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

ined with inherited vintage furniture. There is a sense of space in their
homes, connected to the high status of this group.
Members of this group are mobile, although not as mobile as the arrivistes
of Group A. They have good computer skills, and access to Internet.
They are also consumerists and aware of the latest developments in home
electronics. They constantly improve their homes and gardens, change
the layout of their homes, buy tiles, paint walls and build fences. Their
gardens have braais, and they might also boast a water element, even a
pool. From the outside, their houses can look very similar to Group C
homes, but their yards tend to seem less defended and more open.
Taste as a signifier of social class is a key phrase in this category. They
are committed to both the group boundaries and modernity. This interplay
of tradition and innovation can also be seen in their homes. Being
a proper white with all its embodied signs is self-evident for this group.
They would blend in with ease with the middle-class in Stellenbosch.
None of these categories is absolute, and they all consist of various
positions and places. These places can even be very close to another
category. For example, in Ruyterwacht the few people whom I met from
Group D tended to occupy a position very close to Group C. I also met
some families who and visited many houses which did not fit exactly into
one of the categories; others showed signs of identifying with several,
but all the family whom I met could be explained in some of the above
terms. They were either close to zero (the centre of the figure), or moving
towards one direction. For example, I met some Group B families who
emphasised their conservative values and group commitment, but lived
from hand to mouth, or on whatever welfare they managed to get and
kept their homes badly. They wanted to give the impression of belonging
to Group C, with which they largely identified, while they were in fact
aspiring members of Group B, playing the game of a good white, since
members of Group C would probably not see them as their equals.
In short, while Ruyterwacht is destined to continue its existence between
‘proper’ racial categories, there are different ways and levels of
being there, some of those ways being more acceptable than others. The
residents’ battle to define and keep the suburb in the most advantageous
possible position between racial categories is ongoing. Two seemingly
different cases illustrate this and while they have certain similarities, they
also illustrate how the racial relations were formed and negotiated in the
suburb in the 1990s.
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