ABSTRACTIn this article, I interrogate the historical and symbolic construction of citizenship in the colony in an attempt to shed further light on the enduring political marginalisation of black women in postcolonial, post-apartheid South Africa, despite the comprehensive human rights regime in place. I make the argument that part of the reason for these continued exclusions can be found in the very nature of the institution of citizenship. I argue that citizenship in the postcolony is structured through the convergence of mutually constitutive racial and gendered hierarchies that work to centre white masculinity in a way that is symbolically dependent on the abjection of the black and/or feminine Other. In order to forge a form of political belonging that transcends this complicated grid of whitenormative heteropatriarchal exclusions, a radically intersectional approach is required. However, with reference to the work of American feminist scholar Amy Brandzel, I argue that such a project is rendered impossible by the very nature of citizenship as a system of assigning rights, resources and value to bodies through a discourse of progressive, partial group-based inclusions.