After the Expulsion: Race and Caste Intimacies, Feminist Anthropology, and Afro–South Asian Universalisms in Transcontinental Uganda

Abstract What are the stakes of race and caste analysis in Uganda and East Africa? This theoretical and methodological essay argues that the dominant scholarly discussion on postcolonial racial conflict and the 1972 Asian expulsion in Uganda has been articulated through the frames of “expulsion exceptionalism” and colonial and economic determinism. Scholars focus primarily on race and class analysis and on the study of racial and native rule in postcolonial Africa and Uganda. Building on these significant scholarly interventions, this essay revisits marginalized anthropological scholarship on religion, sect, and caste among Indian communities in Uganda in the context of postindependence political and racial tensions between Africans and Asians in East Africa. Deploying feminist anthropological approaches, the essay demonstrates that the study of racial and caste intimacies in what the essay describes as “transcontinental Uganda” is necessary for understanding imperial formations, race consciousness, and Afro–South Asian racial tensions. Thinking race and caste from East Africa supports the development of a truly transcontinental and global dialogue on race and caste and the practice of Afro–South Asian universalisms based on racial and caste liberation. This endeavor draws attention to South Asian diasporic sources of anti-Black racism and anti-Blackness informed by the African experience.