Out of Place: An Autoethnography of Postcolonial Citizenship

Out of Place offers an in-depth exploration of Nuraan Davids' experience as a Muslim 'coloured' woman, traversing a post-apartheid space. It centres on and explores a number of themes, which include her challenges not only as a South African citizen, andwithin her faith community, but as an academic citizen at a historically white university. The book is her story, an autoethnography, her reparation. By embarking on an auto-ethnography, she not only tries to change the way her story has been told by others, transforms her 'sense of what it means to live' (Bhabha, 1994). She is driven by a postcolonial appeal, which insists that if she seeks to imprint her own way of life into the discourses which pervade the world around her, then she can no longer allow herself to be spoken on behalf of or to be subjugated into the hegemonies of others. The main argument of Out of Place is that Muslim, 'coloured' women are subjected to layers of scrutiny and prejudices, which have yet to be confronted. What we know about Muslim 'coloured' women has been shaped by preconceived notions of 'otherness', and attached to a meta-narrative of 'oppression and backwardness'. By centring and using her lived experiences, the author takes readers on a journey of what it is like to be seen in terms of race, gender and religion - not only within the public sphere of her professional identities, but within the private sphere of her faith community. --

Nuraan Davids is a Professor of Philosophy of Education in the Department of Education Policy Studies, Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. Her primary research interests include democratic citizenship education, Islamic philosophy of education, and philosophy of higher education. She is a co-editor of the Routledge series, World Issues in the Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education; co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Education in Muslim Societies; associate editor of the South African Journal of Higher Education; editorial board member of Ethics and Education. Recent books (with Y Waghid) include: Democratic Education as Inclusion (Rowman & Littlefield - Lexington Series, 2022); Academic Activism in Higher Education: A living philosophy for social justice (Springer, 2021); Teaching, Friendship & Humanity (Springer, 2020); Teachers Matter: Educational philosophy and authentic learning (Rowman & Littlefield - Lexington Series, 2020).