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Citizen or Subject? Blurring Boundaries, Claiming Space: Indians in Colonial S outh A frica
Author(s) -
Majumdar Bijita
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/johs.12020
Subject(s) - allegiance , colonialism , citizenship , subject (documents) , politics , identity (music) , power (physics) , law , indigenous , sociology , political science , resistance (ecology) , history , aesthetics , art , physics , quantum mechanics , library science , computer science , ecology , biology
Citizenship and subjecthood are often seen as discrete, bounded categories, temporally disparate and conceptually distinct in law and in the social sciences. This paper challenges this predominant formulation by attesting that these legal categories are in fact, often, breached and blurred in identity struggles over claims to rights. Using the case of colonial Indians in S outh A frica, this paper argues that under conditions of colonialism, the colonized use the dual category of citizen/subject to claim rights while pledging allegiance to the power‐holders. Using historical sources such as petitions and referenda written by Indians to the colonial rulers and G andhi's writings during his stay in S outh A frica, I explore the implications of this slippage between subject and citizen, thus contributing to the existing literature on colonial law and colonial resistance, the politics of citizenship, race relations and the politics of difference and identity.