Challenging Euro-America's Politics of Identity

the long version

Jorge Fernandes' book takes its subtitle, Return of the Native, from Thomas Hardy's 1878 novel. However, unlike Hardy's returning native, the native with whom he is concerned is a nomad whose trajectory of movement maps important aspects of the contemporary and increasingly globalized world." "In theoretically deep yet accessible discussions, the author treats a range of sources: film, fiction, political theory and state policy. By tracing the nomadic movement of bodies across national frontiers this book helps us to question any natural link between nation-states and identities, and between places and peoples. This is not merely a theoretical problem, as Fernandes relates it to the very current crisis of nativist/multicultural identity in the West. The author takes globalization seriously, but rather than focusing on its economic or institutional manifestations, he examines how politics takes shape in transnational social and cultural encounters, and how this new politics is not just about containing aliens, but also contains fruitful possibilities for different modes of being." "This interdisciplinary book will be of interest to advanced students and scholars in Politics, Geography, Postcolonial Studies, Cultural Studies, African and African-American Studies, Comparative Literature, American Studies and Ethnic Studies.