"Denying the Coloured Mother": Gender and Race in South Africa

Abstract

The Afrikaner has denied the Coloured mother. He has denied the Coloured originator of his language. Denied the builder of his houses and the fashioner of his furniture. Denied the designer of his clothes and of his silver. Denied the preserver of his music and the creator of his pleasure.

Re-imagining South Africa via a Passage to India: M.K. Jeffreys's Archive of the Indian Ocean World

“…7 Natasha Distiller argues to th is effect in her analysis of th e functioning of race in Jeffreys's Drum series (see Distiller, forthco ming).8 See 'Denying th e Coloure d Mother'(Distiller & Samuelson, 2005), in which we engage with Jeffreys's efforts to reinsert denied and repr essed 'coloure d moth ers' int o white genea logies in th e mid st of apar theid's separa ting dr ive; and 'Orienting th e Cap e' (Samu elson , forth coming), in which I explore Jeffreys's extensive writ ings on Islam , and th e ways in which th ese pass through O rienta list discour se in order to re-ori ent th e Ca pe.9 See, inter alia, and in addition toKruger, Boehm er (2002) andHofmeyr (2003;. Boehm er's intervention lies in explori ng 'the "contact zone" of cultural and political exchange: till now 'conventionally located betwee n the European colonial cent re and its periph ery; as oper ating 'between periph eries' (2002: 2; emphasis in or ig.).…”

Am I That Name? Middle-class lesbian motherhood in post-apartheid South Africa

“…Oswin (2007) re-making, re-conceptualising. The country was born out of the construction and assertion of differences between people, in its colonial genesis (see Distiller and Samuelson, 2005;Ward and Worden, 1998;Elphick and Gilliomee eds., 1979) and went on to make a hierarchical system out of difference which reached into, and helped to structure, every level of state and psyche under apartheid. We have recently been given a chance to rework who 'we', as members of an imagined community, can be.…”