Nomadic Identities: The Performance of Citizenship (review)

Abstract

In an evocative opening for a compelling book, May Joseph recalls her "visual shock" (2) induced by the beginning of Mira Nair's 1991 film Mississippi Masala, which depicts Idi Amin's mass eviction of the South Asian population of Uganda in 1972. This scene triggers memories of her own family's abrupt departure from the neighboring country of Tanzania in 1975 and ultimately leads to an attempt to make sense of the "trauma of failed citizenship" (18) endured by the South Asian diaspora. This attempt has culminated in Nomadic Identities: The Performance of Citizenship, a rewarding journey that traverses East Africa, Great Britain, and the United States. The geographic shifts of the book enact the multiple connections and dislocations that characterize an increasingly transnational world.