The Briny South: Displacement and Sentiment in the Indian Ocean World

Nienke Boer's book "The Briny South" explores how the legal and literary narratives of enslaved, indentured, and imprisoned individuals crossing the Indian Ocean shaped racialized identities in the imperial world. She argues that colonial powers and settler states manipulated subaltern emotions to silence racialized subjects and portray them as inarticulately suffering. Boer traces the entwinement of displacement, race, and sentiment, framing the Indian Ocean as a site of subjectification with a long history of transnational connection and exploitation.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 224 pages
Publication date: 10 October 2023
Publisher: Duke University Press

In her groundbreaking work, "The Briny South," Nienke Boer delves into the intricate legal and literary narratives of individuals who traversed the Indian Ocean, encompassing enslaved, indentured, and imprisoned populations. Through a comprehensive analysis of court records, ledgers, pamphlets, censors reports, newsletters, folk songs, memoirs, and South African and South Asian works of fiction and autobiography, Boer explores the formation of racialized identities within the imperial world. By examining the role of sentiment and the portrayal of emotions in the construction of displaced peoples' identities across the Indian Ocean, Boer sheds light on the ways in which colonial powers and settler states mediated and manipulated subaltern expressions of emotion to suppress racialized subjects and present them as inarticulately suffering.

Rather than serving as an oppositional tool, sentiment worked in favor of the powerful, perpetuating the marginalization and exploitation of subaltern groups. By tracing the entwinement of displacement, race, and sentiment, Boer presents the Indian Ocean as a site of subjectification with a rich history of transnational connections and exploitation.

This work is a crucial contribution to the study of identity formation, race, and emotion in the colonial and postcolonial contexts, offering a nuanced understanding of the complex processes that shaped the lives of individuals in the Indian Ocean region.

Weight: 340g
Dimension: 151 x 229 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478019558