In the twenty-first century, the terms “representation” and “identity” seem to have gone out of fashion. The essays collected here, however, seek to demonstrate the extent to which they continue to matter in the social, political and cultural struggles waged by marginalized communities across our postcolonial and globalizing world. The volume starts by offering contingent readings of prominent identity-related concepts – hybridity, insularity, the west, ubuntu, and orientalism – which ask how these concepts translate into practical, situated ways of grappling with the legacies of colonialism. It continues by exploring the relational articulation of collective identities and their histories (as shared rather than competing), and the way origin narratives and notions of indigeneity, in contexts as diverse as Namibia, Uruguay and Bolivia, function not as fixed roots, but as constructed representations that are manipulated according to the demands of the present. Finally, tradition, too, emerges as open to continuous strategic re-invention in contributions dealing with female agency in a Hindu ritual, peasant understandings of modernity in Zimbabwe, the resurgence of Chinese culture in Indonesia, and André Brink’s rewriting of South African history.

Table of Contents:
Anette Hoffmann and Esther Peeren: Introduction: Representation Matters Concepts of Postcolonial Identity: Contingent Articulations Sudeep Dasgupta: Alterity and Identities: The Paradoxes of Authenticity Marc Brudzinski: Insularity and Identity at Odds in Martinique: 1973 to 2004 Nimrod Ben-Cnaan: The West between Culture(s) and Collective Identity: Notes for a Present Problematic Hanneke Stuit: Ubuntu, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and South African National Identity Gülru Çakmak: Resistance or Compliance? The Problem of Orientalism in Osman Hamdi’s Paintings Relational Histories Huub van Baar: Romani Identity Formation and the Globalization of Holocaust Discourse Niamh Ann Kelly: Similarity and Difference: The Appearance of Suffering at the Strokestown Famine Museum Rethinking Origins and Indigeneity Anette Hoffmann: Resignifying Genesis, Identity, and Landscape: Routes versus Roots Vannina Sztainbok: From Salsipuedes to Tabaré: Race, Space, and the Uruguayan Subject Claret Vargas: Bolivian Indigenous Identities: Reshaping the Terms of Political Debate, 1994-2004 Reinventing Tradition Beatrix Hauser: Performative Constructions of Female Identity at a Hindu Ritual: Some Thoughts on the Agentive Dimension Guy Thompson: “We Are Like Fish That Were Reeled In”: Peasant Understandings of Modernity in Zimbabwe Sonja van Wichelen: Silence, Absence, Loss: Chineseness in Post-Authoritarian Indonesia Saskia Lourens: Moving Identities: Mythology and Metaphor in André Brink’s Praying Mantis The Contributors Index