This paper takes up the contemporary debate on the pasts and futures of “non-racialism”. I am interested in non-racialism as both a form of political thinking and a mode of political practice directed towards equality imagined within the nation. I offer a critical appreciation of political thinking on non- racialism not to answer the question of whether it is a good idea or a bad idea as such, but rather to ask, is it a useful or helpful concept at this point in the fashioning of a post-apartheid future?

Suren Pillay
University of the Western Cape

Suren Pillay is Associate Professor at the Center for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa. He has published on issues of violence, citizenship and justice claims. With Chandra Sriram he is co-editor of the book, Truth vs Justice? The Dilemmas of Transitional Justice in Africa (London: James Currey, 2011) He has an Mphil, and a Phd in Anthropology from Columbia University. His current research focuses on two areas of interest: citizenship, violence and the politics of difference; and experiments in cultural sovereignty in postcolonial Africa in the sphere of knowledge production in the humanities and social sciences. Suren has been a visiting fellow at Jawarhalal Nehru University, India, the Makerere Institute for Social Research, Uganda, the Center for African Studies, Univ. of Cape Town, and the Center for Social Difference, Columbia University. He is a previous editor of the journal Social Dynamics, blogs for Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), and has published widely in the press.