Social Types and Race Relations in the Colonial Setting: A Case Study of Rhodesia

Abstract

sTUDENTS OF RACE relations are faced with at least three major problems: determining the unit of analysis, delineating related factors, and tracing changes within such relations. Thus, researchers have difficulties in deciding on indices of race relations and the levels of their application.' At the same time, they must deal with highly varied controlling factors and data so general as almost to defy classification.2 Thirdly, they are dealing with dynamic societies in which the controlling factors undergo change. In the effort to arrive at indices of race relations and the effects of various related factors, many typological approaches have tended to result in static descriptions of various patterns of race relations which have emphasized societal characteristics and contact situations but have neglected the emergence of new patterns at various points in a society's development.3 The present study is an attempt to analyze race relations in a colonial society-Rhodesia-through an approach which recognizes the effect of social change upon those relations. This approach is based on sociological research which has tackled the above problems in a manner which invites at least the beginning of a synthesis. Relevant to this synthesis are three concepts which recognize both the existence of patterns of race relations and their dynamic character: social types in interracial situations; the racial frontier; and the race relations cycle. One clue to the changes that occur in race relations is provided by Glick's analysis of the social types which reflect the changing collective sensibilities among the groups involved.4 Following Strong, he sees such types as: