First‐Generation Refugees’ Rejection of Racial Self‐Identification in South Africa: Constructing Non‐Racial Identifications

Abstract

Although racial classification in South Africa has been extensively studied by scholars, little is known about the extent to which post-apartheid refugees or immigrants reject the South African racial classification system. In particular, there is scant research on Eritrean refugees' self-identification patterns within the racially structured South African host society. The current study addresses this lacuna by exploring how first-generation Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers, who originate from an ethno-linguistically structured social system, self-identify. Semi-structured interviews with 46 participants were conducted. Largely, those who lived in isolated Eritrean ethnic communities rejected identifying by race and instead self-classified by identities they were familiar with in their home country. The results reported here form only part of a larger study that identified various themes. Four themes were identified in relation to this paper's specific research question: (1) identifying as human; (2) identifying as Eritrean; (3) identifying as Habesha; and (4) identifying as Tigrinya. The paper argues that non-acculturated and residentially and ethnically isolated individual refugees in South Africa eschew South Africa's racial classification system. The resistance to racialization by new refugees might hold potential for transforming the country's entrenched racial classification system based on Black, White, Coloured, and Indian categories as the social demographics of South Africa change in response to immigration. * Amanuel Isak Tewolde is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Centre for Social Development in Africa at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include race, ethnicity, migration, welfare, and social development.