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 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).
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