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This qualitative study explores the psychological and social processes underlying the issue of generational transmission of coloured identity within the South African contexts of colonialism (pre-apartheid), apartheid and democracy. The concept of identity was guided by the theoretical approaches of Object Relations and the reflexive project of the self to further explore the lived experience and transmission of this identity. The lived experience of coloured identity of four generations of women within one family was examined. The four women ranging in age from 89 years to 23 years participated in individual semi-structured interviews. The data was thematically analysed. The major themes highlighted were: the interaction of personal identity and social identity; the politics of power and control on identity; the influence of socialization on issues of gender and culture; shifts or changes in identity within a generation or trans-generationally; and the generational transmissions in the reflexive project of the self. This study illustrates the challenges facing individuals, particularly women, with contested identities of marginalized groups. It provided insight into the underlying feelings of trust, shame, pride and guilt as these women negotiate the changing socio-political landscape of their country. It also explores the challenges of dual roles of insider and researcher / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2008.

<p>Although transformation processes are making progress in addressing racial inequality in post-apartheid South Africa, white South Africans are, in many repects, still privileged, economically, in terms of access to services, land, education and particularly in the case of English-speaking whites, language. This study is an exploration of everyday situations of inequality as they have been experienced from a position of advantage. As a qualitative, phenomenological study, the aim was to derive the psychological essence of the experience of being privileged as white English-speaking young adult within the context of post-apartheid South African everyday life.</p>

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.

This dissertation comprises a literary investigation of the way in which Toni Morrison is able to transcend stereotypes associated with African American masculinity within a selection of her works namely, Song of Solomon, Tar Baby and Paradise. I apply Carl Jung’s transcendent concept of the paradoxical Self as a lens through which to analyse Morrison’s different representations, illustrating how this concept affects the formation of identity and an understanding of masculinity. I also make use of Frantz Fanon, who suggests that Jung’s concept of the Self is a way in which black men are able to understand their experience of the world, in that such an experience is paradoxical in nature. It is this paradoxical experience of the world that I argue Morrison highlights in her male characters. In examining Morrison’s representations of masculinity, I also illustrate the intersection of race and gender and how this intersection affects identity creation, given the unique position that African American men occupy within American society. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

Identity issues have been a sensitive area for many people who are classified as Coloured in South Africa. In the past, this could have been ascribed to the effects of apartheid ideology, which resulted in different responses from the people in this racial group: some accepted the inferior status in a fatalistic manner and made the best of a bad situation; others attempted to remove themselves from this group and passed over into the white population group on the basis of their similar physical attributes while others rejected the appellation by fighting against the derogatory and negative images that categorised them as Other, in an attempt to transform social prejudices. The identity issues of young Coloured learners at a high school in Pietermaritzburg came to my attention during a period when I attempted to establish a more meaningful relationship with the learners that I taught. Incorporating dialogue journals as a pedagogical tool in this respect, I unwittingly opened up Pandora's box. The many complexities of adolescent lives were openly revealed to me by the grade 9s and 10s in my care, in the hope that I would help them to resolve their problems. However, the issue that disconcerted me the most, was the Discourse of the home. I realised that a great disparity existed between the Discourses of the home and the school, and resolved to pursue this matter further during the course of the Masters degree that I had undertaken. Using a number of methods to obtain data, and applying a Foucauldian, social constructionist view of discourse to the analysis, I discovered that there were many factors that impacted on the learners' identities. The Discourses that were evident in the texts were often contradictory in nature, and the resultant inter-discursive conflict was a problem for many of the participants who battled to obtain acceptance into these Discourses. The Discourse of the home, the school, friends and gangs were the most prominent in the findings, and the participants' struggles to gain acceptance into them impacted on their sense of seltbood in positive and negative ways, which are revealed in the course of this dissertation. The findings are crucial for educators who agree with Gee (1990, 1996) that all good teaching is ultimately a moral act. English teachers, in particular, are given the responsibility of exposing their learners to different Discourses and their respective conventions in order to empower them. This can only be done by creatively using texts and producing appropriate learning materials which can be used to unpack and deconstruct the values and 'ways of being, saying and doing' (Gee 1990, 1996) that are implicit in these texts. On the one hand, this familiarises learners from Dominant Discourses with the practices of a variety of cultures and races and helps them to acknowledge and accept differences. On the other hand, it validates the identities of the learners who are part of the minority groups, preventing them from feeling marginalised and regarded as Other. Finally, I concluded that parents also need to take responsibility for their children constructing powerful or displaced identities. The Discourse of the home, in the final analysis, is the foundation of the children's lives and is crucial in apprenticing into, and gaining mastery over the dominant social Discourses. The concerns over Coloured identity are not yet laid to rest, even within the lives of our post-apartheid children: indeed, the struggle for identity is never truly complete since identity is always changing and transforming to accommodate newer and better ways of being. However, the educators, parents and others in authority can play a pivotal role in addressing these issues, helping to validate the very tenuous sense of selthood that many of these youngsters are holding on to. Nortje (1973) describes this vulnerability as 'growing between the wire and the wall' - a very difficult place to be, but not impossible to grow out of and flourish into subjects who revel in the constructions of multiple identities, enabling them to participate in the activities of their various Discourses in empowering and validating ways. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1994. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 515-535). / Microfiche. / 2 v. (536 leaves), bound 29 cm

Pakeha identity has long been problematic, caught in a straddling stance between European co-ordinates of origin, and life in Aotearoa. This has been particularly evident over the last three decades: with the rise of tino rangatiratanga, Pakeha identity has undergone something of a crisis. Group identity, especially in such periods of crisis, requires �narratives� that re-imagine being and belonging. Poetry by Pakeha both displays the problem with identity at the cross cultural threshold between Maori and Pakeha, asking � what happens when Pakeha engage cross-culturally with te ao Maori, appropriating te reo Maori and drawing on Maoritanga, to re-vision and reconfigure identity? And how does such an approach shape the imagining of Pakeha identity?� I study, in parallel, the cross-cultural poetry of James K. Baxter and Glen Colquhoun in relation to these questions. Borrowing a conceptual metaphor from Colin McCahon, I examine these cross-cultural poems in detail as �load-bearing structures�. I pay particular attention to the way in which, in purpose, design and materials, they function to re-imagine Pakeha identity in reciprocal relationship with te ao Maori. Aware of the problems of culture-crossing, at the outset I establish a historical and interpretive framework for the poetry. Furthermore, I discuss the question of appropriation, arguing for an ethical distinction between appropriation and misappropriation based on a cross-cultural relationship of faithful and reciprocal engagement. I conclude that Baxter and Colquhoun are singular and radical in their reconfiguration of Pakeha identity. Baxter embraces te ao Maori in a direct challenge to Pakeha nationalism, prescribing the necessary corrective of the tuakana-teina dynamic to Pakeha identity and its relationship with te ao Maori. Writing after the Maori renaissance, Glenn Colquhoun irreverently opens up a further reconfiguration of cross-cultural relationship, pushing both Maori and Pakeha beyond a cultural dichotomy towards a mutually defining complementarity. Both place themselves on the cultural threshold of language, embracing the tensions of the cross-cultural scenario. The result is cross-cultural poetry, load-bearing structures that manifest the tension and ambivalence of the settler culture�s straddling identity, enacting what it is to be Pakeha.

This dissertation examines how historians, writers, colonial administrators, social scientists and immigration officials represented Anglo-Indians between 1850 and 1998.Traditionally, Anglo-Indians have sought to correct perceived distortions or misinterpretations of their community by disputing the accuracy of deprecatory stereotypes produced by ‘prejudicial’; writers. While the need to contest disparaging representations is not in dispute here, the present study finds its own point of departure by questioning the possibility of (re)presenting an undistorted Anglo-Indian identity. (For complete abstract open document)