Ebook: Coloured by History, Shaped by Place: New Perspectives on Coloured Identities in Cape Town

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.