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Hope, fear, shame, frustration: Continuity and change in the expression of Coloured identity in white supremacist South Africa. 1910-1994
This thesis examines the ways in which Coloured identity manifested itself in South African society from the time the South African state was formed in 1910 till the institution of democratic rule in 1994. The central argument of the dissertation is that Coloured identity is better understood, not a...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English English |
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Department of Historical Studies
2026
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| Summary: | This thesis examines the ways in which Coloured identity manifested itself in South African society from the time the South African state was formed in 1910 till the institution of democratic rule in 1994. The central argument of the dissertation is that Coloured identity is better understood, not as having evolved through a series of transformations during this period, as conventional historical thinking would have it, but to have remained remarkably stable throughout the era of white rule. This is not to contend that Coloured identity was static or that it lacked fluidity but that the continuities during this period were more fundamental to the way in which it operated as a social identity than the changes it experienced. It is argued that this stability was derived from a central core of enduring characteristics that regulated the way in which Colouredness functioned as an identity during this period. Each of the four emotions in the title of the thesis corresponds to a key characteristic at the heart of the identity. The principal constituents of this stable core are the assimilationism of the Coloured people (hope), their intermediate status in the racial hierarchy (fear), the negative connotations, especially that of racial hybridity, with which it was imbued (shame), and finally, the marginality of the Coloured community (frustration). In addition to a series of thematic analyses that broadly encompass the expression of Coloured identity throughout the era of white supremacist rule, the dissertation uses a range of case studies of key texts to demonstrate its thesis. Collectively, the case studies have been chosen to cover the entire period under review as well as to represent the full spectrum of opinion within the Coloured community about the nature of their identity. After an opening chapter that sets the social and historical context and that maps out its conceptual framework, the thesis outlines a historiography of Coloured writing on the history of their community. This analysis provides an overview of changing perceptions within the Coloured community of their history and nature as a social group. The first two case studies, the APO (1909-1923) and the Educational Journal (1915-1940), investigate the expression of Coloured identity in the earlier decades of South Africa's existence. The second set of case histories, Torch (1946-1963) and A Walk in the Night (1962), explore new perspectives introduced by the emergence of a radical movement in Coloured politics during the middle decades of white rule. In the next chapter the Black Consciousness poetry of James Matthews (1970s) and South (1987-1994) serve as examples of opinion within the anti-apartheid movement during the latter phases of the apartheid era. Finally, an examination of Hein Willemse's 1993 study of the Straatpraatjes column, published in the APO from 1909 onwards, is used in the conclusion to illustrate a particular view common at the close of the apartheid period and to reinforce the general conclusions of the thesis. |
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