Melancholia of freedom : social life in an Indian township in South Africa / Thomas Blom Hansen.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction: Under the gaze: freedom and race after apartheid -- Ethnicity by fiat: the remaking of Indian life in South Africa -- Domesticity and cultural intimacy -- Charous and Ravans: a story of mutual nonrecognition -- Autonomy, freedom, and political speech -- Movement, sound, and body in the postapartheid city -- The unwieldy fetish: Desi fantasies, roots tourism, and diasporic desires -- Global Hindus and pure Muslims: universalist aspirations and territorialized lives -- The saved and the backsliders: the Charou soul and the instability of belief -- Postscript: Melancholia in the time of the "African personality."