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‘Not Black Enough’: Changing Expressions of Coloured Identity in Post-Apartheid South Africa

I have argued elsewhere at great length that Coloured identity was remarkably stable and experienced relatively little fundamental change in the way it functioned as a social identity throughout that period of white supremacist rule from the formation of the South African state through to the ending of apartheid) Expressions of Coloured identity have, in contrast, undergone rapid transformation in the post-apartheid environment. The past decade has been a time of flux and unprecedented change in the way Colouredness has operated, and indeed, has needed to operate as a social identity. Not only has the new democratic dispensation brought with it a degree of freedom of association and possibilities for ethnic mobilisation inconceivable under white domination, but it has also undermined, even invalidated, some of the most basic assumptions and practices that had underpinned Coloured identity from the time it had crystallised in the late nineteenth century. And with the racial hierarchy that had regulated social relations in white-ruled South Africa having broken down in important respects, intergroup relations have become more complex and expressions of social identity more fluid. While this has, on the one hand, compounded the confusion and controversy that have dogged the identity in recent decades, it has also opened up opportunities for new ways of conceptualising Colouredness and brought forth more varied and creative responses to questions about the nature of Coloured identity and its role in South African society. It is thus not surprising that the new