Shades of Grey in the Rainbow Nation of South Africa
The Lived Experience of the ‘Cape Coloured’ community in Cape Town
and the question of belonging
Master Thesis
Jonas Remmers
Graduate School of Social Sciences, Amsterdam Conflict Resolution & Governance
June 2019
Supervisor: Dr. P. Pallister-Wilkins Second reader: Dr. F.F. Vermeulen
DECLARATION BY CANDIDATE
I hereby declare that this thesis, “Shades of Grey in the Rainbow Nation of South Africa. The Lived Experience of the ‘Cape Coloured’ community in Cape Town and the question of belonging”, is my own work and my own effort and that it has not been accepted anywhere else for the award of any other degree or diploma. Where sources of information have been used, they have been acknowledged.
Name: Jonas Remmers Signature
Abstract
The Coloured community in Cape Town is finding itself in difficult position in today’s South African society. Although Apartheid has ended over 25 years ago, the symbolic values of racial classification live on where race is still a prominent feature of politics and depicts the predominant factor for social organisation. This divisive political framework has lead many South Africans to adopt an identity that is strangled between the notion of sameness and otherness based on racial constructs. Anthropologist and sociologist alike have studied South Africa’s complex field of identity formation, however with a central focus on White and Black power relations. Other racial minorities have been largely untouched by contemporary researchers, although their navigation around these binary oppositions often leads to neither fully fitting in with either of the two sides.
This thesis investigates the Coloured community in Cape Town which has been classified as a separate group during Apartheid. Its composition reflects a diverse racial and ethnic background, as they are far descendants from the intermingling of various groupings during colonialism. However, their collective suffering under Apartheid has created a sense of community which is based on their sameness in being different, and is regarded as a potential example for equal race relations in the country. Hence, this thesis investigates the concept of Coloured identity by examining the lived experiences of various informants through in-depth interviews. ‘Performativity’, intersectionality as well as an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), have been used to find that Coloured identity entails many ambiguities that are driven by ambivalence and marginalisation. However, class status does seem to play the most important role for making sense of themselves and is ultimately the factor for in-group fragmentation. Hence, against expectations for learning about social cohesiveness, this thesis presents a daunting outlook on South Africa’s race relations.
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to my family and my girlfriend, who have always supported and believed in me. It is with great appreciation that I felt your constant encouragement throughout the years, in both good times and in bad. In particular, I want to thank my parents who never expressed doubts in my decisions and enabled me to follow my dreams.
I also want to thank all my friends based in Cape Town who have helped me to find suitable interview partners. I believe, that if I had none of these contacts, the realisation of this research project would have hardly been attainable. To all the informants of this thesis, I say thank you for allowing me into your lives and sharing countless personal and sensitive experiences with me!
I would also like to thank my supervisor for the constant encouragement and the insightful talks and meetings throughout the research process.
List of all cited informants
Each informant of this study has been given a different name in order to ensure their anonymity.
Albert: 57-year-old technical engineer - grew up in Mannenberg township, Cape Town — currently
residing in Oman.
Arthur: 49-year-old Public Relations Manager at United Arab Emirates in Dubai.
Bryan: 30-year-old site manager of a local football initiative in the Cape Flats, Cape Town.
Christine: 31-year-old University graduate from Kensington Cape Town.
Kendrick: 31-year-old sales team leader at a supermarket - from Athlone, Cape Flats.
Shan: 31-year-old Sales Marketing Manager at a large fishing company - works in the city bowl.
Taryn: 29-year-old Financial Advisor living in the affluent neighbourhood Bergvliet, Cape Town.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ... 1
2 Theoretical Framework ... 5
2.1 Performing Identities ... 5
2.1.1 How to understand identity ... 5
2.1.2 Concept of ‘Performativity’ ... 6
2.2 Performing Ethnicity, Race and Class ... 8
2.2.1 Ethnicity and Race as Social Constructs ... 8
2.2.2 Socio-Economic Status ... 10
2.3 An Ecological Approach to Intersectionality ... 12
2.3.1 What’s Ecology? ... 12
2.3.2 An Intersectional Approach to Colouredness ... 13
3 Methodology ... 15
3.1 Research Design ... 15
3.2 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) ... 15
3.3 Informants ... 18
3.4 Semi-Structured Interviews ... 18
3.5 Data Analysis ... 19
4 The Lived Experiences of being Coloured ... 22
4.1 Coloured Antipathy ... 24
4.1.1 Coloured without ‘Colour' ... 24
4.1.2 ’I am who I am’ ... 31
4.2 Coloured Determination ... 39
4.2.1 Coloured Marginalisation ... 39
4.2.2 ‘I am who I am not’ ... 47
5 Conclusion ... 52
Bibliography ... i
1 Introduction
“The Whites own the land, the Blacks rule the land. But where is the land of the Coloured man?” The above stated quote depicts a dominant standpoint from within the the ‘coloured’ community in today’s South Africa. Contrary to universal usage, the term ‘Coloured’1 here does not refer to Black people people or people of colour in general. It characterises a group of people of multiple phenotypes in South Africa that are distant descendants of the intermingling of indigenous populations, slaves from Central Africa and South East Asia as well as European settlers. For this reason, the Coloured community is largely regarded as being ‘mixed-race’ which made them hold an intermediate legal status in the racial hierarchies of the Apartheid regime until 1994 (Adhikari, 2006). Today, the official and legal status of racial classification might have vanished after White rule ended, but race is still the political model for social organisation in South Africa. Apartheid’s legacy lives on and carries with it symbolic values of racial difference and made the World Bank consider South Africa the most unequal society in the world based on structural racism (World bank, 2018). In this regard, Ahluwalia & Zegeye (2003) assert that racism is part of every sphere in present day South Africa and racial identities are part of every South African self.
The glory days of the democratic transition have long faded away and the idea of the Rainbow Nation is seen by many as nothing else than a false promise, that makes it a distant illusion for the years to come (Msimang, 2015). Despite post-Apartheid state’s orientations towards non-racism, equality and inclusion, the current political landscape is almost based entirely on race and racial identity politics (Largadien, 2019). Hence, this development has prompted sociologist and anthropologist alike to study the social realities of the different racial groups in post Apartheid South Africa, as to how they navigate around this divisive environment. Yet, while exploring the literature, it becomes clear that mainly Blackness and Whiteness have been treated as relevant social categories for investigation (Taylor et.al., 2011). Groups that do not fully conform to either of the two categories and struggle to position themselves in South Africa’s binary race model, have been left largely untouched.
1 In the following, the term Coloured will be used with capital initials. During Apartheid times it was seen as recognition
of the race classification imposed by the White regime and was mostly rejected by the group itself. Yet, contemporary scholars argue that societal normalisation in post-Apartheid South Africa, together with the acceptance of those terms for identification, requires for capitalising the first letter of Coloured. Paul Stober argued: “As a distinct ethnic group with over three million members, we deserve a capital letter” (Stober in J.Crwys-Williams, 2008).
For this reason, this thesis investigates the position of the Coloured community in Cape Town2 which has been occupying an intermediate position between Black and White ever since White domination started in the 17th century. Many argue that its negligence from the dominant discourse about racial segregation, underlies the ‘taken-for-grantedness’ of ‘Colouredness’, as it was and often still is, seen as nothing more than miscegenation that needs no thorough explanation (Adhikari, 2006). This ‘being in the middle’ and the challenge to fit into the racially demarcated social structures, have left the community often with as sense of shame, illegitimacy and unworthiness (Wicomb, 1998; Gottschalk, 2019). Moreover, the literature that has engaged with this topic has mainly seen Colouredness as a historical construct and contemporary accounts are largely missing on Coloured identity. Furthermore, their general insecurity in society is often described by the colloquial saying “We are the jam”. This metaphor depicts Coloured people as being squeezed between two slices of bread and gives expressions to their intermediate position between the two dominant cultures that leads to political apathy and societal alienation (Adhikari, 2005). In this regard, Zimitri Erasmus (2011) criticises that the academic debate never acknowledged that Coloured identity could also be seen as an identity in its own right. Mohamed Adhikari (2006) maintains that such ‘essentialising’ modes deprive the community of making their own identity. Zegeye (2001:188) adds that there must be opportunities for agency “for choosing a real identitiy above politicised identitiy, based on apartheid classifications”.
With regard to the above mentioned, this thesis holds that the opportunity for more agency about constructing self-identity, lies particularly in the characteristics that most scholars took as reason for neglecting the group altogether, its racial hybridity. The Coloured community is the only societal group in South Africa where members, despite a multiracial origin and diverse ethnic background, all seem to be identifying with this one group known as Coloured. This is a rather exceptional and unique phenomenon in a country, where race is a political model for social organisation and where the public sphere is entirely divided along colour-lines. Hence, by investigating this group's identity formation, it can not only be gained insights into how an academically neglected group makes sense of its identity. Moreover, such insights about how the Coloured community navigates around racial and ethnic diversity, may also serve as a chance to subvert dominant discourse of otherness and difference in South Africa (Dannhauser, 2006). Hence, the Coloured community has seemingly managed to overcome racial barriers within their own group. Therefore, their experiences about their commonness in being different could be used to inform the long-standing enterprise to build an
2 Cape Town is specifically chosen because this city host the majority of the Coloured population in South Africa. In, fact
over 50% of the inhabitants are Coloured and was therefore deemed to be perfect fit for investigating the lived experiences of the Coloured community.
inclusive and cohesive South Africa for all. In fact, some even see the Coloured community as the only embodiment of a Rainbow Nation that is otherwise non-existent in present day South Africa (Farred, 2001). Consequently, the research question of this thesis is the following: To what extent can the lived experiences of the ‘Cape Coloured’ community and their understanding of Coloured identity, inform the wider debate around social cohesion in the South African context?
For answering that question, this thesis aims at investigating the lived experiences of the Coloured community, to analyse how they have come to build a Coloured identity despite in and out-group obstacles. The analysis initially aimed at using specific theories from the larger framework of identity politics. However, it turned out that none of these theories, including Root’s multi-racial (1998) or Renn’s bi-racial identity model (2004), would be able to capture the complexities Coloured identity entails. In fact, other relevant social factors like ethnicity would not be accounted for if these linear progressive models were chosen. For this reason, it was deemed most appropriate to find a concept that allows for analysing lived experiences in its full form and where the focus lies on people’s meaning of a lived experience. This is done by taking Judith Butler’s ‘concept of performativity’ as the primary theoretical building block. It suggests to see identities as products of peoples’ actions and not the other way around — identity is what somebody does or says as opposed to what or who somebody is (Butler, 2006). Hence, identities cannot be seen isolated from somebody’s actions and therefore language, gestures and enactments of ideas are analysed, as they constitute social reality in Butler’s view (Young, 2016).
Nevertheless, it would be negligent to assume that only factors like ethnicity and race are important factors for the Coloured community to make sense of themselves. In fact, identity formation is mainly a product of the interplay of various different social factors, that mutually influence and shape each other for meaning and content (Berger & Guidroz, 2009). Therefore, Colouredness cannot be investigated in isolation and must be explored in the larger societal contexts, that takes into account various social categories (Ibid). For this reason, the thesis adopts an intersectional analysis which serves as the second important theoretical building block. It explores the correlations between the social categories of race, ethnicity and class status and examines how the interplay affects the informants’ sense-making of their identity. It allows to approach identity formation as a social construct that is entirely dependent on an ever-evolving social environment (Mennel, 2003; Hall, 2011). Thereby, the researcher can take into account various social factors that would otherwise be missed if a strict linear identity model would be used. Furthermore, the data gathering is conducted through eight in-depth and semi-structured interviews which are aimed to reflect on the informants
experiences of being Coloured in the city of Cape Town. An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) then analyses the gathered interview data and depicts the primary method of this thesis. This has helped to group the collected data into different themes that are deemed important to understand contemporary developments of Coloured identification.
Consequently, two ‘global themes’3 have been identified that transcend two very different, but yet similarly motivated visions of what Colouredness means to the informants. The two themes ‘Coloured Antipathy’ and ‘Coloured Determination’ represent clearly diverging accounts of Coloured identity and are grounded in different life experiences and social encounters. What becomes clear is that the intersection of various social categories indeed play a paramount role in how they have come to either accept or deny their Colouredness. In fact, the importance of class status is striking, as this is often seen as the only way for gaining societal acceptance. Whereas under ‘Coloured Antipahty’ some informants mention somewhat rejectionist notions towards Coloured identity and the term itself, informants under ‘Colourder Determination’ are expressing a sense of proudness in being called Coloured. Lastly, it became clear that making sense of Coloured identity is not only a very difficult terrain to navigate around academically, but the complexity of the issue constantly resonates in informants narrations. The lived experiences of this unique societal group have shown that Coloured identity is afflicted with ambiguities and ambivalence that predict a difficult future for South Africas race relations.
Finally, the thesis is structured as follows. The second chapter of the thesis comprises the theoretical framework. It first outlines what can be understood when talking about the concept of identity in general. Thereafter, the first theoretical building block is presented and Butler’s ‘concept of performativity’ is introduced. It is shown how it can be used as a useful tool in this thesis and is subsequently related to the important social categories ethnicity, race and class. The second building block introduces intersectionality and explains how identity formation must always be investigated by taking into account social context and environment. Thereafter, the third chapter explains the interpretative phenomenological analysis, and how it specifically focuses on the meanings of people’s lived experiences. Besides briefly touching upon the interview style and the informants, it is further delineated how this thesis analyses the data, and how it has come to develop the different themes for analysis. The two global themes simultaneously display the two main chapters of the analysis which are ‘Coloured Antipathy’ and ‘Coloured Determination’. These two are further divided into
3 Attride-Sterling suggest to use three different layers of themes: global, organising and basic themes: Attride-Stirling,
chapters which then make up for the organising and basic themes. The specific composition however, is explained more in detail in the beginning of chapter four..
2 Theoretical Framework
Mapping the Terrain
Identity politics in general and coming to terms with identity formation especially, often sparks controversy among contemporary sociologists and anthropologists, given how slippery the concept of identity is and the ambiguities it entails (Bernstein, 2005:48). However, although there are competing strands on how to study identity, there is none that particularly allows for exploring identities through lived experiences.
For this reason, this thesis applies a more holistic theoretical framework that combines several concepts in order to explore Coloured identities through lived experiences. First, it is described how this thesis makes use of and understands identity in general. Thereafter, Judith Butler’s ‘concept of performativity’ is introduced which explains how identitiy must be understood in terms individual performances. This is followed by laying open how essential social categories such as ethnicity, race and class, are related to her concept. The second important building block describes the utility of an ecological intersectional analysis, for investigating how the interplay of several social categories affects informants’ understandings of their Coloured identitiy.
2.1 Performing Identities
2.1.1 How to understand identity
The term identity revolves around the somewhat paradoxical combination of difference and sameness which resembles the rather ambiguous usage of the term and many can often only identify by expressing who they are not as opposed to who they are (Lawler, 2008). Others specify that identity provides for the opportunity of making sense of oneself in relation to both others as well as their social environment, as identities are constructed through reflexive modes of interactions with other social beings (Rockquemore & Laszloffy, 2005).
Generally, a distinction is made between personal identity and social identity, where the former is driven by the psychic self and the latter by the social self (Eriksen, 1968). Here, two central questions
arise for the construction of personal identities, namely ‘Who am I?’ and ‘What is my place in this world?’, where beliefs and values differentiate one individual from another (Phinney, 2008; Schwartz et al., 2006). Social identities on the other hand, revolve around the notion of Us vs. Them, as questions like ‘Who are we’ and ‘Who are they’ result from relationships with other groups — and often leads to in-group favouritism and out-group hostility based on ideals and customs (Eriksen, 1968; Schwartz et al., 2006).
Yet, Mennell finds that identity must always be seen as a multi-layered construct, as individual self-images and group we-self-images are not two separate things (Mennell in Dunning & Mennell, 2003). This lead this thesis to believe that testing a specific identity theory would not allow for gaining a broader understanding of what Colouredness is about, as multiple layers need to be observed (Ibid:178). In this regard, Hall notes that identity is problematic and untransparent which should not be thought of as an already accomplished fact. Instead, it is a never ending process which is “always constituted within, not outside representation”, that evolves over time and space and finds expression in daily manifestations and experiences. (Hall, 2011; Hall in Rutherford, 1990: 222).
This very notion of seeing identity as a constantly changing process that is expressed through representation, is congruent with Judith Butlers concept of ‘performativity’ — where identity is seen as a product of our actions and performances (Butler, 2006). For this reason, this thesis deems Butler’s concept of ’performativity’ as an adequate tool for externalising identity traits of the Coloured community and is introduced in the next section
2.1.2 Concept of ‘Performativity’
The concept of ‘performativtiy’ emerged from the field of linguistics and successfully transcended to gender and feminist studies. Judith Butler holds that in the social realm there is no gender beyond the expression of gender, no races beyond the expression of race and that identity is never linear or stable, but always a product of our actions and not the other way around (Butler, 2006). That is, the ‘self’ can not be understood as a natural or organic object that intuitively responds to its contextual environment, but identities have to be seen as formalised and repetitive performances that often depict dominant accounts on race, ethnicity and class (Ibid).4 More concretely, performances may “function
as intentional, embodied social critiques that offer alternatives to oppressive systems” (Vue, 2018: 3). Thus, ‘performativity’ has nothing to with voluntarism or freedom but deals with negotiation or
4 Class in this context however shall not only depict the socio-economic level of an individual but describes merely the
change of restrictive societal norms, and the question of how “to work the trap that one is inevitably in” (Butler in Kotz, 1992). Therefore, performances essentially create and present one’s own identity and its constant repetition stems from the need for reaffirmation and making it appear more stable (Segal, 2008; Clammer 2015).
Hence, ‘social agent’s’ performances of language, gesture and signs constitute and reconstitute reality and how individuals make sense of their environment (Young, 2016). Guss adds that identity performances are specific enactments of ideas of what it means to be White —or Coloured in this case — and that such performances communicate meanings through bodily and visual forms (Guss, 2000). Therefore, identities do not find expression in what or who somebody is, but rather what somebody does, and therefore identities cannot be examined isolated from somebody’s action (Butler, 2006, emphasis added). Furthermore, individuals are never the only agents of their own identities as they are often constituted and evaluated by the social context around them. That is, people quest for acceptance by conforming to societal norms and this shows how the perception of others influences one’s own position in the social realm (Goffman, 1959).
For that reason, many people can only identify by expressing who they are not as opposed to who they are and it reflects the stark dependency on the social environment for making sense of oneself. With respect to this case study, some informants may try to perform Colouredness in order to be accepted as such — which is often expressed subconsciously where neither the observer nor the performer takes notice (Goffman, 1959). This notion is especially important for this research project, as it is not assumed that interviewees are performing characters other than their own, yet it is expected that they will lay out a certain margin in which Colouredness is performed. That is, there are imagined boundaries to determine whether someone still belongs to the group, especially when looking at racial identities.
This leads over to an important point of performing identities, namely that of passing across various socialites. Kennedy describes ‘passing’ as a "deception that enables a person to adopt certain roles or identities which he would be bared by social standards", and where the intention lies in gaining comparative advantages or privileges (Kennedy, 2001). However, it is difficult to legitimise an identity claim when one does not parallel above mentioned ‘margins’ and — especially in the case of South Africa — passing from one social group to another involves many obstacles. Yet, the case of the Coloured community in South Africa constitutes a remarkable case, as its boundaries towards the White and Black groups are somewhat contested, where some Coloureds may pass as Black and
others as White (Palmer, 2016). That is, in a country where race is the predominant determinant for belonging it is a rather striking phenomenon and presents yet another reason why this thesis deems the Coloured community an exceptional case for studying the complexities of identity formation. Consequently, the concept of ‘performativity’ provides for an organic approach by neutrally observing how members of the community are personalising and communicating their identities through language, speech and social interaction in their daily lives — and how they negotiate and renegotiate the substance of their identity through performance. Therefore, the concept allows for externalising Coloured identity without having any preconceived notions over what the Coloured community identifies most with, may it be ethnicity, race or class. Yet, that is not to say that these social categories shall not be considered after all, as levels therein still determine upward social mobility in South Africa and are often the main constituents for building up affiliations and alignment towards certain groups (Meiring et.al., 2018; Kreiner et al., 2006). In fact, ethnicity, race and class are seemingly the most embodied of all possible states of being in South Africa and therefore are well compatible with Butler’s concept of ‘performativity’. Hence, the next section examines how these concepts can be understood and how they are linked to Butler’s concept.
2.2 Performing Ethnicity, Race and Class
2.2.1 Ethnicity and Race as Social ConstructsThe term ethnicity is not seldom interchangeably used with race in discourse and language, even though their meanings may essentially differ from one another (Crawford & Allagia, 2008). Yet, agreeing on their anomalies, Cornell & Hartmann (2007) hold that they cannot be seen as mutually exclusive either, as physical appearance plays a role in both for differentiation.
The concept of ethnicity was primarily used to distinguish between social groups and fell into the discourse of Us vs. Them — as ‘ethnic' often referred to others, to those who were not us (Petersen et.al., 1982). Hence, through this subjective binary, ethnicity entered the field of sociology and this thesis shall adopt Schermerhorn’s definition that sees an ethnic group: “as a collectivity within a larger society having real or putative common ancestry, memories of a shared historical past, and a cultural focus on one or more symbolic elements as the epitome of their peoplehood” (Connor, 1993:377). The symbols may comprise fields as kinship patterns, geographical concentrations, religious affiliation, language and physical differences — yet for understanding ethnicity, it is not
important “what is but what people perceive that is — whether people people believe that a common blood relationship exist as opposed to having scientific proof of it” (Ibid.). Hence, for externalising ethnic traits, cultural aspects like language, customs, values and beliefs have become central themes (Giddens et.al., 2017).
Although ethnic identity might be of subjective nature, this does not mean that it is not affected by what ‘others’ think and make of them. That is, outsiders may be able to create or assign an ethnic category to a certain group of people, yet it only becomes an ethnic identity when it is internally asserted, that is, when people make a claim to that very identity. (Cornell & Hartmann, 2007; Jenkins, 2008). Such claims are performed by and may find expression in “dressing, hairstyles, food, body language, jokes, choices of preferred music, accent and other ‘projected’ self-images” (Clammer, 2015). When ethnic categories are established and assigned in contexts of oppression, prejudice and stigmatisation — one way of responding to such negative labelling is often by deliberately heighten the allegedly unacceptable characteristics and excessively perform that role as a form of resistance and ‘in your face’ response. (Ibid).
Race is similarly seen as a very loose concept that is hard to pin down, as it entails many different explanations from mainly one overarching debates — between essentialism and instrumentalism (Eriksen, 2001). Yet, this research study shall reject the essentialist notion of race5 and adopts Omi and Winant’s (1986) conceptualisation which is not grounded in a biological perspective but deems race to be a social construct.6 Hence, the vast majority of scholars take racial categories seriously and urge to study the constantly modified process of representation, power and discourse in the social realm (Donald & Rattansi, 1992). Taking the above mentioned into account, Cornell & Hartmann define race then “as a group socially defined by itself or others as distinct, by virtue of perceived common physical characteristics that are held to be inherent {…} neither the categories themselves nor the markers we choose are predetermined by biological factors” (2007:25).7 Racial categories eventually become socially relevant when used to process and interpret social experiences, form social relations and organise action by virtue of such categories (Ibid.). Therefore, attaching meaning to racial indicators is what inevitably creates, makes and performs races. Korgen adds that race is not about what one is, but rather what ones counts as in a particular time and space (Korgen, 2010:76).
5 The antipathy towards essentialist notions of race is further elaborated upon in: Lewontin et al., 2017; Smedley, 1999;
Donald & Rattansi, 1992; Onwachi-Willig, 2016.
6 Some would denounce the concept of race altogether and such tendencies can also be observed in Cape Town. But as
Donald & Rattansi remind us “denying social realities gives the frail reassurance that there shouldn’t be a problem” (1992:1).
Performing Whiteness, Colouredness or Blackness thus rests on popular beliefs that certain actions or behaviours are commonly attributed to a specific racial grouping (Bey, 2015). Whereas Whiteness is often associated with being affluent, high social standing and success, Colouredness often struggles with negative stereotypes such as thievery, drugs and gangsterism (Asante & Lentoor, 2017). Hence, there is a distinct and imagined binary divide between how White and Coloured people’s behaviour is perceived, and often leads to unequal power relations that produces privileged and marginalised social groups (Ibid). Gramsci’s notion of the subaltern is interesting in this regard. According to him, marginalised groups are per definition no communities as their status has been forced upon them by hegemonic dominance (Gramsci, 2011). However, this thesis argues that especially dealing with stereotypes such as otherness and inferiority as a collective (Adhikari, 2009), might be the origin for building a social bond in the Coloured community in the first place. In this regard, Butler holds that peoples’ performances often lay open how they are “working the trap” of identifying with either the one or the other (Butler in Kotz, 1992).
Finally, the ‘performance’ of race and ethnicity shows that both concepts are social constructs that are fluid, ever evolving in content and constantly negotiate and change social conditions that inform meaning and representation of its bearers (Nagel, 1994). By finding out more about the ‘performance’ of Coloured ethnicity and race, insights can be gained into how individuals deal with their intermediate position in society. Furthermore, it will be explored whether they overtly assert Coloured identity as a form of protest to denigration or if they avoid performing Coloured traits and challenge Colouredness altogether. The next section is now briefly examining socio-economic status as an important social category for externalising identitiy.
2.2.2 Socio-Economic Status
Socio-economic status (SES) is often used to refer to how external factors such as education and occupation combined with income and wealth, positions a person relative to others in society. That is, it describes the combined influence of economic class and social status which is primarily determined by dominant perceptions in society. This thesis understands SES to be linked to opportunities and privileges afforded to some informants, as it does not only reflect their economic well-being but must be understood as an indicator for structural advantage. Therefore, it is a very useful category as it sheds light onto the social status attached to various ‘prestigious’ social factors such as educational attainment, profession and area of residence. On the other hand, it also takes into
account less ‘prestigious’ professions or even stigma that may be associated with certain areas of residence or educational institutions (Cole, 2018).
In South Africa socio-economic inequalities are largely structured along racial and ethnic lines. This thesis is particularly interested in whether differences in SES have an effect of how the informants navigate around their Coloured identity. It is held that SES has a profound influence on the quality of education and area of residence which inevitably determines your circles for socialisation in Cape Town (Taylor & Yu, 2009). Hence, it dictates the social environment which is essential for identity formation. In this respect, some scholars found in the US that members of minority groups with a higher SES attach lower private regard and importance to their minority background. Hence their results show that there is a negative relationship between high SES and racial affirmation or pride towards their minority community (Walton et.al., 2013).
Moreover, the literature agrees that the primary symbolic tool for representing and negotiating SES is language. It is said that social and class identities are performed by behaving and speaking in ways that are seen as appropriate to certain identities, as people make rapid judgements about class based on speech. Through speech people position themselves in relation to others as “good English” for example, often constitutes a sign of superior intelligence and moral worth, whereas language associated with minority groups lacks such characteristics. Nevertheless, variations in how people speak, largely depend on income, education, geographical location and of course the individual. Therefore, by investigating what role language plays in the informants’ lives, it is hoped to gain insights into how their SES may influences their Coloured identity (Korgen, 2010). Lastly, Korgen finds that “stereotypical language-based judgements of social class status often overlap with stereotypical language-based judgements of race and ethnicity ” (Ibid: 77). In this regrad, the next section introduces intersectionality, explaining the interplay between categories such as race, ethnicity and class — and why its application is crucial for understanding Coloured identity formation.
2.3 An Ecological Approach to Intersectionality
2.3.1 What’s Ecology?The ecological approach for identity formation has been largely coined by theorists such as Rockquemore and Brunsma (2002), Root (2003) and Renn (2008) who have done multiple studies on identity formation of ‘multi-racial’ people. What unites them in their approaches is that they not only try to explain the various ways in which multi-racial people identify themselves but rather look at how they have come to build their identity, by focussing on the contexts in which they find themselves in (Root, 2003). As such, the ecological model provides for exploring the complexities and multiplicities of experiences for ’multi-racial’ identity formation, that linear models of racial identity simply cannot capture (Renn, 2003).8 As opposed to focus on one particular identity outcome, the
ecological model acknowledges that identity is fluid and its formation an ever changing and context specific process (Rockquemore & Laszloffy, 2003).
However, racial thinking is so deeply entrenched in South Africa, that Colouredness is primarily seen as a racial classification for being neither Black nor White and therefore inquiries about Coloured identity are often based on essentialising ideas (Adhirkari, 2004). Contrary, Coloured identity is expected to be dependent on a variety of different indicators and factors other than race, which the ecological approach takes into account. Thus, this approach is especially relevant for externalising Coloured identity, as ’mixed-race’ individuals “might self-identify in more than one way at the same time or move fluidly among a number of identities” (Garbarini-Philippe, 2016).
As mentioned above, contextual factors and others’ perceptions play a paramount role in the reflexive process of making sense of oneself (Dunning & Mennell, 2003; Hall, 2005). Such contexts resemble the interrelated effects that individual (skin colour and/or physical appearance), inter-personal (family and peer relations) and environmental factors (community and education) might have, and can be considered ecological contributors for identity development of multiracial individuals (Jackson, 2009). Consequently, externalsing Coloured identity is hardly attainable if one were not to examine the interplay of various social factors and is the reason why the next section informs about intersectionality.
8 For more information on why linear racial identity models (e.g from Poston, 1990 & Cross, 1987) are not suitable for
2.3.2 An Intersectional Approach to Colouredness
The concept of intersectionality had been established in feminist and critical race theory for analysing the interplay between different social categories (Davis, 2008). When the concept entered the humanities and social sciences it became a steady component of studies of identity and power (Azmitia & Thomas, 2015). Feminist scholars began investigating how race and class may affect gender and held that one cannot make adequate advancement in gender studies or any other social category, if they are dealt with in isolation, while other social categories are neglected (Berger & Guidroz, 2009). It is said that these categories “situate some individuals as more powerful than others and consequently, perpetuate differential access to resources and privileges” (Cole, 2009; McCall, 2005). Whereas such power imbalances are reproduced over generations through socialisation, an intersectional lens enables the researcher to rethink the dichotomies of social categories which often essentialise difference, power and privilege (Azmitia & Thomas, 2015). Hence, it allows for investigating how one domain of identity, for example ethnicity or race changes when another, e.g. class, is introduced in the discussion (Davis, 2008). Consequently, identity studies that focus only on one social category for differentiation are deemed outdated as they neglect the reality that humans simultaneously share many various domains of difference (Azmitia & Thomas, 2015).
Therefore, in the case of the Coloured community, various social categories must be considered to understand how Colouredness is experienced and asserted. However, contemplating about what social categories would be suitable in this specific case, the discourse around intersectionality reflects some friction amongst scholars. Some doubt that intersectionality as a concept can be used productively in theory and research, given that it can generate endless lists of domains of difference (Cole, 2009; Davis, 2008; McCall, 2005). Yet, others advocate for only considering domains such as gender, ethnicity, stage in life cycle and class, as they tend to shape most people’s social lives (Yuval-Davis, 2006). However, Schegloff resonates that “one should take for analysis only those categories that people make most relevant (or orient to) and which are procedurally consequential in their interactions” (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998:4, emphasis added). Therefore, what social categories are deemed most significant, is organically derived from the social context and field, that the researcher thoroughly needs to take into consideration when making assumptions and hypotheses. Even though this thesis does not have any preconceived notions about which categories are most relevant in the informant’s lives, Apartheid’s legacy is still too much apparent in public life than to disregard categories such as ethnicity, race and class. They continue to live on as markers of
difference and in fact, racial and ethnic belonging all too often determines the prospects for upward social mobility and socio-economic status in present day South Africa (Dannhauser, 2016; Tonheim & Matose, 2013).9 Moreover, Cape Town is still spatially segregated long after Apartheid ended and class is often an indicator for where people reside. Hence, area of residence often determines SES which makes the two categories almost interchangeable. Therefore, there is a clear intersection and correlation between social categories of ethnicity and race with class or place — as one factor may determine the other in a way that has significant implications for Coloured people’s lives. Subsequently, this resembles Schegloff’s notion of consequentialism as ethnicity, race and class are relevant social categories in their interactions (Antaki & Widdicombe, 1998, emphasis added). Such interrelation is not only observable from a macro perspective, but informants have expressed similar accounts — which justifies taking them as subject categories for the intersectional analysis.
Nevertheless, class belonging can cut across and often goes beyond racial barriers. Thus, making identity claims by choosing one social category over another, can be a tactic to acquire privileges or to challenge dominant stigmas and stereotypes (Demos, 2006). This presents yet another example for how the interaction of different social phenomena may determine how people of the Coloured community position and make sense of themselves in society. For all the above-mentioned reasons, this thesis deems an intersectional analysis as indispensable for understanding Coloured identity formation — as various social indicators relate and depend on one another for meaning and content (Berger & Guidroz, 2009). Against all the odds of employing and dealing with the complexities of an intersectional analysis, it is deemed very much useful by most social scientists as long as social categories are seen as discursive realities and not as essential actualities (McCall, 2005).
Consequently, this thesis uses an ecological approach to consider the various social indicators that may play a role for identity formation. It helps to not only zoom into one’s person statements and responses but also to take into account the contextual environment that affect and influence identity development. For this reason an intersectional analysis is employed as to reflect upon how the various contextual factors interrelate and create meaning for the informants. The next section outlines the qualitative research design of this thesis and introduces the method of phenomenology.
9 For more information on unequal resource distribution and its link to race, please see: “The gap between rich and
poor: South African society’s biggest divide depends on where you think you fit in” by Meiring, Kannemeyer, Potgieter, 2018.
3 Methodology
3.1 Research Design
The overarching research design for this thesis is of qualitative nature. Experiences of individuals regarding their social identities have been investigated through qualitative as well as quantitive methodological approaches. Yet, qualitative studies have dominated the scholarly work with regards to identity development, as quantitive frameworks do not allow for investigating the relationship between identity and the ever changing social context (Kroger in Watzlawik & Born, 2007). Quantitative studies rather provide information about general patterns of development and provides limited meaning and context to the results (Van Manen, 2016). Therefore, entering the subjective worlds of Coloured individuals in Cape Town via in-depth interviews, allows for understanding how they make meaning and create content of their identites.
Furthermore, “qualitative inquiry is fundamentally about capturing, appreciating, and making sense of diverse perspectives” and taking into account personal characteristics, opinions and attitudes of the informants being studied (Patton, 2015: xxi; Creswell, 2007). Now, the question arises how to best analyse personal accounts of individuals, without, as a researcher, affecting the subsequent and produced outcome. Creswell (2007) deems this impractical as qualitative researchers should not see themselves as objective during data inquiry with informants, as they ultimately co-construct and interpret informants’ experiences. Hence, the researcher in this study is engaging with individuals in their personal and subjective worlds via narrative semi-structured interviews in order to interpret their lived experiences of being Coloured. Such a constructivist-interpretivist paradigm is thus an experience-gathering and knowledge-producing undertaking as opposed to testing or proving hypothesis and identity theories (Eatough & Smith, 2008).
Consequently, employing a constructivist-interpretative approach results in exploring Coloured identity formation within a particular context and can best be examined through the method of interpretative phenomenology, that is introduced in the next section. It is shown how it applies to this thesis’ case and explains how it makes use of the narrative stories.
3.2 Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)
The interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) is a qualitative research method that aims at investigating people’s meaning of a lived experience. It produces an account of lived experiences in
subjective sense-making organisms that need to be interpreted (Smith & Osborn, 2015). Three methodological lenses inform IPA: phenomenology (a focus on everyday experience), ideography (a focus on the experiencing individual) and hermeneutics (a focus on the meaning making of experience) which all have proven to be as useful strands in the field of social sciences. (Smith et.al., 2009: 25). Hence, phenomenological aspects allow to focus on daily experimental dimensions of being perceived as Coloured, whereas the ideographic framework emphasises individual practices of Coloured self-identification. Consequently, it fits well with Butler’s concept of performativity, as it stresses the importance of subjectivity and embodiment for understanding someone’s experiences. Lastly, through the hermeneutic prism, the researcher can make sense and interpret the informants’ meanings of Coloured identity.
Given the research aim of this thesis, IPA provides a useful tool to examine the situational and contextual experiences of the informants and allows for examining personal characteristics, different human behaviours, opinions and attitudes around a certain phenomenon (Cortazzi, 2001; Smith et.al., 2009). That is, the phenomenon to be investigated in this thesis is that of being Coloured – in a societal context, that is marked by ethnic and racial division. Moreover, the study was predicated upon the fact that the Coloured community is of diverse multicultural and multiracial origin, in a country where the primary focus lies on Black-White relations and the associated power differentials (Taylor et.al., 2011). IPA scholars hold that such unique circumstances may cause particular challenges for certain groups which depicts the primary research objective of this method (Smith et.al., 2009). It investigates such contextual circumstances by providing rich and individualised perspectives of personal accounts and consequently, is particularly useful for examining the Coloured community in Cape Town (Ibid). Moreover, the IPA is not “concerning itself with facts” but aims to “break through taken-for-grantedness to get to the meaning structures of our experiences” (Van Manen, 2016:90,215). This is especially relevant for this thesis as it challenges the ‘essentialisation’ of Colouredness and tries to understand what it means to embody and develop a Coloured identity instead. Hence, the quality of phenomenological studies lies in making the researchers discoveries accessible and allowing the reader to see the worlds of others in new and deeper ways (Seamon in Wapner, 2000). Therefore, this conceptual framework explores how knowledge comes into being, by concentrating on the essence of informants’ experiences, and focuses on questions of how these experiences took place (Creswell, 2013; Van Manen, 2016, emphasis added). Thus, such “how” questions enable this study to take into account contextual factors, as to see how Coloured individuals navigate their identity-based belongings to social categories such as ethnicity, race and class. Smith & Osborn (2015) add that IPA is especially a useful methodology for complex, ambiguous and emotionally laden topics. Therefore,
it constitutes a suitable method in combination with an intersectional analysis of the Coloured community.
Nevertheless, this thesis had to face challenges in using a ‘participatory’ research methodology like the IPA, as to not interfere with the informants’ experiences to the extent that would distort the findings. Therefore, a strong sense of cultural sensitivity and the constant reflection of the researchers positioning in the interview is crucial in order to prevents one’s own experiences and background from impacting the research methodology (Seidman, 2006; Nganga, 2011). Furthermore, there are a few limits to the interpretative phenomenological analysis, of which the most obvious for this thesis is that of not creating a representative study. However, the research study is not aimed at creating a representative outlook of the Coloured community, nor does it try to find a fixed and definite outcome and supports Jon Kabat Zins’s statement that “inquiry doesn’t mean looking for answers” (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998:39). This thesis is strictly structured around exploring the lived experiences of the Coloured community within a societal context of ethnic and racial animosities. With regards to the limits of participatory research, the co-construction of knowledge turned out to be an asset, as it brought out dynamics through which informants learned to identify themselves through thitherto disregarded social encounters (Moustakas, 1994).
Finally, there seems to be a lack of IPA scholarly attention concerning in-depth examinations of additional contextual factors, regarding mixed-race experiences on identity formation (Renn, 2008). Although, there has been done a lot of research on first generational mixed-race college students in the US, little to none IPA study concerned itself with groups that have kept a uniform mixed-raced nature over generations. One explanation would be the ‘essentialising’ mode to naturally ascribe such groups a racial identity, whereas various contextual and relevant factors for identity formation are ignored. As the IPA inherently tries to challenge this ‘taken-for-grantedness’ by exploring context and environment, it fits the research rationale of highlighting other social indicators for identity formation. Consequently, with this constructivist-interpretivist paradigm, the researcher is allowed to engage in the subjective world of the informants to examine their lived experiences through their own world view (Seamon in Wapner, 2000). The next section will briefly introduce the informants and the interview style of semi-structured interviews.
3.3 Informants
The sample for the study includes eight heterogeneous members of the Coloured community who all identify as Coloured from Cape Town. Heterogeneity is suggested in phenomenological research as it provides for larger scope and range of data. Given that this study conducts an intersectional analysis that analyises different social categories purpose sampling was utilised — aimed at compiling a sample that comprises a variety of social and economic properties. Furthermore, gender bias was to be avoided, yet only two female informants have agreed to participate in this study. Attributing this to unequal gender power structures in South Africa would only be an assumption and is not subject of this thesis.
Moreover, for the purpose of gathering information, personal contacts and the snowball effect have assisted in descrying the informants. Within this constructivist-interpretivist research design, the small sample size perfectly fits the forthcoming phenomenological analysis, where in-depth-semi-structured interviews are the primary sources of data. The following section lays out pros and cons of semi-structured interviews and thereafter it shall be explained how this thesis makes use of the gathered data.
3.4 Semi-Structured Interviews
This thesis has chosen semi-structured interviews as a means to gather data from the informants. Due to lack of time and financial resources to meet the informants in person, interviews were conducted via Skype video calls and audio-recorded with permission of the interviewees (Bailey, 1996). Semi-structured interviews are conducted conversationally and employ a blend of often open-ended questions that are accompanied by follow-up why or how questions, that are not aimed at receiving a particular answer or outcome. Yet, although the interviewer prepares an ‘interview-guide’ which helps to appear confident and knowledgeable during oftentimes complex and sensitive discussions – semi-structured interviews follow relevant and meaningful topics that may stray away from initial objectives. However, this may open up opportunities for identifying new pathways to make sense of a particular topic or phenomena at hand. In regard to the phenomenological approach, two broad domain question shall be included in the interview guide. These are: How has one experienced a certain phenomenon? and what factors and contexts have influenced your experiences of the phenomenon? (Agee, 2009). Therefore, one allows the informants the freedom to express their views
and experiences in their own terms which “is a conscious attempt by the researcher to find out more about the setting of a person” (Bailey, 1996).
Drawbacks of semi-structured interviews are that they are time consuming, they reduce the control the investigator has over the situation and are harder to analyse (Smith et al., 2009). However, none of the above shall represent an obstacle to this research. The forthcoming section explains how the data is being analysed and interpreted through coding and creating themes. Advantages of such interviews are that they facilitate rapport/empathy and allows for flexibility of coverage, by going into novel areas through which richer data is created (Smith et al., 2009). Hence, semi-structured interviews fit well within this research aim as the informants are granted much opportunity to tell their own stories. The next section will explain how this thesis makes use of the acquired data by ‘bracketing’ and creating ‘thematic networks’ for analysis.
3.5 Data Analysis
Data analysis with an IPA starts by acknowledging that, even though there is a co-constructive position by the researcher during the interviews —the researcher must ‘bracket’ his or her own bias regarding the data — in order for the focus to be on the lived experiences of the informants alone. What is meant by ‘bracketing’ is to set aside one’s own prejudgment or preconceived notions during the interviews, in order to understand how informants perceive a certain phenomenon instead of how it is perceived by the researcher (Groenewald, 2004; Briscoe, 2005). After this is internalised and the in-depth interviews are verbatim transcribed, the process of ‘horizonaliation’ takes place, where significant statements are ‘colour-coded’ that describe elements of experiencing the phenomenon. Such codings do not only make the process of data analysis more objective (Priest, 2003), but the researcher generates clusters of meaning and composes different themes that the participants associate with the phenomenon. Then, the different themes are linked and connections are drawn in each individual interview. Thereafter, these different themes are explored across the different interviews with the aim of constructing overarching thematic categories (Smith et.at., 2009).
This process of coding and creating themes is what Attride-Stirling calls the ‘thematic network’. She holds that there are different hierarchies and orders between the different thematic categories and thus advises to distinguish between basic themes, organising themes and global themes. That is, basic themes have something in common out of which organising themes emerge to link them together. One step further, organising themes also have commonalities and when interlinked, create one global theme. Hence, this thematic network shall be used in this thesis as following. The analysis consists
interviews. The respective sub-chapters are the organising themes, whereas the basic themes are the basis for the interpretive analysis. As such, this method provides for an organic approach to draw broader conclusions from initially ‘small’ and sometimes seemingly empty statements by the informants (Attride-Striling, 2001).
Subsequently, the inductive and iterative nature of the IPA allows for constant monitoring wethter the identified thematic categories are based on and can be linked back to the initial data set. A potential pitfall of such an analysis is to simply listing quotes from the transcripts under a thematic heading, however as such it cannot be regarded as a thematic analysis. Instead there should be more of an analytic commentary on the thematic categories that the researcher has developed which will constitute the main text in the analysis and which is supported by verbatim extracts from the transcripts (Woodall, 2016; Smith & Osborn, 2015). Nevertheless, some ethical considerations need to be taken into consideration when handling such sensitive and personal data and are outlined in the following section.
3.6 Ethics Statement
To protect the human subjects that have participated in this study, each has been given an informed consent form prior to the interviews that laid out the objective of the study, the mechanisms for making use of the data, as well as potential risks and benefits of taking part (see Appendix). It highlights the voluntary and anonymous nature of research participation and the opportunity to refrain from taking part at any time. Potential risks regarding the research study were primarily of psychological nature, especially when one’s identity exploration through life experiences, triggers negative memories and experiences from the past. Furthermore, the study of one’s own identity is often concerned with questions about sense of belonging in the social environment and may spark conflict within or outside the group if disagreements are disclosed. Therefore, this study’s primary concern was that of safeguarding the informants’ anonymity, respect and privacy in the research process and suggests for using pseudonyms accordingly.
Lastly, the researchers position in this study was crucial. Being a White male investigating the identity formation of a marginalised group of colour may spark disturbances. Moreover, could the researcher’s position sway the informants’ statements to the extent that they might perform a certain role that does not represent their true self. Yet, the focal point for a researcher conducting an IPA is to be sensitive and understanding during the interviews. Occupying an objective space, free of any preconceptions and prejudgments is important to grasp how informants perceive a certain phenomenon. The data
gathered through interviews was stored on an external hard-drive and after having finished the analysis, all administered notes from the interviews were destroyed via a paper shredder.
Chapter Summary
This chapter has outlined the theoretical concepts and methods used in this study. It is explained how Butler’s ‘concept of performativity’ is relevant in externalising Coloured identity and how ethnicity, race and class can possibly be performed. Then, intersectionality is introduced, in order to understand how these categories may influence each other for content and meaning. Thereafter, the advantages of the qualitative research design are explained and the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis is illustrated. Alongside its usage for data analysis, the style of interviews, the interview sample and ethical consideration are briefly explained. At this point, it must be clearly stated that the discussed concepts ‘performativity’ and intersectionality are merely larger theoretical tools, that help to guide the researcher to navigate around the complex endeavor of Coloured identity. Thus, the analysis of the lived experiences does not represent a case to which the concepts are directly applied. In terms of the theoretical framework, the case rather serves as a concrete example that demonstrates the practical applicability of the introduced concepts (Levy, 2008). The next chapter comprises the analysis and begins with the first global theme ‘Coloured Antipathy’.
4 The Lived Experiences of being Coloured
Overview and the thematic network
This chapter composites the different lived experiences that the informants have expressed about being a Coloured person coming from Cape Town. The analysis of the gathered data has shown that there are various strains of how people make sense of their Colouredness, as they navigate around their identity in completely different ways. Although being members of the same racial/ethnic group, multiple differing external factors in each participant’s life, influence the way of what they associate with Colouredness. The following shall briefly explain how this chapter has been composited with the help of theory and methods introduced in the last chapter.
First, Judith Butler’s concept of ‘performativity’ and its focus on the informants’ performances, actions and expressions is seen as the essential building block for the subsequent analysis in this chapter. Butler holds that identity must be understood as a product of somebody’s actions and this has specifically allowed the researcher to investigate the contextual environments in which those actions and performances take place (Butler, 2006). Hence, the anticipated intersectional analysis resonates well within her concept, as various factors and indicators are examined surrounding the lived experiences of the informants. Therefore, the narratives that are told contain certain meanings and are externalised thorough the interpretative phenomenological analysis and the compilation of a thematic network.
Consequently, the analysis consists of two chapters where each represents one main (global) theme that has been discovered. Both contain an analytic commentary that functions as a discussion about the different themes and relevant literature or linkages to introduced concepts are incorporated where deemed necessary. The first chapter titled ‘Coloured Antipathy’ contains expressions of informants who are challenging the very use of the term Coloured and occupy a somewhat rejectionist mode towards racial classification and the term Coloured in general. The two sub-chapters ‘Coloured without Colour’ and ‘I am who I am’ represent the ‘organising themes’ and unfold how the informants have come to this perception. The underlying ‘basic themes’ explain what social factors have influenced this development. The second chapter ’Coloured Determination’ is equally composed, yet represents Coloured voices who express a sense of proudness in being called Coloured and highlight aspects for differentiation to other societal groups. The two sub-chapters ‘Coloured Marginalisation’ and ‘I am who I am not’ again illustrate the ‘organising themes’, whereas basic themes substantiate the findings by linking them back to the data set. The following diagram illustrates the thematic network and the correlations between the various themes explored:
Figure 1: Thematic Network - Coloured Identity
4.1 Coloured Antipathy
In this chapter, it is explored how some informants express the antipathy towards being called Coloured or condemn racial classifications in general. Different explanations and accounts are given but it became apparent that they all share a certain trait, namely that of similar SES. That is, socio-economic independency and high upward social mobility come with resources that create opportunities but also complex challenges in their lives, as their navigation around racial and class identities lead to ambiguous understandings of their Coloured identity in a ‘racialised’ environment. Two organising themes have been developed through the process of coding the interviews. The first, ‘Coloured without Colour’ investigates informants’ dispositions of non-racism and how such intentions can lead to conflictive outcomes and may in fact reinforce racism. The second ‘I am who I am’ reveals individualist and assimilationist tendencies, as a way out of the ‘Coloured box’ that is predominantly defined by stereotypes and stigmas. Yet, these aspirations come with negative repercussions that show how ambiguous and complex the field of Coloured identity is, as public perception still determines a great deal of their sense-making.
4.1.1 Coloured without ‘Colour'
This domain originates in the ‘non-racialising’ tendencies by informants who have communicated the wish to be called mixed-race as opposed to Coloured (emphasis added). Hence, ‘non-racialism’ and ‘mixed-race’ represent two patterns that shall explain how some Coloured people make sense of their identity without personally displaying skin-colour as a primary determinant for identification.
Non-racist universalism
“I have never had an issue with race or colour and I have never been prejudiced against it personally. So, for me it is almost like colour and race is not even existent and it is not a factor (Taryn)
The above quote shows the answer that Taryn has given to the question of what it means to her to be Coloured in Cape Town. Such a response did not come as a surprise, as many contemporary social commentators are calling for a dismissal of race categories from the identity discourse in South Africa, to finally put all South Africans on equal footing (SABC, 2016). Nelson Mandela had similar visions for ending racism in South Africa but is currently often challenged for such ‘soft’ reconciliation measures (Dixon, 2015). Today, militant groups such as the EFF gain more ground, and the ruling ANC is already accused of pursuing a ‘reversed Apartheid’, as a result of its affirmative action programmes (Ahelbarra, 2018). Ahluwalia & Zegeye assert that racism is as an everyday
