![]() Dube and Gandhi actively took part, as Mark Ravinder Frost puts it, in the 'imperial web of communications' (2010: 76), redefining - and reasserting - the margins of the British Empire to offer alternative solutions to imperial hegemony. ![]() Their achievements were punctuated with - if not informed by -national and international travels and exchanges, and the convergence of multidirectional flows of religious and spiritual ideologies. Due to its geographical position, located between two oceans but also simultaneously situated in two oceanic regions, South Africa can be seen as a site where alternative discourses emerged, leading to the creation of 'alternative modernities' (13).Īn example of this redefined space can be found some few kilometers north of Durban, in Inanda, where the paths of John Langalibalele Dube (1871-1946) and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) intersected. From a South African perspective, the idea of non-western globalization emanating from the southernmost tip of Africa involves not only the entire continent and the broader Indian Ocean region, but also the Atlantic Ocean, and more precisely the Black Atlantic, as will be discussed in this article. The activities taking place in the Indian Ocean public sphere inevitably created intellectual circuits in their midst, by the same token highlighting the presence and importance of non-western sources of globalization (Hofmeyr 2007: 3). This intercontinental and regional population movement intensified with the advent of industrialization, technological means easing interoceanic traveling. Traders, missionaries, settlers, migrants, slaves, explorers, to name but a few travelers, navigated across the region and each in their own ways left their trace in history. The African and Indian continents share a long history of connection via the Indian Ocean. Keywords: Dube, Gandhi, Indian Ocean Studies, nationalism, nation, transnationalism, modernity, civilization ![]() ![]() Finally, this case study suggests an understanding of the emergence of African and Indian nationalism and modernity in 20 th century South Africa as a transnational phenomenon. ![]() Following a brief historical overview of 20 th century Natal, the differences, parallels and interactions between Dube and Gandhi's personas and ideologies, and the influence of religion on their work, are discussed and supported through an examination of the Ohlange Institute and the Phoenix Settlement, as well as a comparative analysis of Ilanga and Indian Opinion archival material, as physical and written expressions of their respective outlook on life. In doing so, this paper offers a South African vantage point from which to understand the Indian and Atlantic Oceans' role in the intellectualization of the imperial context in South Africa, as part of a set of South-South exchanges and connections. on existing scholarship in the field of Indian Ocean studies, this paper argues that through two major historic figures, namely John Langalibalele Dube (1871-1946) and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), the Indian Ocean and the Black Atlantic converged in Inanda (Durban), where notions of nation, nationalism, modernity and civilization were articulated and defined. Mapping an interoceanic landscape: Dube and Gandhi in early 20 th century Durban, South Africa ![]()
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