Faultlines in the Long Durée of Human History Genealogies, Trajectories and Horizons - Paperback

by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Author)

Why do human beings ceaselessly draw lines between those who belong and those who do not? In this urgent and ambitious book, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni argues that the division between insider and outsider is at once the oldest and the most contemporary of human inventions-a dialectic rather than a mere distinction, in which the two terms produce and presuppose one another. Ranging across the long durée of human history, from the founding myths and hospitality ethics of pre-colonial societies to the abyssal lines of the present, he shows how a fluid grammar of incorporation was hardened by modernity/coloniality into a permanent, racialised, and hereditary line dividing the human from the less-than-human. Extending V. Y. Mudimbe's meditation on African fault lines and his own concept of the epistemic line, Ndlovu- Gatsheni gathers the colour line of Du Bois, the abyssal thinking of Santos, the coloniality of being, and the gender line into a single intersecting architecture. He confronts the most lethal manifestations of our conjuncture: Trumpism and the deportation regime, the genocide in Gaza, and the anti-foreigner violence captured in the South African chant of abahambe. Yet this is no melancholic catalogue of injuries. Refusing both nostalgia and despair, the book reaches towards the pluriverse-a world in which many worlds fit, where the migrant is reimagined as the harbinger of a shared and breathable planet. The line was drawn by human hands; by human hands it can be unlearned.

"This is a masterpiece from Africa's most important decolonial thinker... [it] covers one of the blind spots of decolonial theory: the differences and transformations between the structures of domination from pre-colonial times to the present... Anyone interested in the mutations of... faultlines... must read this book!!" - Ramon Grosfoguel, Emeritus Professor at University of California, Berkeley

"Faultlines arrives ready to fight. It steps into a global political arena where inequality and uncertainty have bolstered divides... [and] beautifully braids multiple cases... to illustrate how race, religion, gender, and nationality are now stockades used to categorically exclude peoples from a collective future. It... offers guidance on how unsettling knowledges can erode these barriers for the benefit of a common humanity.'' - Loren B Landau, Professor of Migration and Development, University of Oxford and University of the Witwatersrand

"In this ground-breaking analysis... Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni not only illuminates the constitutive mutuality between the genealogies and contemporary trajectories of exclusion but also advances a compelling vision of pluriversal futures... It is an insightful and timely read... It is a must read!'' - Inocent Moyo, Professor and National Research Foundation (NRF) SARCHI Chair on Borders and the African Continental Free Trade Area, University of Zululand

"This is a tour de force through one of the most pressing problems of our time... Africa's foremost decolonial thinker Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni offers a powerful tool to understand the history of the inclusive-exclusive present... A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the deep underbelly of 'us' and 'them.'" - Stefan Ouma, Professor of Geography and Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Bayreuth