The British South Africa Company’s conquest of Zimbabwe in the 1890s opened the country to settlement by immigrants from Europe, South Africa, India and other regions. Using their position as benefactors of the emerging colony, the British-born settlers deployed various notions of foreignness to marginalize the indigenous populations and other groups. Focusing on thirty-three years of company rule in Zimbabwe, this article examines how Indian immigrants contested the British attempts to foreignize them in the emerging colony. Rather than presenting Indian migrants as passive victims of discrimination and marginalization, the study emphasizes their creativity and determination to establish their own destiny, against all odds. It also shows that foreignness in colonial Zimbabwe was a key factor in the politics of power, identity formation and nation-state building. In that respect, the article explores the constructed-ness as well as the malleability of foreignness in processes of nation-state formation in Africa.

中文翻译：

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有争议的外国：1890年至1923年在津巴布韦早期殖民地的印度移民和排斥政治

1890年代，英属南非公司对津巴布韦的征服使该国得以接受来自欧洲，南非，印度和其他地区的移民定居。出生于英国的定居者利用其作为新兴殖民地的恩人的地位，部署了各种异化观念，以将土著居民和其他群体边缘化。本文以津巴布韦公司统治的三十三年为重点，考察了印度移民如何与英国人抗衡在新兴殖民地使他们外国化的企图。该研究并没有将印度移民视为歧视和边缘化的被动受害者，而是强调了他们的创造力和决心，要在各种情况下确立自己的命运。这也表明，津巴布韦殖民地的异化是权力政治的关键因素，身份形成与民族国家建设。在这方面，本文探讨了非洲在民族国家形成过程中的建构性和可塑性。