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

for symbolic power is a very defining aspect in all this. Symbolic power
has indeed proven difficult to achieve, despite the residents’ efforts. This
has everything to do with the fact that the poor whites are still perceived
as what we, following Eriksen’s (2001: 265) lead, could describe as the
ethnic anomalies in the South African society.
The Poor Whites as Ethnic Anomalies
In all societies, bodily control is simultaneously a strategy of internal
categorisation as well as of exclusion. Every culture has its own bodily
classification and traditions that help to strengthen communities’ identities.
Every classificatory system also contains phenomena that do not fit
in, and each culture must resist those doubts that undermine its basic assumptions.
Douglas notes that all cultures must deal with the anomalies
that its classificatory system produces, or they lose their legitimacy. 78
This is an important point when we look at the treatment of poor whites
in their ambiguous position between the racial categories of White and
Non-white, being officially White, but still not considered pure and complete
members of that category.
The content of the term poor white changed significantly during the
twentieth century, and their degree of anomalousness varied. Still, the
central principle of the making of the category White remained constant:
the people known as poor whites were the last people to be included.
The ways the society managed their anomalousness affected their treatment,
and the ways poor whites (and other South Africans) experienced
their social position. Uplifting the habitus of poor whites was seen as a
cure for their marginality. If they were no longer poor and uneducated,
they would definitely become more White. Adding to their symbolic
78 Ambiguity can be erased through interpretation. The Nuer people interpret deformed
babies as hippopotamus children. Since hippos belong to the water, these babies are
drowned. The existence of an anomaly can be physically controlled. In some West African
societies twins are killed immediately after birth. This habit eliminates social deviance
in this society that believes that two human beings cannot be born from the same
womb at the same time. In Western societies plastic surgery is used to ‘correct’ errors in
beauty. A rule on avoiding anomalies fortifi es cultural defi nitions of normal. When fat
people are discriminated against, thinness becomes culturally rewarded. Anomalies can
be classifi ed as dangerous. Witch-hunts often target people who do not fit the cultural
models. Ambiguous symbols can be used in the same way in rituals as they are used in
poetry and mythology: to strengthen the meaning, or to draw attention to other levels of
being. (Douglas 1966: 39-40, author’s emphasis.)
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