Out of Place offers an in-depth exploration of Nuraan Davids'
experience as a Muslim 'coloured' woman, traversing a post-apartheid
space. It centres on and explores a number of themes, which include her
challenges not only as a South African citizen, and within her faith
community, but as an academic citizen at a historically white
university. The book is her story, an autoethnography, her reparation.
By embarking on an auto-ethnography, she not only tries to change the
way her story has been told by others, transforms her 'sense of what it
means to live' (Bhabha, 1994). She is driven by a postcolonial appeal,
which insists that if she seeks to imprint her own way of life into the
discourses which pervade the world around her, then she can no longer
allow herself to be spoken on behalf of or to be subjugated into the
hegemonies of others.
The main argument of Out of Place is that Muslim, 'coloured' women are
subjected to layers of scrutiny and prejudices, which have yet to be
confronted. What we know about Muslim 'coloured' women has been shaped
by preconceived notions of 'otherness', and attached to a meta-narrative
of 'oppression and backwardness'. By centring and using her lived
experiences, the author takes readers on a journey of what it is like to
be seen in terms of race, gender and religion - not only within the
public sphere of her professional identities, but within the private
sphere of her faith community.
