The South African Commercial Advertiser and the making of middle class identity in early nineteenth-century Cape Town
This project constitutes a close textual analysis of The South African Commercial Advertiser in the years 1824 and 1830 - 1831. It uses this text to explore issues around the making of colonial identity in Cape Town during the early nineteenth century, making use of post-structuralist theories about discourse and the textual nature of historical reality. It therefore hopes to build on already existing work which concerns this period, but which does not directly address issues of cultural change in this way. The study commences with an account of the Advertiser's conception of the place of the press in the reform agenda of the middle classes in Cape Town. It explores contemporary notions about the nature of the rational public sphere and its basis in a literate culture. The second chapter explores the reconstruction of social space in Cape Town and the way in which these middle class efforts were disrupted by troubling perceptions of the underclasses in the city. Chapters three and four address the notions of gender identity and labour organization which informed the Advertiser's conception of an appropriately civilized society, as well as exploring the way in which these perceptions were destabilized by their operation in the colonial context of the Cape. The final chapter looks at the importance of representative government in the aims of the paper, and draws together some threads on the nature of colonial identity at the Cape as expressed in the Advertiser.
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