Mixed Race Families in South Africa: Naming and Claiming a Location

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe very act of living across racial boundaries or borders is a challenge to existing ideologies and social structures. Through in depth interviews with ten South Africans, I explore the border patrolling or policing of people who cross race lines in intimate relationships. Interracial partners are concerned with safety and comfort in public places and in the role of parent, they are concerned about their children’s sense of belonging. As interracial parents and partners resist border patrolling, they are also resisting racial categories, even as they claim and name locations that may work to reproduce racialisation. The experiences and perspectives of interracial parents and partners presented in this article suggest that racism and other forms of inequality remain entrenched and pervasive. And, despite the dream of unity and non-racialism, inequality between racial groups and classes has grown under neoliberalism in South Africa [Bond, P., 2004. From Racial to Class Apartheid: South Africa’s Frustrating Decade of Freedom. Monthly Review, 55 (10), 45. Available from: https://monthlyreview.org/2004/03/01/south-africas-frustrating-decade-offreedom-from-racial-to-class-apartheid/] Far from the hope for a rainbow nation the experiences of interracial partners and parents show that race remains significant, hierarchical and defining of ideologies, identities and institution. The interviews highlight that borders of racial categories are contested and charged spaces.