Culture as a Colonial Hub: My reflections as a ‘Coloured’ [Woman] in PostApartheid South Africa

ABSTRACT

Africa is often overwhelmed with narratives that seek to devalue its location and its contribution to knowledge because of the reproduction of colonial knowledges. Consequently, the geopolitics of South Africa has created an awareness of the way that power spaces have impacted the identity formation of subjugated persons. This paper uses autoethnography to explore the author’s legal racial classification as a ‘Colored’ [woman] in postApartheid South Africa. In addition, the author decided to bracket the word [woman] as symbolic of how colonialism and Apartheid were enacted to silence and disregard the gender of ‘Colored’ [women]. The author focuses on how her geographical location and culture have impacted on the negative stereotypes and perceptions surrounding her as a ‘Colored’ [woman]. The author’s experiences are interpreted through decolonial feminism to illustrate how socio-spatial relations and ideas of culture have been saturated with colonial and Apartheid knowledges. The author references these spaces as colonial hubs to emphasize how the colonial and Apartheid epistemes are currently entrenched in her socio-spatial interactions. These oppressive epistemes are additionally responsible for colonizing the gender of ‘Colored’ [women] in South Africa. Moreover, the author draws attention to these colonial hubs to advance the call to decolonize such spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Culture
• colored
• women
• coloniality
• decolonial feminism

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Geopolitics refers to the political power related to geographical spaces.

2 This racial classification is a social and political construct and not a genetic and biological reality.

3 The Cape Colony was the name initially given to Cape Town during the colonial rule in South Africa by the British.

4 Coloniality refers to the continued power relations that exist due to colonialism and continue to have an impact on knowledge, culture and relations.

5 Apartheid is an Afrikaans term and translates as ‘separateness’ in English. Apartheid refers to the implementation of a legal system of racial segregation during the Afrikaner (National Party) rule in South Africa from 1948 to 1994.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Danille Elize Arendse

Danille Elize Arendse completed her PhD Psychology at the University of Pretoria in 2018 and is currently a Research Associate for the Department of Psychology at the University of Pretoria. She is also currently a Major and employed as Research Psychologist at the Military Psychological Institute.