Not White Enough, Not Black Enough: Racial Identity in the South African Coloured Community

Synopsis

This book is the first systematic study of Coloured identity, its history, and its relevance to South African national life. The author engages with the debates and controversies thrown up by the identity’s troubled existence and challenges much of the conventional wisdom associated with it. A combination of wide-ranging thematic analyses and detailed case studies illustrates how Colouredness functioned as a social identity from the time of its emergence in the late nineteenth century through its adaptation to the postapartheid environment.

The author demonstrates how the interplay of marginality, racial hierarchy, assimilationist aspirations, negative racial stereotyping, class divisions, and ideological conflicts helped mold people’s sense of Colouredness over the past century. Knowledge of this history, and of the social and political dynamic that informed the articulation of a separate Coloured identity, is vital to an understanding of present-day complexities in South Africa.

Copyright:

2005

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

268 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780896802445

Publisher:

Double Storey Books

Date of Addition:

07/30/21

Copyrighted By:

Center for International Studies

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Politics and Government, Sociology

Submitted By:

Worth Trust

Proofread By:

Worth Trust

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.