Race Trouble: An exploration of race relations in Zebra Crossing, Coconut and The Book of Memory by Meg Vandermerwe, Kopano Matlwa and Petina Gappah Travis McCabe March 2020 English Studies College of Arts Faculty of Humanities Pietermaritzburg Campus University of Kwa-Zulu Natal 1 DECLARATION Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, in the Graduate Programme in English Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. I, Travis McCabe, declare that 1. The research reported in this thesis, except where otherwise indicated, is my original research. 2. This thesis has not been submitted for any degree or examination at any other university. 3. This thesis does not contain other persons’ data, pictures, graphs or other information, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other persons. 4. This thesis does not contain other persons' writing, unless specifically acknowledged as being sourced from other researchers. Where other written sources have been quoted, then: a. Their words have been re-written but the general information attributed to them has been referenced b. Where their exact words have been used, then their writing has been placed in italics and inside quotation marks, and referenced. 5. This thesis does not contain text, graphics or tables copied and pasted from the Internet, unless specifically acknowledged, and the source being detailed in the thesis and in the References sections. 12 March 2020 Travis McCabe Supervisor: 214542406 Dr Claire Scott _______________ _______________ Signature Signature 2 Abstract Despite the formalised abolishment of both apartheid and colonialism, it would in many respects be remiss to conclude that the legacy of these systems of oppression do not continue to exert some level of influence on the attitudes and behaviour of individuals and groups. Alistair Fraser (2007) refers to this phenomenon as the “colonial present” (836) which “highlights the endurance, persistence or reactivation of particular colonial-style relations” (836, italics in original), alluding to a framework of relations that persists in the post-colonial and post-apartheid setting that is characterised by inequality and oppression despite systemic changes to national systems of government and the introduction of policies that have sought to redress past racial inequalities and introduce racial equity. In Coconut (2007), Zebra Crossing (2013) and The Book of Memory (2015) by Kopano Matlwa, Meg Vandermerwe and Petina Gappah, my central research question is to investigate how the conditions of race relations that were set up in the colonial past continue to influence the colonial present as it is depicted in the novels. While much research has been done in examining the respective eras of colonialism and apartheid, focus has often not been placed on the nuances of conflict, anxiety and competition that characterises these new spaces as it relates to issues of identity, belonging, exclusion and interracial interaction. Complicating this transition into a new democratic dispensation in both Zimbabwe and South Africa is the intrusion of the past into the present, in the form of the influence of whiteness that problematises racial relations, creating situations of crisis and conflict. To determine to what extent the practices that characterise the everyday lives of individuals and groups invoke the legacy of apartheid and colonialism and what effect this potentially has on race relations as it is depicted in the novels, the perspective of race trouble, conceptualised by Durrheim, Mtose and Brown (2011), is used as a central framework. Within 3 the perspective of race trouble, three constructs will be used to analyse the novels, namely that of discourse, practices and ideology. Ideas regarding the nature of discourse, with particular emphasis on whiteness as an institutional construct, will be primarily used in examination of Coconut, while the notion of everyday practices will be used to analyse The Book of Memory and finally, ideology to look at Zebra Crossing. Within the construct of practices, I primarily explore the nature of the practices that characterise the everyday lives of the characters in constructing notions of place identity and a sense of attachment to various environments and how these environments influence identity, self-perception and belonging. In Zebra Crossing, I analyse how dominant ideology constructs subjects to behave and think in certain ways, with the concept of ‘othering’ providing a tangible link between the presence of ideology and the emergence of the subject. 4 Table of Contents DECLARATION ................................................................................................................................. 2 ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................ 3 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 7 THE INTRUSION OF THE PAST INTO THE PRESENT: ............................................................................... 8 OUTLINE OF THE STRUCTURE OF THIS PROJECT: ............................................................................... 16 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW AND METHODOLOGY .......................................... 18 LITERATURE REVIEW: THE PROBLEM OF THE POST-COLONIAL AND POST-APARTHEID CONTEXT .... 18 WHITENESS: MAPPING ITS CONSTRUCTS AND UNDERSTANDING ITS CONTINUED INFLUENCE ................... 23 METHODOLOGY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PERSPECTIVE OF RACE TROUBLE ................................ 36 CHAPTER THREE: DISCOURSE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY KOPANO MATLWA’S COCONUT ................................................................................................. 49 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 49 THE NATURE AND CONSTRUCTION OF DISCOURSE ............................................................................. 52 ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE EMPLOYMENT OF DISCOURSE ................................................................... 55 WHITENESS AS A DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCT ........................................................................................ 56 THE NEGOTIATION OF APPEARANCE: .......................................................................................................... 56 LANGUAGE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF PROBLEMATIC IDENTITY POSITIONS: ............................................. 61 WHITENESS AS A POSITION OF POWER IN THE CONTEXT OF INEQUALITY: .................................................. 64 STIGMA AND IDEOLOGY IN THE EMERGENCE OF ‘ACCEPTABLE’ IDENTITY POSITIONS: ..................... 66 CONCLUSION: .................................................................................................................................... 71 CHAPTER FOUR: PRACTICES AND PLACE PETINA GAPPAH’S THE BOOK OF MEMORY ............................................................................. 74 INTRODUCTION: ................................................................................................................................. 74 CONTEXTUALISATION: THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF PLACES IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF IDENTITY AND RACE RELATIONS ........................................................................................................ 76 PLACE-IDENTITY: .............................................................................................................................. 81 EXPLORING THE ASSOCIATION OF IDENTITY, SENTIMENTALITY AND STIGMA TO PLACE ........................... 81 MUFAKOSE TOWNSHIP ............................................................................................................................... 82 MUFAKOSE TOWNSHIP: ARRANGEMENTS OF SPACE AND SYSTEMS OF RELATIONS THROUGH THE PROCESS OF CATEGORISATION .................................................................................................................................. 85 HIGHLANDS POLICE STATION AND CHIKURUBI MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON ......................................... 88 5 UMWINSIDALE AND ‘SUMMER MADNESS’ ................................................................................................. 93 OVERSEAS .................................................................................................................................................. 96 CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................................... 98 CHAPTER FIVE: IDEOLOGY, SUBJUGATION AND OTHERING MEG VANDERMERWE’S ZEBRA CROSSING ............................................................................ 102 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 102 INTRODUCTION TO SUBJUGATION AND THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE OTHER .............................................................................................................................................. 106 SUBJUGATION AS PERFORMATIVE: EXPLORING THE ROLE OF PRACTICES AND ENVIRONMENT IN THE EMERGENCE OF THE SUBJECT .......................................................................................................... 108 ROUTINES OF CONDUCT, IDEOLOGY AND GENDERED SELF-IDENTITY IN THE PRODUCTION OF THE SUBJECT ..........................................................................................................................................