Fifty years on: the 1972 Asian expulsion as global critical event, or the insecurities of expulsion

Abstract

This commentary examines the contemporary relevance of Uganda’s 1972 Asian expulsion. It describes and argues against “expulsion exceptionalism,” or the ways that expulsion is understood as a singular event and through discourses of African-Asian racial estrangement, the racial victimization of Asians, the excesses of military dictator Idi Amin, and illiberal framings of Uganda, Africa and African governance. Rather, the expulsion is a global critical event and a continuous reality that remains unresolved yet is central to new practices of South Asian noncitizen incorporation by the current government. The “insecurities of expulsion” refer to: 1) the effects and affects of expulsion; 2) the imaginaries, memories and meaning-making around expulsion; and 3) the practices and performances of Ugandan Asian/South Asian citizenship that have emerged since expulsion. This research contributes to Afro-Asian futures and to anthropological and other disciplinary engagements with global/transnational “Afro-Asian study.”