ETHNICITY IN SOUTH AFRICA

Ethnicity in South Africa

Ethnicity in South Africa

Introduction

The first phase of sociological research of South Africa in the nineteenth century coincided with European colonial expansion and the emergence of the European nation states. Yet, those events did not produce a sociological focus on ethnicity. To understand why it was necessary to rediscover ethnicity (or at least phenomena which we now associate with this relatively recent term) it is important to recognize that nineteenth century social theorizing argued that a major characteristic of the emerging modern industrial societies was their shift from old patterns of social relationships based on a variety of inscriptive social statuses to newer forms of attainment linked to class. To the extent that ethnic phenomena continued to play a major role in social relations, not least those involving conflict, this was associated with the existence of pre-modern forms of society. Hence the type of conflicts evident in the various European colonies could be seen as a social aberration which would disappear with modernization.

Body: Discussion and Analysis

Ethnic Inequality/Dimensions

In the South Africa where sociology became established early, Collins has identified empirical research on race and ethnic divisions as one of the main activities of American sociologists throughout the 20th century (1997: 1563). This reminder of the work of Park and his colleagues in Chicago and the many studies of African Americans from the work of Du Bois (1899) onwards highlights an important strand of research activity albeit one in which the focus was often on the individual psychology and behavior rather than on the institutional and structural factors involved in inequality. The dominant theoretical paradigm, which also fitted well with the official ideology, was that of assimilation which viewed the very evident ethnic diversity in the society as losing its significance as individuals become assimilated. Although subject to possible delays or hindrances, assimilation was the end point towards which relations between ethnic and racial groups were, and should be, heading (Bernard, 1965). The assimilation paradigm with its emphasis on the responsibility for change as lying with the individual minority member and a focus on value consensus fitted well into the dominant functionalist paradigm (Hill, 2001).

Not all research adopted such a functionalist framework as the work of authors such as on the African- American showed. Nevertheless, within main stream sociological writing, to the extent that ethnic diversity was considered, the tendency was to explore the stages of assimilation rather than to question its appropriateness as a theoretical framework or to seek evidence indicating counter trends in the process of immigrant or minority incorporation (Bulmer, 1984). In other immigrant countries such as Australia and Israel the extensive research on immigrant groups in the 1950s followed a similar trend with the dominant model of assimilation also being replicated in the national ideology.

The key point is not that there were no authors writing before the 1970s on topics such as race and immigrant groups in the USA and other immigrant nations. Rather, that they did so from a perspective which saw ...