Race trouble: An exploration of race relations in Zebra crossing, coconut and the book of memory by Meg Vandermerwe, Kopano Matlwa and Petina Gappah.
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Date
2020
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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 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.
Description
Masters Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.