Coloured by History, Shaped by Place: new Perspectives on Coloured identities in Cape Town (Social Identities South Africa Series)

Who is ‘black’ in South Africa today? And who is ‘coloured’? Who is in charge of the definitions? And why does it matter? This book examines - and plays with the boundaries of - the disconcerting, discomfiting meanings that have grown around coloured identities. It attempts to rethink what it means to be ‘coloured’ in post-apartheid South Africa. It argues that coloured identities are a valid part of black and African experiences, while refusing to erase their complexity and specificity. The bondedness of identities is acknowledged, yet the authors stress the ambiguity and fluidity of identity formation. This study brings together the work of scholars across disciplines including history, literature, sociology, political studies, psychology, education,'anthropology and cultural studies. It is united by the contributors’ attempts to move the study of racial politics in South Africa beyond the binary of black and white onto a new terrain which affirms people’s survival of both the colonial encounter and apartheid, despite the brutality of these social systems. Zimitri Erasmus is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Cape Town. She received her PhD in the field of development and cultural change at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Her research interests include the deployment of identities in contexts of social transformation, managing organisational change and strategies for anti¬ racist practice. She has published on the politics of ‘race’ and culture in South Africa. Contributors: Zimitri Erasmus, Sean Field, Pumla Gqola, Heidi Grunebaum-Ralph, Adam Haupt, Cheryl Hendricks, Shamil Jeppie, Desiree Lewis, Thiven Reddy, Steven Robins and Craig Soudien. — Notes on Contributors, 9 — Acknowledgements, 11 — Introduction: Re-imagining Coloured Identities in Post-Apartheid South Africa, 13 Zimitri Erasmus 1 ‘Ominous’ Liaisons: Tracing the Interface between Race’ and Sex at the Cape, 29 Cheryl Hendricks 2 ‘Slaves don’t have opinions’: Inscriptions of Slave Bodies and the Denial of Agency in Rayda Jacobs’ The Slave Book, 45 Pumla Dineo Gqola 3 The Politics ofNaming: The Constitution ofColoured Subjects in South Africa, 64 Thiven Reddy 4 Reclassifications: Coloured, Malay, Muslim, 80 ShamilJeppie 5 Fragile Identities: Memory,EmotionandColouredResidentsofWindermere,97 Sean Field S District Six and its Uses in the Discussion about Non-racialism, 114 Crain Soudien 8 WritingHybridSelves: Richard Rive and Zoe Wicomb, 131 ' Desiree Lewis 9 Crossing the Colour(ed) Line: MediatingtheAmbiguitiesofBelongingandIdentity,159 Heidi Grunebaum and Steven Robins 10 Black Thing: Hip-Hop Nationalism, ‘Race’ and Gender in Prophets ofda City and Brasse vannie Kaap, 173 Adam Haupt — Bibliography, 192 Index, 210 Edited By Zimitri Erasmus. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [192]-209) And Index.