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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Hope, Fear, Shame, Frustration: Continuity and Change in the Expression of Coloured Identity in White Supremacist South Africa, 1910-1994 |
Author: | Adhikari, Mohamed |
Year: | 2006 |
Periodical: | Journal of Southern African Studies |
Volume: | 32 |
Issue: | 3 |
Period: | September |
Pages: | 467-487 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | Coloureds group identity social history 1900-1999 Ethnic and Race Relations History and Exploration Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070600829542 |
Abstract: | This article explains the basic impulses behind Coloured exclusivity in White supremacist South Africa and elaborates on continuity and change in the processes of Coloured self-definition by identifying the core attributes of Coloured identity and outlining the ways in which they operated to reinforce and reproduce that identity. The central argument is that Coloured identity is better understood not as having evolved through a series of transformations, as conventional historical thinking would have it, but as having remained stable throughout the era of White rule. The article argues that this stability derived from a core of enduring characteristics that informed the manner in which Colouredness functioned as an identity during this period. The principal constituents of this stable core are the assimilationism of the Coloured people, which spurred hopes of future acceptance into the dominant society; their intermediate status in the racial hierarchy, which generated fears that they might lose their position of relative privilege and be relegated to the status of Africans; the negative connotations, especially the shame attached to racial hybridity, with which Colouredness was imbued; and finally, the marginality of the Coloured community, which severely limited their options for social and political action, giving rise to a great deal of frustration. Notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract, edited] |