Mixed Race Studies

Coloured Identity: South Africa, A Select bibliography

November 2010
74 pages

Allegra Louw, Librarian
African Studies Library
University of Cape Town

Introduction

According to Mohamed Adhikari, a leading scholar on Coloured Identity, the concept of “Colouredness” functioned as a social identity from the time of the formation of the South African state in 1910 to the present. He believes that Coloured identity did not undergo a process of continuous change during the era of white rule in South Africa, but remained essentially stable. This was because of

the Coloured people‘s assimilationism, 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 with which Coloured identity was imbued, especially the shame attached to their supposed racial hybridity; and finally, the marginality of the Coloured people, which caused them a great deal of frustration.

For the sociologist Zimitri Erasmus, “Coloured identities are not based on ‘race mixture’, but on cultural creativity, creolized formations shaped by South Africa‘s history of colonialism, slavery, segregation and apartheid.” She sees Coloured identities as cultural identities comprising detailed bodies of knowledge, specific cultural practices, memories, rituals and modes of being. Coloured identities were formed in the colonial encounter between colonists (Dutch and British), slaves from South and East India and from East Africa, and conquered indigenous peoples, the Khoi and San.

The South African Population Registration Act (Act 30 of 1950) defined a ‘Coloured person’ as a person who is not a white person or a Bantu. Section 5 (1) and (2) distinguished the following subgroups: Cape Coloureds, Malay, Griqua, Other Coloureds, Chinese, Indians and Other Asiatics.

There are those who deny the existence of a ‘Coloured’ identity. In the late 1990s, political activist and academic Neville Alexander wrote that coloured identity was white-imposed, reactionary and indicative of new forms of racism. Similarly, Zimitri Erasmus cites Norman Duncan, in an interview in the Cape Times, asserting that “…there‘s no such thing as a coloured culture, coloured identity. Someone has to show me what it is…”.

An interesting phenomenon is the proliferation of organisations which emerged after the April 1994 elections. Amongst these were the Kleurling Weerstandsbeweging vir die Vooruitgang van Bruinmense (Coloured Movement for the Progress of Brown People), the December First Movement and the Coloured Forum. A more recent development was the emergence of the Bruin Belange Inisiatief (Brown Interests Initiative) which was formed in July 2008. Most of these organisations were based in the Western Cape, and were formed not only for access to material resources, but also for political and social recognition.

This bibliography has been compiled to aid research on Coloured identity in South Africa, particularly in the Western Cape. It comprises all the divergent views on this phenomenon but is by no means complete. The bibliography is dynamic and will be updated from time to time.

Read the entire bibliography here.