Shifting Chinese South African identities in Apartheid and Post-Apartheid South Africa
Date
2006-11-14T10:21:26Z
Authors
Park, Yoon Jung
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Abstract
The focus of this PhD thesis is the shifting identities of the approximately 12,000-strong
community of South African-born Chinese South Africans during the apartheid and
post-apartheid periods. This thesis begins with the assumption that social identities are
constructed. It also assumes that identities are contested amongst the various social
actors; that identities shift over time and across individual life spans; and that
individuals have multiple, often overlapping identities. The three strands of identity that
form the core of this thesis are racial, ethnic, and national identities; at any given time,
due to specific historic circumstances, one or another of these identities has been more
or less salient.
This thesis used a combination of methodologies the address the key research questions.
The primary research method was qualitative. In-depth interviews were supplemented
by a survey, archival research, and participant observation.
The principal social actors dominating the construction of Chinese South African
identities were the Chinese South Africans, themselves, and the South African and
Chinese states. Chinese history, myths about China, and Chinese culture were the
primary building materials used in the construction of Chinese South African identities;
however, these ‘materials’ could only be utilised within the constraints established by
the apartheid system. From the 1960s, Chinese South Africans were singled from
amongst the ‘non-whites’ to receive concessions and privileges; over time they came to
occupy the nebulous, interstitial spaces of apartheid as unofficial ‘honorary whites’.
South African state attempts to legally redefine the Chinese as ‘white’ failed because
the Chinese South Africans were unwilling to give up their unique ethnic identity.
Concessions and greater interaction with white South Africans had led many Chinese to
conclude that their Chineseness had been ‘diminished’ and ‘lost’. What we witnessed,
rather, was the selective incorporation of chosen aspects of Chinese culture and values
into new Chinese South African identities. Because of the diminishing impact of
apartheid legislation on Chinese South Africans, we were able to identify three distinct
identity cohorts during the apartheid era: the shopkeepers, the fence-sitters, and the
bananas. In the post-apartheid era, affirmative action policies, new immigration from
China and Taiwan, and globalisation have influenced more recent constructions of
Chinese South African identities.
Keywords: Chinese, Chineseness, South African, apartheid, post-apartheid, identity,
construction, ethnicity, ‘honorary white’, race.
Description
Faculty of Humanities
School of Social Sciences
9812254a
Yoon@tiscali.co.za
Keywords
Chinese, Chineseness, South Africa, Identity, Ethnicity