The Making of a Good White - E-thesis - Helsinki.fi

More documents

Recommendations

Info

have jobs in the suburb as maids or gardeners and form a cheap temporary labour reservoir as a group, they are the lowest step of the Ruyterwacht nutritional chain – living off its garbage. They wander around the suburb, searching for anything useful: cardboard, mouldy bread, clothes, or an odd job. Any talk about these categories is useless. They are outside the described system of social order and categories of Ruyterwacht, in the same niche where a caste society would locate pariahs. Their site is still not serviced, even though Tygerberg municipality had already made promises in this regard in 1997. They do not have toilets or running water, carrying their water from the nearby police station. Garbage lies scattered everywhere and the stink is revolting. Children, whose faces show traces of FAS-syndrome as a result of their mothers’ drinking while pregnant, play in the heaps of rubbish where huge rats lurk. The squatters joke that the cats in the camp are afraid of the rats. The squatters fight their daily battles against addictions, poverty and a sense of worthlessness. According to the squatters the Ruyterwachters’ attitude towards them is at best paternalistic, at worst spiteful. They do not feel any unity with the coloureds of Ruyterwacht who are keen on defending their newly acquired position in the social order. The squatters say that these coloureds are even harsher towards them than the whites are. “They think they are White.” (M., squatter, 27.) Some white community leaders want to build a wall between the squatters and themselves to make a proper distinction. For the residents the squatters’ existence cannot be helped, but they should be invisible, and their access to the space of Ruyterwacht must be restricted. When discussing the position of the area in South African society and in Cape Town, my informants often referred to metaphors of space. Particularly non-verbal communication is very telling. It describes their values and the way they see themselves in the social hierarchy. Typically, people use the binary opposition of up/down when discussing the suburbs of Cape Town. An example of a usage of this kind is that when Constantia, an upper class area is mentioned, people tend to illustrate it by lifting one hand above the eye level ’up’. When referring to Ruyterwacht, they lower their hand to the level of their stomachs, ’down’. When one of the poor black areas is mentioned, they put their hand even lower down in a gesture that leaves Ruyterwacht in the ’middle’ compartment. These perceptions are quite typical of the way South Africans perceive 214
the position of poor white areas in general. In middle-class white perceptions, even if these areas are considered very low in the White cosmology, they still belong to the existing universe, areas where you can physically go to, whereas all the African areas are entirely outside this category. In the residents’ minds, but also in the middle-class perceptions, these categories live on. My informants also use language and expressions to verify Ruyterwacht’s symbolical position on the lowest step of this hierarchy, or squeezed on the boundary between the categories of White and not White. “I am fl at on the ground.” (J., a community leader.) Being from Ruyterwacht can be a source of shame, but it is also a source of pride. A person, who can trace his place in the classification and accepts it, is, according to essentialist thinking, nurturing a ‘real’ identity (Crapanzano 1986: 20). He is a genuine person, a ware Afrikaner, who knows how to position his identity within carefully marked boundaries, and who thus, despite the fact that he lives in a poor white suburb, has a right to claim respectability. “I have made something of my life but I am still a fl at person. I did not grow proud like those in Thornton. I am not pretending I am something I am not.” (J.) NEW SOCIAL CATEGORIES AND BODILY CONCERNS FOR A NEW SITUATION At first sight the present social scene in Ruyterwacht seems chaotic after the overdose of order. But underneath there is a consistent cultural logic in which all the poor whites, Muslims, Afrikaners, English-speaking whites, coloureds, middle-class whites and professionals fit. The poor whites were and are an underclass among whites, but they were still not the ‘real’ lumpenproletariat. They were trained to know their place as a working class, but the internalised racial white middleclass bodily rules nevertheless defined their habitus. This double bind made their position a contradictory and difficult one. They were simultaneously the dominator and the dominated, or rather constricted between them. This position has left little room for manoeuvring. ‘Being flat’, 215
Page 1 and 2:
Annika Björnsdotter Teppo THE MAKI
Page 3:
”Dit is dr. Anton Rupert wat ges
Page 6 and 7:
Myriam Houssay-Holzscuch for her wi
Page 9 and 10:
CONTENTS 1. Introduction Background
Page 11 and 12:
CONTENTS Men and Women at Work: Toi
Page 13 and 14:
1. INTRODUCTION ”...There are ver
Page 15 and 16:
of national unity (volkseenheid) an
Page 17 and 18:
individual studies take in respect
Page 19 and 20:
effortless, and it did not always p
Page 21 and 22:
these bodily and social boundaries?
Page 23 and 24:
term ‘poor white’ can be regard
Page 25 and 26:
2. THE POOR WHITE CATEGORY The cate
Page 27 and 28:
Poverty became more visible in the
Page 29 and 30:
POOR WHITEISM Until the 1880s, pove
Page 31 and 32:
people (Mattila 1996: 15-16). These
Page 33 and 34:
mindedness assumed that it was conc
Page 35 and 36:
that it had been strongly influence
Page 37 and 38:
dependent was thus perceived as a c
Page 39 and 40:
Afrikaner organisations such as the
Page 41 and 42:
whites. Between 1880s and 1930s the
Page 43 and 44:
poor whites was a crucial part of t
Page 45 and 46:
From the beginning, the Housing Lea
Page 47 and 48:
The First Residents: 1938-1948 Whil
Page 49 and 50:
dren, while her husband Charles wor
Page 51 and 52:
control of the poor whites grew har
Page 53 and 54:
the area is not shared by middle-cl
Page 55 and 56:
private life was not really private
Page 57 and 58:
project, and a warning of the conse
Page 59 and 60:
national prize-winning novel Triomf
Page 61 and 62:
THE POOR WHITE STIGMA After the Sec
Page 63 and 64:
of ‘racially superior’ whites t
Page 65 and 66:
3. FIELDWORK: FACING THE ISSUES OF
Page 67 and 68:
whites, and furthermore, a betrayal
Page 69 and 70:
In EGV I was an outsider, a profess
Page 71 and 72:
understanding of the everyday life
Page 73 and 74:
the past ten years 71 discussions o
Page 75 and 76:
Toit 1992 and 2003; Morrell 1992; P
Page 77 and 78:
In Discipline and Punish, Foucault
Page 79 and 80:
his body, he takes into account soc
Page 81 and 82:
odily values (e.g. cleanliness). Si
Page 83 and 84:
suburb. Other things, such as an ab
Page 85 and 86:
for symbolic power is a very defini
Page 87 and 88:
egulation. The means to this end we
Page 89 and 90:
Embodiment and distinctions in the
Page 91 and 92:
encouraged the system of concubinag
Page 93 and 94:
The conversations followed a basic
Page 95 and 96:
The world of the pass-whites was in
Page 97 and 98:
people, since that would lead to de
Page 99 and 100:
140-141; Dubow 1995: 281-283; O’M
Page 101 and 102:
space, but there were still many ur
Page 103 and 104:
(1970: 17). Therefore the treatment
Page 105 and 106:
intellectuals and church officials,
Page 107 and 108:
acism. In 1932 he was nominated to
Page 109 and 110:
and economic upliftment of the poor
Page 111 and 112:
CONSTRUCTING EGV, A WHITE SUBURBAN
Page 113 and 114:
Map 3: Ruyterwacht in 2001 113
Page 115 and 116:
study model cities in England, Germ
Page 117 and 118:
Since the spatial planning of the a
Page 119 and 120:
well-being of the poor whites and t
Page 121 and 122:
tion was to be a way out of humilia
Page 123 and 124:
6. THE ERA OF FAITH AND HARD WORK:
Page 125 and 126:
The CHL wanted to ensure that it ch
Page 127 and 128:
Social Services in the CHL Housing
Page 129 and 130:
Advice was offered on employment an
Page 131 and 132:
DISTRIBUTION OF ECONOMIC CAPITAL De
Page 133 and 134:
money each family had spent on furn
Page 135 and 136:
of rehabilitation. From the very be
Page 137 and 138:
the idealisation of volksmoeders ti
Page 139 and 140:
tution could provide. The risks inv
Page 141 and 142:
“…the tenants in the Company’
Page 143 and 144:
doctors to exercise care in issuing
Page 145 and 146:
(and still are) measures of a good
Page 147 and 148:
“It is said that Mrs. H. is addic
Page 149 and 150:
“It was stated by neighbours howe
Page 151 and 152:
deteriorating infl uence on other c
Page 153 and 154:
“Investigation of the family circ
Page 155 and 156:
purity. They accepted people with a
Page 157 and 158:
unhappiness and tells her not to wo
Page 159 and 160:
still accepted as White, for they w
Page 161 and 162:
CONCLUSION Epping Garden Village wa
Page 163 and 164: During this era most of the residen
Page 165 and 166: 7. THE ERA OF STAGNATION AND DISINT
Page 167 and 168: Being simultaneously poor and white
Page 169 and 170: The question of an optimal minimum
Page 171 and 172: ing privately owned homes, and the
Page 173 and 174: times and had nowhere else to go. T
Page 175 and 176: which, combined with the regulation
Page 177 and 178: Offi cer for automatic transfer to
Page 179 and 180: contributed to the family income mu
Page 181 and 182: aimed at those children who were sh
Page 183 and 184: eficial manner, and connected with
Page 185 and 186: itself as ”narrative structural p
Page 187 and 188: in order to scare their men into be
Page 189 and 190: with different men at different tim
Page 191 and 192: came obvious from the note in the a
Page 193 and 194: when the state paid for travel, clo
Page 195 and 196: She already had four siblings at th
Page 197 and 198: make it likely that some people did
Page 199 and 200: acks on the idea of Afrikanerdom. T
Page 201 and 202: scribed in the conclusion of the pr
Page 203 and 204: The racial ideas are alive and well
Page 205 and 206: The white residents of the suburb c
Page 207 and 208: Throughout the twentieth century th
Page 209 and 210: plaints are not openly directed at
Page 211 and 212: Some have moved to Goodwood, some h
Page 213: On the western boundary of Ruyterwa
Page 217 and 218: since, as Burkitt has suggested,
Page 219 and 220: Picture 2: A thoroughly renovated G
Page 221 and 222: the same lifestyle or bodily concer
Page 223 and 224: to the authorities. As soon as they
Page 225 and 226: The Hierarchists Revolt: How Ruyter
Page 227 and 228: “You see, if you want to live in
Page 229 and 230: Arriviste Tactics: Muslims in the C
Page 231 and 232: empty talk, a non-functional tactic
Page 233 and 234: The End of the Upliftment as We Kne
Page 235 and 236: at home, it is possible to show you
Page 237 and 238: The social work has changed, and th
Page 239 and 240: “I do not bother myself with them
Page 241 and 242: understandable. As shown earlier, m
Page 243 and 244: and regulated Ruyterwacht homes are
Page 245 and 246: UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES Before the
Page 247 and 248: REDISTRIBUTION? At the end of the a
Page 249 and 250: Opheffing. Upliftment. To ’uplift
Page 251 and 252: APPENDIX 2: EGV IN 1940 Picture 4:
Page 253 and 254: APPENDIX 3: TABLES Occupations whit
Page 255 and 256: CODES/PRIMARY DOCUMENTS* 1 2 3 4 5
Page 257 and 258: Bickford-Smith, V., van Heyningen,
Page 259 and 260: De Certeau, Michel 2000. Ethno-Grap
Page 261 and 262: Freund, Bill 1992. Introduction: Th
Page 263 and 264: Horrell, Muriel (compiler) 1978. La
Page 265 and 266:
Mauss, Marcel 1979. Sociology and P
Page 267 and 268:
Russell, Diana E.H. 1997. Behind Cl
Page 269 and 270:
Worden, N., van Heyningen, E. and B
Page 271 and 272:
APPENDIX 5: INDEX WORDS ACVV 42-43,
Page 273 and 274:
Johannesburg 15, 27, 67, 101, 104,
Page 275 and 276:
275
show all

The Making of a Good White - E-thesis - Helsinki.fi

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?