisory I have bene-
fied from a range of eachers friends colleagues and family members
who have augh me boh how o hink and how o be While he word
acknowledgment does no quie capure he size o he deb I owe or he
sense o humiliy I eel i is a pleasure o have he opporuniy o hank
so many people
Tis book ook is earlies form as a docoral disseraion a Sanford
Universiy where I had he good forune o sudy wih a number of ex-cellen scholars above all Richard Robers George M Fredrickson and
Richard Whie A Sanford and he Universiy of California Berkeley I
also profied from working wih and receiving assisance from Chrisine
Capper-Sullivan Lynn Eden Karen Fung abiha Kanogo Sam Mchombo
Donald Moore Valenin Mudimbe Gary Mukai and Marha Saavedra I
hold paricular graiude or Kennell Jackson who iniiaed me ino San-
ord lie wih lunches a Branner Hall and conversaions abou a diverse
range of opics My greaes deb is o Richard Robersmdashfor his insrucionor his persisen advocacy and generosiy and or his general guidance on
having a producive meaningul career Everyhing I know abou Arican
social hisorymdashis range is possibiliies and is imporancemdashoriginaes
wih his eaching While I conduced fieldwork I received suppor from
various scholars in Malawi and Souh Africa A Chancellor College he
Universiy of Malawi Kings Phiri hosed my says in Zomba on several
occasions I hank him and Wiseman Chirwa or conversaion and making
my visis possible Rob Jamieson and his amily also accommodaed me inMalawi or which I am graeul Saff members a he Naional Archives o
Malawi me all my research needs A he Universiy o Cape own I hank
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xiv 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
Brenda Cooper Harry Garuba Bill Nasson and Chris Saunders or arrang-
ing concurren residencies a he Deparmen o Hisorical Sudies and a
he Cenre or Arican Sudies Zimiri Erasmus ook an early ineres in
my research and her quesions and commens have inormed my hink-ing I owe special hanks o Mohamed Adhikari or providing an essenial
firs audience as an auhoriy on Souh Arican Coloured hisory as well as
presening an opporuniy o publish as my work maured
Since compleing my docorae I have coninued o receive suppor
rom a range o people Emmanuel Akyeampong did a rare hing by giving
me my firs job I exend my graiude o him and Caroline Elkins or a pro-
ducive year a Harvard Universiy I spen a similarly indispensable year a
Dalhousie Universiy wih Phil Zachernuk and Gary Kynoch who granedme he benefi o heir ime and criical engagemen wih early versions
o he ideas explored here Jocelyn Alexander Brian Raopoulos Gemma
Rodrigues and Graham and Annia Sewar provided invaluable help and
suppor during wo research rips o Zimbabwe David Gordon and Marja
Hinfelaar provided essenial assisance in Zambia Te saff a he Naional
Archives of Zimbabwe and he Naional Archives of Zambia offered per-
sisen guidance as did he saff a he Naional Archives of he Unied
Kingdom Much o my career hus ar has been spen a he Universiy oNorh Carolina (983157983150983139) a Chapel Hill where I gained from he company
insighs and suppor from a range of colleagues A 983157983150983139 and neighbor-
ing Duke and Norh Carolina Sae Universiies I hank Barbara Ander-
son Ed Balleisen Paul Berliner Kahryn Burns Bruce Hall Engseng Ho
Jerma Jackson Owen Kalinga Charles Kurzman Michael Lamber Lisa
Lindsay erence McInosh Louise Meinjes Susan Pennybacker Eunice
Sahle Bereke Selassie Karin Shapiro Sarah Shields and Ken Vickery or
aking ineres in my work and more significanly sanding by hroughperiods o hick and hin
A number o oundaions universiies and programs offered financial
suppor for research and wriing Te hisory deparmens a Sanford
Harvard Dalhousie and 983157983150983139 provided grans ha aided my research
Te School o Humaniies and Sciences and he Insiue or Inernaional
Sudies boh a Sanord and he Universiy Research Council he Cen-
er or Global Iniiaives and he Arican Sudies Cener all a 983157983150983139 pro-
vided differen forms of summer and ravel funding Te Foreign Languageand Area Sudies program and he Fulbrigh-Hays program a he US De-
parmen of Educaion provided major suppor for iniial fieldwork Te
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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xvi 983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155
vided asue commens on an earlier version o his manuscrip as only
graduae sudens can I me Emily Burrill shorly afer I reurned from
my iniial fieldwork and I had he privilege o spend he nex seven years
wih her I hank her or her care suppor and inellec during ha imewhich shaped my hinking and benefied his book a an early sage in in-
numerable ways
Regarding previous publicaion a version o chaper 1 appeared as ldquoDo
Colonial People Exis Rehinking Ehno-Genesis and Peoplehood hrough
he Longue Dureacutee in Souh- Eas Cenral Africardquo Social History 36 no 2
(2011) 169ndash91 A version of chaper 2 appeared as ldquoGender wihou Groups
Conession Resisance and Selfood in he Colonial Archiverdquo Gender and
History 24 no 3 (2012) 701ndash17 A version o chaper 3 appeared as ldquoChil-dren in he Archives Episolary Evidence Youh Agency and he Social
Meanings of lsquoComing of Agersquo in Inerwar Nyasalandrdquo Journal of Family
History 35 no 1 (2010) 24ndash47 Versions o chaper 4 appeared as ldquoJus Soli
and Jus Sanguinis in he Colonies Te Inerwar Poliics o Race Culure
and Muli-Racial Legal Saus in Briish Africardquo Law and History Review
29 no 2 (2011) 497ndash522 and ldquoTe lsquoNaiversquo Undefined Colonial Caegories
Anglo- Arican Saus and he Poliics o Kinship in Briish Cenral Arica
1929ndash1938rdquo Journal of African History 46 no 3 (2005) 455ndash78 Some o heresearch presened in chaper 6 appeared in ldquolsquoA Generous Dream bu Di-
ficul o Realizersquo Te Anglo- African Communiy of Nyasaland 1929ndash1940rdquo
Society of Malawi Journal 61 no 2 (2008) 19ndash41
Tis book was compleed during a difficul period personally and pro-
fessionally over he pas five years A paricular se of people susained me
I am indebed o Anoinete Buron Philippa Levine and Richard Robers
once more or heir immediae assisance and meaningul words during
momens o crisis and uncerainy Fred Cooper Pier Larson Kenda Mu-ongi Susan Pennybacker and Vijay Prashad similarly provided suppor
when I needed i mos Isabel Homeyr Owen Kalinga Paul Landau Dilip
Menon Pauline Peers Joey Power Brian Raopoulos im Scarnecchia
and Karin Shapiro read penulimae dras o he manuscrip or which I
am immensely graeul Miriam Angress a Duke Universiy Press has been
an ideal edior guiding his projec wih paience clariy and wisdom I
hank her Radical Perspecives series ediors Barbara Weinsein and
Daniel Walkowiz as well as he peer review readers for heir assisanceand cogen insighs Clifon Crais Jonahon Glassman Jason Parker Bere-
ke Selassie Helen illey Megan Vaughan and Karin (again) offered help
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983105983139983147983150983151983159983116983141983140983143983149983141983150983156983155 xvii
perspecive and encouragemen a differen imes which I will coninue
o remember Many have raveled o Johannesburg during he pas cen-
ury o seek heir forune and I have made a similar journey I am indebed
o Dilip and Isabel (once more) for opening a door of opporuniy Mat Andrews Mike Huner and Josh Nadel used o disrac me wih beer pool
and 983157983150983139 baskeball o grea effec which I miss Peer Hallet and Nahan
Wenworh have consisenly reminded me o my roos and given me he
kind o reassurance ha only childhood riends can Tey are my brohers
My siser Jennier and her amily have offered similar suppor hrough-
ou Jennier Barlet above all susained me during an exremely difficul
ime when much o wha I had worked oward I el I had los She gave me
he confidence o keep going Tis book would no have appeared wihouher being here and her undersanding o wha i has mean o me
Tis book is dedicaed o hree people who have been less involved in
is making bu who neverheless inormed is incepion My parens have
suppored me hroughou my life his projec being no excepion More
significanly many o he quesions explored in his book have heir early
origins in heir personal hisory I hank hem or heir unwavering care
and enduring paience wih a son who has more ofen han no been unrea-
sonable in his pursuis Franccedilois Manchuelle firs augh me abou Aricarsquospas He is he reason I decided o pursue a career in his field Among
many lessons I remember he mos imporan was o have a sense o his-
orical imaginaion o develop a sense of undersanding and empahy ha
generaes feelings of connecion no difference Tis basic principle has
guided my eaching research and wriing I sill have an undergraduae
paper on Mongo Beirsquos Mission to Kala on which he wroe ldquoI can imagine
you publishing a version o his somedayrdquo I wish I could share he publi-
caion o his book wih him Wih appreciaion I hope i ulfills in smallmeasure he early promise he sough o culivae
Johannesburg December 2013
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 3343
983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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On he eve o 1964 he Briish Cenral Arican Federaion (1953ndash63) ha
had unied Norhern Rhodesia Souhern Rhodesia and Nyasaland for
en years ended By July 6 1964 Nyasaland achieved is independence o
become Malawi wih Zambia ollowing sui on Ocober 24 1964 Souh-
ern Rhodesia would pursue an enirely differen poliical pah hrough
he whie-led Rhodesian Fronrsquos Unilaeral Declaraion of Independence
on November 11 1965 A prolonged armed sruggle would resul lasingunil 1980 wih he founding of Zimbabwe However he official collapse of
he federaion on December 31 1963 virually guaraneed evenual change
across he region Briish conrol and influencemdasheven among Souhern
Rhodesiarsquos whie communiymdashwould decline dramaically in a span o less
han wo years o mark he occasion a symbolic uneral procession ook
place on New Yearrsquos Day 1964 a he headquarers o he Malawi Congress
Pary (983149983139983152) in Limbe Nyasaland wih a coffin provocaively labeled ldquoFed-
eraion Corpserdquo burned as an effigy o imperial ailure Hasings KamuzuBanda (1898ndash1997) leader of he 983149983139983152 and fuure presiden of Malawi
(figure 9831451) preaced his emblemaic gesure wih a shor speech in which
he affirmed wih poined refrain ldquoNow a las he Federaion is dissolved
dissolved dissolvedrdquo983089 In a similar spiri of disenchanmen Kenneh
Kaunda presiden o Zambia and leader o he Unied Naional Indepen-
dence Pary commened several years laer ha he ederaion had been
a doomed effor o couner Arican naionalism presening ldquoa brake upon
Arican advancemen in he Norhrdquo In his view whies hroughou he re-gion had been ldquoblinding hemselves o he signs wri large in he skies over
pos-war Aricardquo a case o ldquoshouing agains he windrdquo1048626 In hese ways he
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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2 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
ederaion seemed aed o ail in he minds o is mos public criicsmdasha
las imperial experimenmdashbeing a mere ransiion phase on he way o
complee decolonizaion1048627
Ye his regional poliical change in Briish-ruled cenral Arica did no
reflec a universal consensus o popular opinion Oher voices suppored
he coninuaion of Briish governance ha had been esablished in helae nineeenh cenury evincing a poliics of imperial ideniy and be-
longing ha dissolved amid he racial revoluions o he 1960s On a di-
eren evening in 1964 a car filled wih several young men assumed o be
members o he 983149983139983152rsquos paramiliary Young Pioneers pulled ino he drive-
way o Henry Ascro (born in 1904) on Chileka Road near he ouskirs
o Blanyre Malawi Ascro had been a ounding member o he Anglo-
Arican Associaion during he lae 1920s and spen much o his poliical
lie as an advocae or Nyasalandrsquos ldquoAnglo- Aricanrdquo communiymdashpeople omuliracial background who claimed African Briish and Indian heriage1048628
Te visi was a surprise and given he ime o day unwelcome Te young
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831451 Presiden Hasings Kamuzu Banda o Malawi (le) wih Presiden Julius
Nyerere o anzania (righ) early 1960s Used by permission o he Naional Archives
o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 10691659)
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 3
men le only aer Ascro had been physically beaen wih heir message
firmly delivered he Banda governmen did no approve of Ascrofrsquos polii-
cal views or sympahize wih wha remained of Anglo- African ineress
Te 983149983139983152 sridenly objeced o a poliics espoused by Ascro ha elevaedEuropean ancesry and enilemen over Arican ineress a colonial-era
loyalism ou o sep wih he ransiion hen occurring
Tis episode proved o be a urning poin Ascrorsquos healh quickly de-
erioraed leading o his deah in 1965 In recouning hese deails o me
over hiry years laer his daughers Jessica and Ann spoke wih a mix o
reverence and disance relaing heir aherrsquos aciviies and poliics as par
o a differen era o ime silenced by decades o auocraic rule under he
Banda regime (1964ndash94) ye sill held in amily memory1048629 In rerospec hiseven appears as a minor inciden in Malawirsquos poscolonial hisory more
personal han public in naure Tere were ohers like Ascro who did no
mee a similar ae Ismail K Suree an Indo- Arican man commited o
he 983149983139983152 became Speaker of he Naional Assembly of Malawi shorly afer
independence1048630 Ye Ascrorsquos reamen ell wihin an esablished patern
Sae power under Banda oen inervened in he affairs o perceived po-
liical opponens brually suppressing conrary poliical oulooks social
ideniies and hisorical experiences1048631 As anoher informan old me re-garding Ascrofrsquos views oward Banda and Malawirsquos independence As-
cro was ldquono sure as o wha he changes would bring in his counry [or
Anglo- Aricans] wha heir ae would be so hey ried o resisrdquo983096
Tis book reurns o he colonial period o examine he perspecives
and hisories of individuals like Ascrofmdashpeople of muliracial background
who culivaed connecions wih regional colonial saes and he Briish
Empire more generally I is concerned wih hose who losmdashpoliically
socially and culurallymdashwih he end o colonialism whose hisories havesince been marginalized by he poliics o Arican naionalism during he
poscolonial period Indeed despie Malawirsquos diverse and exensive his-
oriography my firs encouner wih Ascro and he Anglo- Arican com-
muniy was no hrough an exising published accoun bu he resul of
siing hrough documens a he Naional Archives o Malawi in Zomba
while researching a differen opic Te Anglo- Arican Associaion meried
enough atenion o receive a subjec heading wihin an index compiled by
a colonial archivis an unusual inclusion amid more predicable lisings oobacco producion missionary aciviies and annual fishing quoas rom
Lake Nyasa My agenda soon changed Alhough Ascrofrsquos perspecives
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 1943
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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4 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
were ones I resoluely rejecedmdashexhibiing sriden orms o racism and
imperial parioism in equal measuremdashhey were also difficul o ignore
possessing an unvarnished honesy and even inellecual sophisicaion
Tey disclosed an unconvenional worldview involving noions o kinshipand racial heriage ha no only ariculaed wha i mean o be ldquoAnglo-
Aricanrdquo bu also argued or a poliics o colonial loyaly and enilemen
ha sharply conrased wih he poliics of anicolonial resisance com-
mon in many poscolonial social hisories Alhough descen and geneal-
ogy have played key roles in defining racial difference heir uses in his
conex were inriguingly invenive clearly moivaed by sel-ineres and
orceully grounded in senimens o amily and lived personal experience
raher han sociological absracionmdasha kind o olk racism ha only op-pression could conceive Tis surrepiious genealogical imaginaion was
a once eccenric ye accessible organic and local in orienaion ye con-
neced o broader paterns of culural knowledge and hisorical experience
Above all i suggesed a hisory ha had no been accouned or a sory
waiing o be old and a new se o possibiliies abou how hisories o race
and colonialism migh be writen983097
Tis book is abou his genealogical imaginaionmdashis origins is diverse
morphologies and insrumenal uses and is hisorical demise Tis so-cially consruced imaginaion was and remains a orm o criical pracice
I is essenial o undersanding how muliracial people negoiaed a colo-
nial world defined by racial difference and more specifically disincions
beween native andnon-nativemdasho revisi he erminology o he ime983089983088 I
reveals an alernaive social and poliical oulook ha challenges assump-
ions abou ehical lie during he colonial period by inroducing a criical
vocabulary o connecion raher han resisance Trough his ocus his
book conribues o an expanding lieraure on he varied poliical cul-ures ha appeared under colonial rule paricularly hose ariculaed by
subalern communiies whose marginalizaion produced excepional per-
specives ha challenge poscolonial naionalism and is versions of he
pas Bu neiher is i abou resoring a se o moribund ideas ha are uli-
maely of litle consequence Larger hemes emerge regarding he caa-
lyss raionales and limiaions o such imaginaive pracices A is core
his book is a sudy o racial hough under colonialism in Briish Cenral
Arica rom he early o he mid-wenieh cenury and he ways in whichi inormed a cluser o issuesmdashsexual behavior social idenificaion po-
liical argumens legal saus urban planning povery and colonial com-
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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6 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
evenly9830891048631 One explanaion is he reducive qualiy ha a racial ramework
can impar Given he demography o mos Arican socieies ethnicitymdash
also inormed by ideas o descen hough complemened by learned his-
orically rooed culural pracicesmdashhas been perceived as providing a moreexured view o social relaions and hisory sreching across ime peri-
ods983089983096 An ehnic paradigm has dominaed African sudies as a resul In-
deed his paradigm has been posiioned as aniracis in orienaionmdasha
criical sance derived rom he culural relaivism pioneered by scholars
such as Franz Boas and his suden Melville Herskovis983089983097 Bu imperaives
o hisorical mehod have also played a decisive role in he undervaluaion
o his issue Given concerns or enduring dynamics o hisory and iden-
ificaion inernal o he African coninen racial hough has ypicallybeen perceived as fixed o he colonial eramdasha sysem o inellecual belie
inroduced by European conacmdashhaving no deep or meaningul hisory
prior o his period1048626983088 Tis problem is compounded by scholarship ha has
congregaed in cerain pars o he coninen paricularly hose wih high
densiies o whie setlemenmdashSouh Arica being he prime example Ye
Souh Arica canno remain a sand-in or he res o he coninen1048626983089
Tis book addresses hese predicamens I is posiioned wihin a re-
cen urn in scholarship ha has sough o rehink hisories o race andracism beyond accusomed places and ime periods10486261048626 Tis new scholarship
has no only underscored he racial diversiy of colonial socieies I has
also enabled more complex undersandings o colonialism and racism o
emerge by oulining he muliple origins and oucomes o racial hough
and difference Tis book expands he geography of curren research by
underaking a regional approach ha accouns or he poliics o racializa-
ion in Briish Cenral Arica (map 9831451)10486261048627 Is primary seting is he Nyasa-
land Proecorae (firs esablished as he Briish Cenral Arica Proecor-ae rom 1891 o 1907)mdasha classic ou-o-he-way place in many respecs
paricularly wih regard o he opic a hand10486261048628 Bu racial difference and
discriminaion did have meaning in his osensibly peripheral conexmdash
seen mos evocaively in he Chilembwe Uprising o 1915mdashand he se o
hisories here examine how such vivid local experiences ormed par o a
regional poliical scene ha exended o Souhern Rhodesia (charered in
1889) and Norhern Rhodesia (1911)10486261048629 Beore race and naionalism iner-
seced o herald poliical change as hey did in Malawi and Zambia in 1964and Souhern Rhodesia in 1965 race ook legal inellecual and culural
shape in an imperial conex Te regional ramework o his book here-
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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8 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
communiies alike Being ldquoAnglo- Africanrdquo refleced a deeply fel ye in-
srumenal inersecion o relaionshipsmdashamilial racial and poliical in
scope Te liminal saus o Anglo- Aricans consequenly posed challenges
o convenional caegories o rule wih implicaions ha sill have mean-ing in he presen1048626983096
Tis book is criically minded as a resul I addresses he crucial ques-
ion why hisories of he kind observed here have been habiually mar-
ginalized by scholars An undersanding o ldquonaivismrdquo in is colonial and
poscolonial forms is essenial in his regard Alhough race serves as a
useful ranslaion erm permiting hisorical comparisons beween dif-
feren emporal and geographic conexs i can obscure he specific dis-
cursive pracices ha have inhibied recogniion of and criical hinkingabou hese communiies in he pas and presen In conras he erms
native andnon-native ha marked basic disincions o righs and rule in
Briish Africa fundamenally affeced heir social and poliical saus1048626983097
Tese locuions of dominance possess ineracive elemens of race cul-
ure and erriory and given heir hisorical use i is more accurae and
consrucive o engage wih hem han wih race alone Revising our erms
o analysis in his ashion we gain a clearer sense why he subalern his-
ories described here were slighed during he colonial period and haveremained underexamined since he hisoriographical urn ha decolo-
nizaion ulimaely iniiaed Colonial naivismmdashdefined by an oriena-
ion oward black Arican communiies cusomary auhoriies and local
culural radiionmdashno only srucured colonial rule I also produced an
enduring episteme o use an expression o V Y Mudimbersquosmdasha regime o
raionaliy ha has organized he inellecual condiions o possibiliy or
undersanding Arica1048627983088 Arican sudies as a field has been undamenally
shaped by his colonial order of knowledge ldquoAfricanismrdquo emerged from hecolonial naive quesion broadly consrued being deeply racialized in he
firs insance and firmly enrenched in he ehnic poliics o he cusom-
ary in he secondmdasho he exclusion o non-naive and inersiial orms o
hisorical experience1048627983089 Poscolonial scholarship has largely inhabied his
inellecual rajecory o he black Arican subjec esablished by colonial-
ism As Achille Mbembe has writen a prose o naivism has fixed race and
geography such ha he ldquoidea o an Aricaniy ha is no black is simply
unhinkablerdquo10486271048626Tis provocaion is no o say ha a legacy o colonial hough has been
received uncriically10486271048627 Ehnic ideniies and cusomary pracices are sill
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 9
indispensablemdashand evolvingmdashfeaures of African life Bu his shared
episemology coninues o raise significan quesions regarding he ac-
ceped parameers of academic inquiry and he choice of legiimae subjec
mater I requires persisen engagemen a ask ha has been periodicallyunderaken by scholars10486271048628 Indeed a disinc criical radiion can be locaed
o souhern Africa During he early o mid-wenieh cenury anhro-
pologiss A R Radcliffe-Brown Isaac Schapera and Max Gluckman called
ino quesion he uncomforable rappor beween scholarship and he
Souh Arican naive ldquoproblemrdquomdashspecifically how he later poliical dis-
course had srucured and a imes conscriped academic research o raio-
nalize segregaion which hey opposed10486271048629 Tey were no alone Te hiso-
rian William Macmillan published an early pahbreaking sudy o Souh Aricarsquos Coloured populaion ciing his social grouprsquos naional relevance
given insisen quesions concerning is poliical and legal saus beween
he wo world wars10486271048630 His sudy ook a comprehensive approach venur-
ing ino issues of slavery and fronier setlemen during he preceding cen-
uries o examine how inerracial encouners and relaionships generaed
muliple communiies ha would laer be classified as ldquoColouredrdquo10486271048631 Tis
holisic mehod which embraced raher han simplified demographic
complexiy presened layered hisories o ineracion ha posed disincchallenges o he discree boundaries of he naive quesion Macmillan
argued for a more unified hisorical analysis of Souh Africa as a ldquocom-
mon socieyrdquomdasha sance inormed by his ani-segregaionis poliics1048627983096 Tis
approach along wih Radcliffe-Brown and Schaperarsquos idea o a single so-
cial sysem influenced Gluckmanrsquos proposal o siuaional analysis o gain
a more complee and accurae view of group relaions in Souh Africa1048627983097
Archie Maeje urher refined his line o criical assessmen wo decades
laer suggesing ha an ideology o ldquoribalismrdquo among scholars inheriedrom colonialism coninued o oversimpliy and obscure ldquohe real naure
of economic and power relaions beween Africans hemselves and be-
ween Africa and he capialis worldrdquo drawing ldquoan invidious and highly
suspec disincion beween Aricans and oher peoplesrdquo1048628983088
Despie he eseem graned o hese scholars of he pas and presen
he effecs o hese recurren argumens agains colonial racial and ehnic
ypologies have remained more marginal han mainsream in African
sudiesmdasha condiion explained by poliics Tis book conrons his issueTe preceding criical radiion agains hermeic undersandings o iden-
iy sociey and hisory serves as a backdrop o he approach underaken
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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10 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
here Andrew Aper has useully summarized atemps o decolonize Ari-
can anhropology before and afer Mudimbersquos imporan inervenion
ciing a once he mehodological creaiviy of scholars o circumven
he legacies o colonial reason ye he unrelening dissaisacion held bysome like Mafeje1048628983089 Tis book proposes ha decolonizing enduring epis-
emologies requires no simply heoreical innovaion bu a concurren
empirical expansionmdasha reconsideraion o how cerain hisorical experi-
ences can unsetle assumpions and enlarge expecaions of wha Afri-
can hisory has been and could be10486281048626 Poliical proocols in urn mus be
reassessed African naionalism before and afer decolonizaion consoli-
daed he power o black communiies resuling no only in he posiive
decline o racial disincion as a sauory mehod or organizing poliicalorder bu also making scholarship on local ehnic groups a renewed pri-
oriy Poscolonial naivism as an inellecual projec emerged from his
poliical ransormaion Promoing indigenous ideniies languages and
culures ormed a criical response o colonialism as well as a means o au-
henicaing and sabilizing maniold naional ideniies Bu such wriing
or he naion oen did so o he exclusionmdasheven acive repressionmdasho
oher unofficial hisories10486281048627 Naivism ha has aken various orms in boh
colonial and poscolonial scholarship has creaed invisible hisories by gen-eraing hierarchies o credibiliy ha have diminished experiences which
did no fi ino eiher naive policies o he pas or presen definiions o
poscolonial auochhony10486281048628 Scruinizing such aci coninuiies o knowl-
edge and power is needed Alluding o he connecions beween colonial
and poscolonial reason Edward Said has called naivism a regular ldquomis-
orunerdquo o naionalism a ldquobeseting hobble o mos pos-colonial workrdquo
ha has oen reinorced colonial disincions even while reevaluaing he
views and agency o local communiies10486281048629Tis book consequenly belongs o a recen lieraure ha has sared o
criique he hisoriographical effecs o Arican naionalism Tis scholar-
ship has challenged a pervasive ideological and eleological framing of
African hisorymdashnaional liberaion and he naion-sae being he uni-
versal end o colonialism wih a hisorical meaning shared by allmdashby ad-
dressing marginalized racial minoriies as par o a posnaional research
agenda10486281048630 Tese aler-native subjeciviies provide a more heerogeneous
view of colonialism and hus enable a more expansive inerpreaion of Africarsquos pas Colonial socieies were remarkably diverse Ye his demo-
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 11
graphic complexiy remains undersudied paricularly he quesion of
how his colonial muliude refleced and inormed he making o Arican
hisory under imperial condiions Imperialism generaed exraordinary
mobiliy wihin and beween coninens ha resuled in he creaion of
new socioculural communiies in busling meropoles such as Cape own
and Dar es Salaam bu equally in less cosmopolian setings like Nyasa-
land (figure 9831452) Te presence o Lebanese and Omani neighborhoods inWes and Eas Arica Arab communiies along he Saharan Sahel Indian
and Chinese populaions across easern and souhern Arica and a variey
of European setlemens hroughou he coninenmdashhemselves ehni-
cally heerogeneousmdashunderscores how Africa underwen fundamenal
demographic change rendering imperialism as much a projec in sociocul-
ural managemen as i was an economic venure10486281048631 Ye hese alernaive
communiies have requenly been judged as having only superficial his-
ories on he coninen wih origins elsewheremdashbeyond he geographicdicaes of colonial and poscolonial naivism Te chronological deph
983110983145983143983157983154983141 9831452 A depicion o demographic diversiy and domesic lie near Moun
Mulanje in souhern Nyasaland including a whie setler amily (upper righ corner)
an Arican man (botom cener) and a Sikh man (op cener) circa 1877 Used by
permission o he Naional Archives o he Unied Kingdom (983139983151 106910922)
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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12 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
wide-ranging spaial disribuion and hisorical meaning o hese experi-
ences have requenly been disregarded making scan impression on how
he erm African is defined and undersood
Muliracial communiies have been a casualy of his patern of occlusion Across ime and place muliracial people have oen occupied he shiing
ldquomiddle groundrdquo beween empires and local socieiesmdash represening he
widespread occurrence o inerpersonal relaionships beween oreigners
and indigenous socieies bu also serving as pivoal brokers in he cre-
aion of rade and poliical influence ypically gaining saus and power
as a resul1048628983096 Eurarican Luso- Arican and meacuteis populaions emerged as
early as he seveneenh cenury along he coas o Wes Arica wih he
rise of he ransalanic slave rade1048628983097 On he Eas African coas peopleof Afro- Arabian background appeared even earlier hrough neworks of
he Indian Ocean economy and he setlemen of raders from he Per-
sian and Omani Gul regions1048629983088 Furher souh among he prazo planaion
esaes o he Zambezi River valley esablished in he sixeenh cenury
he ldquoPorugueserdquo communiy was primarily Aro-Poruguese1048629983089 In conras
o many o hese earlier groups he Coloured populaion in Souh Arica
remains disincive albei wih conroversy due o he employmen of
Coloured (kleurling in Afrikaans) as an aparheid sae caegory10486291048626 Oherideniy groups and erms maerialized earlier on he ronier Te Griqua
and he Bastaards (or basters and bastervolk) emerged in he eigheenh
cenury and were equally inscribed wih inerracial hisories10486291048627 Paul Lan-
dau has applied he French colonial expressions meacutetis (a person o ldquomixedrdquo
racial background) and meacutetissage (ldquomixingrdquo) o capure he broad dynam-
ics o he Souh Arican ronier up hrough he early wenieh cenury10486291048628
Hermann Giliomee has urher noed ha he erm Afrikaner mdashan ideniy
srongly associaed wih racial puriy and whie supremacymdashoriginaed inhe lae nineeenh cenury o reer o ldquohe hal-bred offspring o slavesrdquo
and more generally people o ldquomixed descenrdquo10486291048629 Overall hese hisories
poin o he exensive presence of muliracial Africans across he coni-
nen in he pas and presen
Te relaive neglec in mainsream scholarship oward his specrum
o hisorical experience is hereore no or lack o acknowledgmen bu
for lack of hisorical imaginaionmdasha disciplinary reason ha can be a-
ribued o an enrenched naivism and he ehnic paradigm i has pro-duced Te subalern saus o muliracial Aricans is rendered no solely
by poscolonial naionalism or elie hisoriographies as such bu by his
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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14 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Aro-Briishness ha has oen been negleced and a imes orgoten due
o he prioriies o poscolonial hisorical wriing1048630983088 Tese liminal ideni-
ies signiy criical subjeciviies ha acively engaged wih he opporu-
niies and consrains of he period as well as provoke consideraion inhe presen oward experiences ha have exceeded our inellecual grasp
Tese observaions underline he risk o narrowly applying a racial lens
o hese hisoriesmdashan approach ha can oversimplify he culural markers
and poliical sensibiliies involved Racial erminology can conceal raher
han reveal hisorical experience Te commonly used albei weak de-
scripive expression mixed race conveys imprecision obscuriy and dis-
regard or he personal and communiy hisories o people who placed a
srong emphasis on amilial kinship and genealogy as examined in orh-coming chapers In souhern Arica he erm Coloured has been used in
synonymous ways being ransormed rom a Briish imperial erm reer-
ring o anyone who was no whie paricularly during he nineeenh cen-
ury o anyone who was perceived as having a racially mixed background
especially during he wenieh cenury Given he wordrsquos flexibiliy mo-
biliy and evoluion in meaning over ime a consisen need exiss o his-
oricize his caegory o render i more precisemdashno only hisorically bu
also geographically and poliicallyWih he esablishmen of he Union of Souh Africa in 1910 which
unied he Briish Cape and Naal colonies wih he deeaed Orange Free
Sae and Souh Arican Republic ollowing he Souh Arican War (1899ndash
1902) only he Cape had used he erm Coloured in a sauory manner
wih is 1904 census employing his caegory Tis usage conrased wih
ha of he 1904 Naive Affairs Commission which defined native as in-
cluding Coloured persons1048630983089 Bu he idenificaion of a separae eriary
ldquoracerdquo soon ollowed ldquoSome hal a million people o many varying shadeshe descendans of Hotenos Malays negro slaves and many ohers
wih a srong admixure o European blood are comprehensively spoken
o as lsquohe Coloured Peoplersquordquo wroe William Macmillan in 1927 indicaing
he haphazard differeniaion inernal o he erm as undersood in Souh
Africa10486301048626 Te erm Coloured enered he region of Briish Cenral Africa
quie lierally wih he 1896 arrival of he Cape Boys Corps which con-
sised o Coloured miliary recruis in Souhern Rhodesia rom he Wes-
ern Cape as par o he Briish Souh Arica Companyrsquos iniial colonial in-cursion10486301048627 Bu i was no he only reeren in he decades ha ollowed Te
expressions Anglo- African Euro- African Indo- African and Eurafricanmdashas
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 15
well as Cape Afrikander in Souhern Rhodesiamdashappeared across he region
beginning in he 1920s poining o a diversiy of self-naming pracices
ha sough o ariculae amilial origins culural atachmens and polii-
cal affiliaions10486301048628 Te applicaion of he expression Coloured in insrumenalashion by regional saes schools and missions was acively criicized by
local communiies and he poliical organizaions hey ounded given is
occlusion o heir connecions wih European communiies is over and
exclusively racial conen and is consequen discriminaory uncion in
law10486301048629 As a sign o is cenraliy as a sandard sae caegory i noneheless
became he principal erm used in official censuses10486301048630 In Souhern Rhode-
sia he caegory included people rom he Cape Coloured communiy and
firs-generaion people of mixed- race background in addiion o immi-grans from Goa in India S Helena and Mozambiquemdashanyone whose
racial background was percepibly ambiguous in some ashion10486301048631
Tis colonial pracice sill lingers in poscolonial scholarship and mus
be denauralized Te erm Coloured should be undersood as having spe-
cific geographic and hisorical originsmdashan encroachmen rom he souh
lierally and figuraivelymdashha belongs o a consellaion of self-crafed
expressions ha people sraegically employed o describe hemselves Re-
soring his diversiy o locuions uncovers regionally siuaed paterns ohisory ha challenge he reducive uniormiies o a colonial racial lexi-
con Tis book herefore complemens a growing lieraure on his opic
by exending beyond he Cape Coloured paradigm while also expanding
is analyic range and meaning by engaging broader debaes in African
sudies1048630983096 In he same way ha he erms black orwhite can homogenize
social experience he uncriical use of his caegory can overwhelm his-
orical subleies suggesing a false sense of monolihic consisencymdash
a singular experiencemdashha sreamlines an oherwise diverse se of his-ories1048630983097 Tis argumen agains sandardizaion consequenly goes urher
han semanics or simple facual accuracy Locally self-fashioned subjec-
iviies ell paricular sories Teir formaions highligh complex inersec-
ions o race culure and poliics based on senimens o amilial connec-
ion ha work agains absrac essenializaion Tese compound erms
gesured o an imperial conexmdash Anglo- African echoing Anglo- Indian or
examplemdashas did pejoraive expressions such as half-caste which also re-
erenced India1048631983088 Alhough he populaion figures of hese communiieswere small (able 9831451) hese inermediae caegories demonsraed local
views ha were criical oward colonial pracices o sark racial caegori-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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Census year
Nyasaland SouthernRhodesia
NorthernRhodesia
Total (estimated)
1048625104863310486251048625 98309210486321048625 9830901048624983092983090 No daa 983090983093983090983091
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830901048625 983093983094983091 1048625104863310486331048632 1048625983092983093 9830909830951048624983094
10486251048633983090983094 10486329830931048624 98309010486259830931048632 No daa 983091104862410486241048632
(incomplee daa)
104862510486339830911048625 104862598309310486331048625 9830909830921048624983090 983092983090983093 98309298309210486251048632
10486251048633983091983094 No daa 98309110486251048632983095 No daa Insufficien daa
104862510486339830921048625 No daa 9830911048633983095983092 No daa Insufficien daa
10486251048633983092983094 983092983093983093 (10486251048633983092983093esimae)
9830929830939830931048633 10486321048624983092 983093104863210486251048632
104862510486339830931048625 No daa 983093104863310486331048625 104862510486251048625983090 98309510486251048624983091
(incomplee daa)
10486251048633983093983094 1048625104862510486331048633 104863210486249830951048633 1048625983093983095983095 104862510486241048632983093983093
983156983105983138983116983141 9831451 Official populaion saisics or ldquoColoured Personsrdquo by colony in Briish
Cenral Arica drawn rom a 1956 census I should be noed ha populaion
figures or Nyasaland during he period 1911ndash31 included boh ldquoAsianrdquo (Indian) and
ldquoColouredrdquo people Numbers were oen speculaive and even lowered by colonialofficials given he illici origins o his demographic group On problems o clariy
S S Murray or example cies he 1591 figure rom he 1931 census as being solely
ldquoIndiansrdquo (S S Murray A Handbook of Nyasaland 57) In conras he 1956 census
liss he 1931 census figure as consising o boh ldquoAsianrdquo and ldquoColouredrdquo people which
could explain he high number or ha year (Rhodesia and Nyasaland Federation
of Rhodesia and Nyasaland 3) Unlised in his char are 1961 figures or Souhern
Rhodesia which had he larges Coloured communiy among he hree erriories
ha recorded 10559 Coloured people compared o 7253 Asians 221504 whies and
3550000 Aricans (esimaed) (Souhern Rhodesia 1961 Census of the European Asian
and Coloured Population 3) I is significan o observe ha when whie and Colourednumbers are oaled each year or he years 1946 and 1956 Nyasalandrsquos Coloured
populaion was proporionally larger han he Coloured populaions in he oher wo
colonies In 1956 or example he Coloured populaion in Nyasaland represened
151 o he whie-Coloured populaion combined compared o 44 in Souhern
Rhodesia and 24 in Norhern Rhodesia (see able 11) Tis acor could explain he
level o acivism here despie smaller oal numbers
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 17
zaion indicaing how socially marginal communiies engaged wih racial
marking and mediaed racial difference Indeed hese hisories no only
reconfirm he acive consrucion of ideniies under colonial rule Tey
demonsrae he sophisicaion of such self-consiuing measures ha re-sored o differen sources o knowledgemdashlocal and imperial radiional
and modernmdasho reconfigure hese disincions heir exured meanings
and heir ensuing uiliy Above all hese erms reveal he seadas desire
among muliracial Aricans or social and poliical legiimacy Te bound-
aries of naivism and non-naivism appeared surmounable hrough he
deploymen of his invened erminology Elevaing hese amalgamaed
sel-locuions raher han subsuming hem beneah he colonial rubric o
Coloured ulimaely enhances our comprehension o he pas by indica-ing day-o-day phenomenologies conciliaory ineracions beween saes
and communiies and how colonial peoplemdasheven hose on he periph-
erymdashexercised a range of echniques o define heir place and saus in
Arica and he Briish Empire1048631983089
Kinship and genealogy were essenial o his reperoire Acively em-
bedded in hese regional hyphenaed erms hey presened srucures o
feeling ha defined poliical and inellecual agency10486311048626 Alhough colonial
hisories of race and racism have ended o focus on conflic hese hisoriesargue for he imporance of socially consruced connecionsmdashhe ways
people engaged in new forms of collecive idenificaion hrough under-
sandings of racial affiliaion10486311048627 Kinship and genealogy were vial idioms
for hese acual assumed and puaive communal bonds10486311048628 Kinshipmdash
defined by is horizonal naure working across a shared emporal rame
inhabied by one or more generaionsmdashand genealogymdashypified by is ver-
ical characer ciing relaions o descen beween successive generaions
over imemdashsymbolized affecive ies ha were close and oen deeply elServing as concepual ools hey furnished emplaes for inerpreaionmdash
a means or recognizing social and poliical opporuniy hrough webs o
personal relaionships Tis realm o vernacular connecion ha inormed
and srucured possibiliies o social acion is capured in he expression
colonial kinshipsmdasha phrase I use o describe his phenomenon o hisorical
bonds developed under colonial rule ha were amilial racial and polii-
cal in scope Tis expression equally denoes a cerain cosmologymdasha gene-
alogical imaginaionmdashbased on hese connecions an oulook ariculaedby Ascro and ohers ha perceived a world o relaionships paronage
and obligaion raher han inconroverible differences I emerged rom
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 19
genealogical imagination in he ile refers o boh he poliical imagina-
ion uncovered and he alernaive hisorical imaginaion demanded o
assemble and hink hrough his paricular se o hisories As defined by
Michel Foucaul a genealogical approach seeks o hisoricize phenomenaha appear o be ldquowihou hisoryrdquo1048631983097 In conras o linear hisories ha
presuppose he exisence o cohesive ideniy groups his genre avors a
ldquocomplex course o descenrdquo ha highlighs coningency and irregulariy983096983088
I is ani-eleological by definiion even when progressing from he pas o
he presen983096983089 A genealogical approach is urher defined by is concern or
subjugaed forms of knowledgemdashknowledge ha is no simply ignored
bu acively disqualified9830961048626 Genealogical hisories are ulimaely couner-
hisories ha criically resis dominan views and pracices o conormiyTis book is herefore iled Unreasonable Histories wih specific purpose
in mind Te concep o unreasonable hisories serves as a mehodological
ool wih he erm unreasonable employed in hree ways refleced in he
bookrsquos riparie srucure Firs i refers o modes of evidence and he
difficuly involved in resoring hese subalern hisories Te challenges
in dealing wih a minoriy group based on hisorical coningencies raher
han esablished pracices of social reproducion include fragmened ar-
chives a culural memory ha is diffuse raher han collecively held andephemeral knowledge abou personal family and communiy origins
more generally given persisen percepions o racial ldquoransgressionrdquo and
social illegiimacy9830961048627 Tis unsable siuaion o knowledge ha resiss easy
hisorical generalizaions has been shaped by colonial and poscolonial
power and he relaive disregard or livelihoods beyond naive quesions
Par I explores his heme wih hree chapers ha examine hisorical be-
ginnings in he 1910s and 1920s a se o accouns under he rubric ldquoHis-
ories wihou Groupsrdquo Pars II and III atend o poliical emergence romhe 1920s hrough he 1950s posing wo addiional meanings of unreason-
able Par II ldquoNon-Naive Quesionsrdquo looks a he legal and policy realms
ha affeced regional communiy developmen hrough maters o saus
educaion employmen and povery Tese communiies inroduced
problems of naive and non- naive caegorical definiion by posing un-
easy quesions abou racial descen and privilege ha generaed poliical
and sauory uncerainies Par III examines how Anglo- African Euro-
Arican and Eurarican people mobilized on his basis creaing communi-ies o senimen ha used he affecive ies o blood kinship and geneal-
ogy o creae racial bonds o agnaic affiliaion and parilaeral loyaly o
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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20 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
regional colonial saes and more generally he Briish Empire Par III de-
pics how colonial kinship ies were ransformed from a familial phenome-
non (as discussed in par I) o an ariculaed genealogical imaginaion ha
sough poliical connecion and enilemen Ye hese emergen poliicshad a specific cos Te form of unreason inhabiing his las secion of
he book is he racism employed o raionalize non-naive sausmdashan un-
cusomary orm o poliics ha proved derimenal wih decolonizaion9830961048628
Tese forms of unreasonablenessmdashmehodological caegorical and
sociopoliicalmdashare qualiaively differen rom one anoher bu hey are
also inerrelaed Tey underscore he effecs of powermdashcolonial and pos-
colonial alike Te hisories in his book reveal and criically address he
limis o a colonial reason cenered on racial difference expressed hroughdiscourses o naivism and non-naivism Bu he relaive disregard hese
communiies have received in he poscolonial presen suggess more
Such indifference is no due o heir marginal demographic saus alone
I discloses aci orms o colonial-era naivis reasoning ha coninue o
inorm poscolonial scholarship I is unsurprising ha he racis imperial
poliics hese communiies espoused would in urn conribue o heir
social and poliical demise in he wake o decolonizaionmdasha ae capured
wih immediacy in he case o Henry Ascro Less undersandable are hereasons hese regional communiies and heir hisories have been mar-
ginalized by scholars Indeed o reurn o he opening anecdoe his kind
o archival momen I am sure is amiliar o many hisorians Bu raher
han being an insance o pure serendipiy such sympomaic evens sig-
nal a working se o spoken and unspoken academic raionales and polii-
cal ideologies defining wha is and is no suiable or sudy Undersanding
he lie o hese communiies has an uncerain uiliy when a predominan
ehos is o explain he origins of he poscolonial naion-sae Tese hiso-ries do no fi programmaically ino eiher imperial ambiions o he ime
or posindependence hisoriographies o he naion-sae-colonymdasha ac
explaining how and why hese hisories have been viewed reaed and ar-
chived as hey have
Ye his unreasonableness is he precise qualiy ha can producively
challenge exising approaches regarding wha couns as a usable pas I
evinces limiaions in conemporary scholarship ha are empirical polii-
cal and episemological in scope Tese hisories ha sand apar frommainsream scholarship reveal a undamenal shi in moral and poliical
values beween he colonial and poscolonial periods from a ime when
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 21
racial hierarchies and imperial loyaly appeared raional and acceped o
a period when such convenions and forms of inellecion vanished for
all pracical purposes As saed his book embraces a challenge issued
by Achille Mbembe ha scholars should work beyond he conours ofliberaion hisories ha reduce poliical life o modular forms of ldquoAfro-
radicalismrdquo and beyond narraives anchored in naivism ha coninue o
promoe he colonial idea o Arican ideniy as based on membership in
ldquohe black racerdquo9830961048629
Tese communiies have no enirely disappeared Bu erms like Anglo-
African andEuro- African have allen ino disuse undergoing a ype o so-
cial deah Teir hisories have largely been rendered invisible highligh-
ing he poenial or paterns o idenificaion and peoplehood o weakenover ime Ideniies are no abou origins alone Tey are equally abou
desinaions heir long-erm viabiliy and saus are shaped and deer-
mined by he coningencies of poliics and he prioriies of hisory Tis
book works hrough hese observaions regarding he precariy o empiri-
cism and subjeciviy o hink criically abou he relaionships beween
imperial experience poscolonial scholarship and he differen orms o
reason ha have influenced hem Reason iself mus be hisoricized A
renewal o awareness oward he inellecual and poliical raionales hamoivae curren research can resul in producive shifs in mehod and
subjec illuminaing a more complex view o he pasmdasheven and perhaps
especially aspecs ha we find disagreeable are criical of and wish o
overlook
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 983139983151983116983151983150983145983105983116983145983155983149 983150983105983156983145983158983145983155983149 983105983150983140
983156983144983141 983143983141983150983141983105983116983151983143983145983139983105983116 983145983149983105983143983145983150983105983156983145983151983150
1 Quoed in Shor Banda 22 Kaunda and Morris A Humanist in Africa 61 62 Kaundarsquos commen references
Briish Prime Miniser Harold Macmillanrsquos ldquowind of changerdquo speech o he Souh
African parliamen in 1960 when he criicized Souh Africarsquos policy of aparheid a a
ime of decolonizaion in Africa
3 On he federaion and he poliics of his period see Hyam ldquoTe Geopoliical
Origins of he Cenral African Federaionrdquo Murphy ldquolsquoGovernmen by Blackmailrsquordquo
Roberg Te Rise of Nationalism in Central Africa
4 As explained in his bookrsquos noe on erminology I use he erm multiracial a
he ouse as a ranslaion erm ha converses wih conemporary work in criical
race heory For discussion and debae over his expanding issue see for exampleDaCosta Making Multiracials Elam Te Souls of Mixed Folk Ifekwuniqwe lsquoMixed Racersquo
Studies parts 2 and 3 Josephranscending Blackness Root Te Multiracial Experience
Sexon Amalgamation Schemes
5 Inerview wih Ann and Jessica Ascrof November 9 1999 Blanyre Malawi
6 On Suree see Baker Revolt of the Ministers 38
7 On he Banda regime and afer see Phiri and Ross Democratization in Malawi
Englund A Democracy of Chameleons
8 Inerview wih Dinah Coombes November 11 1999 Zomba Malawi On he
ambiguiies of decolonizaion and he ofen personal effecs of Malawirsquos poliical
transition see Baker Revolt of the Ministers McCracken ldquoTe Ambiguities of Nation-
alismrdquo and A History of Malawi chapers 15 and 16 Power ldquoRemembering Durdquo
9 On genealogy and poliical imaginaion more generally see Anderson Imagined
Communities Appadurai Modernity at Large Crais Te Politics of Evil Shryock Nation-
alism and the Genealogical Imagination Vergegraves Monsters and Revolutionaries On he
poliics of wriing criically abou race and racism see for example Fields and Fields
Racecraft Painer Te History of White People Roediger Te Wages of Whiteness
10 For recen discussion of his erminology see for example Brennan aifa
chaper 1 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2 Pierre Te Predicament of
Blackness chapers 1 and 2
11 For a criique of hisories of race and heir search for origins see Soler ldquoRacial
Hisories and Teir Regimes of ruhrdquo
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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250 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
12 Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power 160
13 My houghs here have been simulaed by Brennan aifa Evans Bureaucracy
and Race Glassman War of Words
14 Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 6 See also Gordon ldquoVagrancy Law and lsquoShadow
Knowledgersquordquo On racial marking and racial hough see for example Glassman Warof Words Hol ldquoMarkingrdquo Jackson Real Black Soler ldquoRacial Hisories and Teir
Regimes of ruhrdquo Wacquan ldquoFor an Analyic of Racial Dominaionrdquo On ideniy
and he cogniive urn more generally see Brubaker Ethnicity without Groups espe-
cially chaper 3
15 On he ension beween using race as a caegory for hisorical analysis and he
problem of perpeuaing race see for example Fields ldquoIdeology and Race in Ameri-
can Hisoryrdquo Hol Te Problem of Race in the wenty-First Century Roediger Colored
White
16 Here I paraphrase Fields ldquoOf Rogues and Geldingsrdquo 1400 and Smedley and
Smedley ldquoRace as Biology Is Ficion Racism as a Social Problem Is Realrdquo
17 Engagemen wih race and racism ook poliical form early on For acivis cri-
iques see Biko I Write What I Like Fanon Black Skin White Masks and Te Wretched
of the Earth For more recen criical engagemens no ye cied on his large issue
see Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 2 Desai Subject to Colonialism chaper 1
Fyfe ldquoRace Empire and he Hisoriansrdquo For reamens in souhern Africa see par-
icularly Dubow Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa Summers From Civilization
to Segregation On he challenges of defining race and racism given he formerrsquos plas-
iciy see for example Banon Racial Teories Goldberg ldquoTe Semanics of Racerdquo
Hall ldquoRace Ariculaion and Socieies Srucured in Dominancerdquo Miles and BrownRacism inroducion
18 Te lieraure on his issue is equally vas See for example Comaroff and
Comaroff Ethnicity Inc Comaroff ldquoOf oemism and Ehniciyrdquo Dubow ldquoEhnic
Euphemisms and Racial Echoesrdquo Iliffe A Modern History of anganyika chaper 10
Lonsdale ldquoTe Moral Economy of Mau Maurdquo Lonsdale ldquoWhen Did he Gusii or Any
Oher Group Become a lsquoribersquordquo Mamdani Citizen and Subject chapers 3 and 4
Spear ldquoNeo-radiionalism and he Limis of Invenion in Briish Colonial Africardquo
Spear and Waller Being Maasai Vail Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa
Young Te Politics of Cultural Pluralism
19 Exemplary works by Boas and Herskovis include Boas Te Mind of Primitive Man and Herskovis Te Myth of the Negro Past See also Baker From Savage to Negro
Williams Rethinking Race Scholars have debaed hese earlier posiions furher
criiquing and supporing he idea of culure agains race See Harigan ldquoCulure
agains Racerdquo Michaels ldquoRace ino Culurerdquo and ldquoTe No-Drop Rulerdquo Visweswaran
Uncommon Cultures chapers 2 and 3
20 For work ciing he imporance of he precolonial pas see for example
Schoenbrun ldquoConjuring he Modern in Africardquo and Vansina Paths in the Rainforests
For recent work addressing the issue of race prior to European control see Glassman
War of Words chapter 2 Hall A History of Race in Muslim West Africa chapters 1 and 2
21 A radiion of Marxis hough played a role in marginalizing he issue of racefor a ime On he relaive absence of race see Posel Hyslop and Niefagodien ldquoEdi-
orialrdquo For scholarship ha marked his urn in he Souh African hisoriography
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 251
see Dubow Racial Segregation and the Origins of Apartheid in South Africa 1919ndash36
Marks and rapido Te Politics of Race Class and Nationalism in wentieth-Century
South Africa Comparaive work wih he Unied Saes also influenced his shif as
did he Black Consciousness Movemen of he 1970s See Cell Te Highest Stage of
White Supremacy Fredrickson White Supremacy22 Examples of his coninuing urn include Brennan aifa Glassman War of
Words Hall A History of Race
23 Tough Nyasaland was referred o as Briish Cenral Africa prior o is proec-
orae saus I use he erm as shorhand o designae he hree colonies of Nyasa-
land Norhern Rhodesia and Souhern Rhodesiamdasha common pracice during he
middle decades of he wenieh cenury
24 Tis sudy akes ino accoun wha Howard Winan has called a ldquoworld racial
sysemrdquo cenered in he Wes (Te World Is a Ghetto 20 21 35) Oher relevan liera-
ure includes Clarke and Tomas Globalization and Race Fredrickson Racism Lake
and Reynolds Drawing the Global Colour Line On peripheries and ou-of-he-way
places see Appadurai ldquoTeory in Anhropologyrdquo Comaroff Body of Power Spirit
of Resistance Cooper e al Confronting Historical Paradigms Gupa and Ferguson
ldquoBeyond lsquoCulurersquordquo Pio Remotely Global sing In the Realm of the Diamond Queen
Wilmsen Land Filled with Flies
25 On Briish Cenral Africa as a defined region of sudy see he work of he
Rhodes-Livingsone Insiue such as Colson and Gluckman Seven ribes of British
Central Africa Gluckman ldquoAnhropology in Cenral Africardquo and ldquoribalism in Mod-
ern Briish Cenral Africardquo Schumaker Africanizing Anthropology For engagemens
wih he uses of region generally see for example Cohen and Odhiambo Siaya 4Feierman Te Shambaa Kingdom 6 7 Marin ldquoRegion Formaion under Crisis Con-
diionsrdquo For a sudy ha assers he significance of hisories of ldquohe rivial and he
ephemeralrdquo in the making of regional histories see White ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326
26 On he connecions beween race and naion see for example Anderson
Imagined Communities chaper 8 Balibar and Wallersein Race Nation Class Marx
Making Race and Nation Glassman War of Words Brennan aifa On race and empire
see McClintock Imperial Leather StolerCarnal Knowledge and Imperial Power Levine
Prostitution Race and Politics
27 On he rule of difference see Chaterjee Te Nation and Its Fragments chap-
er 2 Scot ldquoColonial Governmenaliyrdquo 194ndash98 Seinmez Te Devilrsquos Handwriting 27ndash41
28 For argumens ha have sressed examining oher forms of agency and polii-
cal imaginaion as addressed in his book see Cooper ldquoConflic and Connecionrdquo
Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehnographic Refusalrdquo On poliical language
and he poliics of language see for example Comaroff and Comaroff Of Revela-
tion and Revolution chapers 1 and 2 Cooper Decolonization and African Society 4 5
Feierman Peasant Intellectuals 3 Landau Te Realm of the Word Mann Native Sons
5 Sedman Jones Languages of Class
29 Mamdani Define and Rule chapers 1 and 2
30 Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa x For exensions of he parameers of Mu-dimbersquos argumen see Amselle Mestizo Logics Desai Subject to Colonialism
31 ldquoAfricanismrdquo is Mudimbersquos erm for his order of knowledge an analogue o
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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252 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
Edward Saidrsquos Orienalism See Mudimbe Te Invention of Africa inroducion and
chaper 1 Said Orientalism
32 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 256 Mbembersquos poin generaed
considerable debae See Diagne ldquoKeeping Africaniy Openrdquo Guyer ldquoConempla-
ing Uncerainyrdquo Jewsiwickie ldquoTe Subjec in Africardquo Quayson ldquoObverse Denomi-naionsrdquo For a response see Mbembe ldquoOn he Power of he Falserdquo On he devel-
opmen of he naive quesion and he naive problem see Ashforh Te Politics of
Official Discourse in wentieth-Century South Africa Dubow Racial Segregation On
heir repercussions for knowledge see for example illey Africa as a Living Labora-
tory chapers 5 and 6
33 Mudimbe has oulined he deep legacies of Africanism including criical
(hough limied in his view) challenges made by African inellecuals See Mudimbe
Te Invention of Africa chapers 3 and 4 In a separae vein no only has a grea deal
of scholarship been commited o underscoring African agency under colonial rule
bu much work has focused on how defining ehnic groups and pracices was a nego-
iaed process In addiion o cusomary auhoriies and sae officials folk ehnog-
raphers local hisorians and rained anhropologiss conribued in various ways
o his expansive srucure of colonial knowledge For criical discussion see Berry
No Condition Is Permanent Chanock Law Custom and Social Order Hamilon errific
Majesty Moore Social Facts and Fabrications Peerson Creative Writing On he role
of local hisorians in paricular see Peerson and Macola Recasting the Past On he
connecions beween ehnography and colonialism see Asad Anthropology and the
Colonial Encounter Socking Colonial Situations
34 Recen scholarship ha arguably belongs o his criical radiion which hasatemped o unravel inellecual coninuiies includes Vaughan ldquoRepored Speech
and Oher Kinds of esimonyrdquo Landau Popular Politics in the History of South Africa
1400ndash1948
35 For his fascinaing poliical and inellecual hisory see Cocks ldquoMax Gluck-
man and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo
Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo
36 Macmillan Te Cape Colour Question For a parallel study from the same period
see Marais Te Cape Coloured People See also he work by a former suden of Marais
and Schapera Patersonrsquos Colour and Culture in South Africa
37 Tese earlier connecions have been less explored in recen lieraure whichhas focused on he wenieh cenury Recen influenial work includes Erasmus
Coloured by History Shaped by Place Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough
For a comparative view that returns to and recenters interracial relationships see the
family hisories in Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire
38 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African An-
hropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 Macmillan ldquoReurn o he Malungwana Drifrdquo 48 In
addiion o Te Cape Colour Question Macmillan wroe a second imporan work ha
posiioned his argumen eniled Bantu Boer and Briton (1929) For a discussion of
his influence on South Africarsquos liberal and Marxist historiography see Macmillan and
Marks Africa and the Empire For a noed example of Macmillanrsquos influence see Le-gassick Te Politics of a South African Frontier Macmillanrsquos work also generaed laer
debaes over pluralism and he imporance of class analysis See Magubane ldquoPlural-
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4043
983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4143
254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4243
983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 253
ism and Conflic Siuaion in Africardquo Van den Berghe ldquoPluralism and Conflic Siua-
ions in Africa A Reply o B Magubanerdquo
39 Cocks ldquoMax Gluckman and he Criique of Segregaion in Souh African
Anhropology 1921ndash1940rdquo 754 On Gluckmanrsquos inervenion iself see Gluckman
ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siuaion in Modern Zululandrdquo and ldquoAnalysis of a Social Siua-ion in Modern Zululand (coninued)rdquo For a French parallel see Balandier ldquoTe
Colonial Siuaionrdquo
40 Mafeje ldquoTe Ideology of lsquoribalismrsquordquo 261 Mafeje furher remarked ha ldquoif
ribalism is hough of as peculiarly African hen he ideology [of ribalism] iself
is paricularly European in originrdquo (253) Tough he and Gluckman shared a Marxis
orienaion i should be noed ha Mafeje criiqued Gluckman in he same aricle
for not fulfilling his critical ambition For further discussion see Gluckman ldquoAnthro-
pologiss and Aparheidrdquo For a criical engagemen wih Schapera see Dubow Sci-
entific Racism 53 54 Landau Popular Politics 223ndash27 232ndash38 240 For relaed work
and work ha has responded o Mafejersquos criical inervenion see Amselle Mestizo
Logics chaper 1 Ekeh ldquoSocial Anhropology and wo Conrasing Uses of ribalism
in Africardquo Ojiaku ldquoEuropean ribalism and African Naionalismrdquo Ranger ldquoTe In-
venion of radiion Revisiedrdquo Souhall ldquoTe Illusion of riberdquo
41 Aper ldquoAfrica Empire and Anhropologyrdquo Mafeje ldquoAnhropology and Inde-
penden Africansrdquo
42 While a grea deal of inellecual energy has been commited o inerrogaing
essenialis insrumenalis and social consrucionis inerpreaions of ehniciy
less atenion has exended beyond he ehnic paradigm o inerrogae oher racial
subjeciviies in he same fashion For an overview see Glassman War of Wordschaper 1
43 On writing for the nation see Lonsdale ldquoStates and Social Processes in Africardquo
143 On ldquounofficialrdquo hisories and culure see Barber ldquoPopular Ars in Africardquo 11ndash13
Luise Whie among ohers has already made a poin of criiquing naionalis hiso-
ries remarking that ldquoEarly nationalist historiography did not problematise its goalsrdquo
Moreover i mus be sressed ha poscolonial naivism has also creaed hierar-
chies of exclusion among ehnic groups wih indigeneiy iself ofen being a polii-
cal consrucion Derek Peerson has recenly writen ha ldquohe era of African inde-
pendence was marked by increasing inolerance of minoriies by he solidificaion
of unequal gender roles and by he muliplicaion of naivismsrdquo Tough hey couldoverlap as suggesed in his book poscolonial naivism and black naionalism mus
no always be equaed For criical discussion of hese issues see Hodgson Being
Maasai Becoming Indigenous Peerson Ethnic Patriotism and the East African Revival
281 Ranger ldquoNaionalis Hisoriography Parioic Hisory and he Hisory of he
Naionrdquo Whie ldquoTe raffic in Headsrdquo 326 On poscolonial naivism more generally
see for example Appiah In My Fatherrsquos House chaper 3 Mamdani When Victims
Become Killers chaper 1 Ndlovu-Gasheni ldquoracking he Hisorical Roos of Pos-
Aparheid Ciizenship Problemsrdquo Ngugı Decolonising the Mind
44 On hierarchies of credibiliy see Soler ldquolsquoIn Cold Bloodrsquordquo On a relaed formu-
laion of invisible hisories see Feierman ldquoColonizers Scholars and he Creaionof Invisible Hisoriesrdquo For a recen sudy of auochhony see Geschiere Te Perils
of Belonging
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4143
254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4243
983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4343
256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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254 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
45 Said Culture and Imperialism xxiv 42 228
46 See Brennan aifa Glassman War of Words Hall A History of Race Tis re-
cen work has followed he lead of many hisorians of women and gender who have
sough o complicae male-cenered narraives of ani-colonial sruggle See for ex-
ample Geiger 983156983137983150983157 Women Lyons ldquoGuerrilla Girls and Women in he ZimbabweanNaional Liberaion Srugglerdquo Schmid ldquolsquoEmancipae Your Husbandsrsquordquo On polii-
cal alernaives in Africa afer he Second World War see Cooper ldquoPossibiliy and
Constraintrdquo For related discussion on challenging the nation-state as overdeterming
hisorical narraives see Buron After the Imperial urn inroducion and Empire in
Question chapers 2 and 5
47 See for example Akyeampong ldquoRace Identity and Citizenship in Black Africardquo
Arsan ldquoFailing o Sem he iderdquo Brennan aifa Doson and Doson Te Indian
Minority of Zambia Rhodesia and Malawi Freund Insiders and Outsiders Glassman
Feasts and Riot Hall A History of Race Hansen Melancholia of Freedom Hughes
Whiteness in Zimbabwe Kennedy Islands of White Manga A History of the Asians in
East Africa On imperialism and culural managemen see Burbank and Cooper Em-
pires in World History Cannadine Ornamentalism
48 Whie Te Middle Ground chapers 5 and 8 For oher sudies in a similar vein
see Ballanyne and Buron Bodies in Contact Ghosh Sex and the Family in Colonial
India Hodes Sex Love Race Ray ldquoInerracial Sex and he Making of Empirerdquo Soler
Haunted by Empire
49 Brooks Eurafricans in Western Africa Jones Te Meacutetis of Senegal Mark ldquoPor -
tugueserdquo Style and Luso- African Identity Rodney A History of the Upper Guinea Coast
1545ndash1800 221 222 Whie Children of the French Empire50 Glassman War of Words chaper 2
51 For Mozambique see Isaacman Mozambique Penvenne ldquolsquoWe Are All Poru-
guesersquo rdquo and ldquoJoatildeo dos Sanos Albasini (1876ndash1922)rdquo
52 Hisorians of nineeenh-cenury Souh Africa have locaed he ermrsquos origins
in he 1820s and 1830s he period when slavery was abolished in he Wesern Cape
when a free person of color was considered ldquoColouredrdquo Bu he caegory ldquoColouredrdquo
had a Briish imperial presence across he slaveholding Alanic world See Adhikari
ldquoTe Sons of Hamrdquo Bickford-Smih Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape
own Jordan ldquoAmerican Chiaroscurordquo
53 Landau Popular Politics chapers 2 and 5 For oher sudies of he Griqua seeLegassick ldquoTe Norhern Fronier o c1840rdquo Ross Adam Kokrsquos Griquas Waldman
Te Griqua Conundrum For a hisoriographical overview see Cavanagh Te Griqua
Past and the Limits of South African History
54 Landau Popular Politics 4 11
55 Giliomee ldquoTe Beginnings of Afrikaner Ehnic Consciousness 1850ndash1915rdquo 23
See also Giliomee ldquoTe Non-Racial Franchise and Afrikaner and Coloured Identitiesrdquo
56 On poscolonial naionalism and elie hisoriographies see for example
Guha ldquoOn Some Aspecs of he Hisoriography of Colonial Indiardquo Prakash ldquoWriing
Pos-Orienalis Hisories of he Tird Worldrdquo On subjec races see Mamdani ldquoBe-
yond Setler and Naive as Poliical Ideniiesrdquo57 I place ldquoransgressiverdquo in quoes o signal my criicism of his discriminaory
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
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983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4343
256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4243
983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150 255
colonial atiude oward inerracial relaionships For a sudy of such atiudes see
Young Colonial Desire chapers 1 and 6
58 I borrow his expression from Wolf Europe and the People without History
59 Te auhoriaive saemen on his agenda is Cooper ldquoConflic and Connec-
ionrdquo See also Abu-Lughod ldquoTe Romance of Resisancerdquo Hun A Colonial Lexiconinroducion Johnson ldquoOn Agencyrdquo Orner ldquoResisance and he Problem of Ehno-
graphic Refusalrdquo
60 For pathbreaking work on the role of intellectuals in identity formation which
his book builds upon see Vail ldquoInroducion Ehniciy in Souhern African His-
oryrdquo
61 Posel ldquoRace as Common Senserdquo 89 90
62 Macmillan Cape Colour Question 266 noe 1
63 Muzondidya Walking a ightrope 26ndash28
64 Tere is also evidence ha he erm Anglo- African was used earlier in souh-
ern Africa o refer loosely o whies eiher born or setled in Africa similar o he
erm Anglo- Indian in India Tis usage may reflec he afermah of he Souh Afri-
can War (also known as he Anglo-Boer War) and he search for a new erminology
o include setlers of boh Briish and Afrikaner descen See Wills and Barret Te
Anglo- African Whorsquos Who and Biographical Sketch- Book
65 For a study of Coloured identity as a state instrument see Goldin Making Race
66 Curiously he only census I could find ha uses ldquoEurafricanrdquo as a sandard
caegory is from ouside he region in Swaziland See Swaziland Swaziland Census
1962
67 For oher sudies in he region see Doson and Doson ldquoIndians and Col-oureds in Rhodesia and Nyasalandrdquo Mandaza Race Colour and Class in Southern
Africa Milner-Tornon Te Long Shadow of the British Empire Wheeldon ldquoTe
Operaion of Volunary Associaions and Personal Neworks in he Poliical Pro-
cesses of an Iner-Ehnic Communiyrdquo For a souhern Africa approach see Adhikari
Burdened by Race
68 Te lieraure for Souh Africa is primarily cenered in he Wesern Cape espe-
cially Cape own For an overview see Lee ldquoVoices from he Marginsrdquo Some excep-
ions include Carsens Te Social Structure of a Cape Coloured Reserve Dickie-Clark
Te Marginal Situation Sales Mission Stations and the Coloured Communities of the
Eastern Cape 1800ndash1852 For sudies ha have exended beyond hisory and soci-ology o he fields of lieraure and ehnomusicology see Farred Midfielderrsquos Mo-
ment February Mind Your Colour Jorrisma Sonic Spaces of the Karoo
69 I sympahize wih an argumen made by Edward Cavanagh regarding he era-
sure of Griqua hisory and he homogenizing effec of much Souh African Coloured
hisory (Te Griqua Past 5 38) James Brennan srikes a similar cauionary noe
(aifa 3)
70 On Anglo-Indians see Caplan Children of Colonialism
71 My hinking here has been inspired by Frederick Cooperrsquos useful disincion
beween analyic erms and hisorical erms As he wries we end o ldquolose sigh of
he ques of people in he pas o develop connecions or ways of hinking ha ma-ered o hem bu no o usrdquo See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 On a separae
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4343
256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241
8102019 Unreasonable Histories by Christopher J Lee
httpslidepdfcomreaderfullunreasonable-histories-by-christopher-j-lee 4343
256 983150983151983156983141983155 983156983151 983145983150983156983154983151983140983157983139983156983145983151983150
noe Souh African hisories have ended oward poliical and inellecual hisories
as a means of addressing social formaionmdashan approach pursued in par III of his
book See Adhikari Not White Enough Not Black Enough Lewis Between the Wire and
the Wall van der Ross Te Rise and Decline of Apartheid
72 On srucures of feeling see Williams Marxism and Literature 128ndash3573 Tis posiion draws from social consrucionis argumens See Adhikari Not
White Enough Not Black Enough 13 Brubaker and Cooper ldquoBeyond lsquoIdeniyrsquordquo Vail
Te Creation of ribalism in Southern Africa inroducion Examples of conflic hiso-
ries include Crais White Supremacy and Black Resistance in Pre- Industrial South Africa
Evans Cultures of Violence Glassman War of Words Te poliics of descen have also
been vial o recen hisories of race see Brennan aifa chapers 1 2 and 4 Glass-
man War of Words chapers 2 3 and 4 Hall A History of Race chaper 1
74 Tese specific forms are discussed in van Velsen Te Politics of Kinship 185 186
75 Tis argumen builds on a urn in kinship sudies away from srucuralism
and biological deerminism o local hisory and social consrucion in he making
of kin relaions See Carsen After Kinship Collier and Yanagisako Gender and Kin-
ship Franklin and McKinnon Relative Values McKinnon ldquoDomesic Excepionsrdquo
Schneider A Critique of the Study of Kinship Srahern After Nature On ldquoculures of
relaednessrdquo see Carsen Cultures of Relatedness
76 Darnon Te Great Cat Massacre and Other Episodes in French Cultural History
Ginzburg Te Cheese and the Worms Soler Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power
van Onselen New Babylon New Ninevah Vaughan Curing Teir Ills Whie Speaking
with Vampires
77 Eze On Reason chaper 178 Gramsci Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci 52 54 55 On
applying subalern sudies o Malawi see Kalinga ldquoResisance Poliics of Proes
and Mass Naionalism in Colonial Malawi 1950ndash1960rdquo
79 Foucaul Language Counter- Memory Practice 139
80 Foucaul ldquoNiezsche Genealogy Hisoryrdquo 2983098374 See also Asad Genealogies of
Religion 16
81 I should be noed ha he genealogical hisory pursued in his book works
forward no backward o avoid a rerospecive analysis ha can produce anachro-
nisms See Cooper Colonialism in Question 18 19
82 Foucaul ldquoSociety Must Be Defendedrdquo 7 983 I place ldquotransgressionrdquo in quotes to critique the idea of racial purity that under-
pins he use of his word Te relaive hisorical shallowness of hese ideniies and
he communiies hey represen is also one reason why I resis calling hem ldquoehnicrdquo
groups
84 My houghs on hisoricizing reason and unreason have been influenced by
Chakrabary Provincializing Europe 238 239 Derrida Writing and Difference chap-
er 2 Foucaul Madness and Civilization Foucaul and Geacuterard Raule ldquoSrucuralism
and Pos-Srucuralismrdquo
85 Mbembe ldquoAfrican Modes of Self-Wriingrdquo 241