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

the same lifestyle or bodily concerns. Neither can they afford elaborate
security fences.
Then there is the wide range of those who do not care about C group
and its commitments. If they have a house, it is dirty and smelly. They
do not tend their gardens, which are used to amass old cars and junk.
The people furthest away from the vertical axis, at the extreme left side
of this category, are closest to the traditional, stereotypical poor whites.
Their next step might be sliding out of the suburb, perhaps moving to a
camping area or a coloured squatter camp, where their place in the social
classification would be redefined, and perhaps be closer to the top of this
social hierarchy.
During apartheid, group boundaries were imposed particularly keenly
on those who now form Group B, and monetary support was directed at
them as well. Despite this, there was some, if a very narrow, space for different
ways of life. During my four-year stay in South Africa I regularly
ran into the popular idea of a poor white suburb as a hideaway for incorrectly
embodied people such as gays, pass-whites and other people interpreted
as too anomalous to stay within the main stream of White society.
After the end of apartheid this polarisation changed into a more complicated
picture. The hold of the grid, and thus social and racial classifications,
was diminished. The first new socially aspiring residents, the
first arrivistes, entered Ruyterwacht. This group is characterised by their
individualism and racial ambiguity – they can be coloureds who do not
care about group pressures, or whites who are racially on the borderline
and who do not care about the boundaries of whiteness. They do not
conform to old racial patterns. In the scheme, this makes them Group A,
which is located on the lower left corner, opposite to Group C. Douglas’
characterisation of this group fits them perfectly, since they are also prone
to submit to the cultural ideals of authority, leadership and domination
(Douglas 1996: 46). Their thinking and lifestyle can be challenging to traditional
Afrikaner values; they can, for example, be Muslims who strive
to create their own community in Ruyterwacht on their own terms (will
be discussed in length later).
They are mobile. Cars and motorbikes are central in their lifestyle,
which can be described as consumerist. Of all the residents of Ruyterwacht
they are the ones most likely to spend their Saturdays at a mall
– which mushroomed around Cape Town after the end of apartheid. They
often have computers or computer skills, and access to the Internet, since
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