Race, attitudes and behaviour in racially-mixed, low-income neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa

Abstract

The end of apartheid in South Africa has not led to widespread racial desegregation and racial integration. Racial segregation and antipathy appear to have deep and enduring roots. There has been some racial desegregation in middle-class or elite neighbourhoods, due to the rapid upward mobility of some ‘African’, ‘coloured’ and ‘Indian’ people, but very little racial desegregation across most of the country. This article examines exceptional cases of racial desegregation and racial integration in low-income neighbourhoods in Cape Town, where mixes of coloured and African people have been allocated new public housing. Because residents of these neighbourhoods did not choose to live in racially-integrated areas, the study of their evolving inter-racial interactions helps us to understand anew the possibility of transcending racial division in a society like South Africa. The article finds that residents of these neighbourhoods retain a highly racialized discourse and subscribe to some racial stereotypes. At the same time, however, a variety of positive inter-racial interactions occur, and friendships form, beyond people’s expectations. The dominant culture is a racialized but tolerant multiculturalism.