Whites writing whiteness: letters, domestic figurations and representations of whiteness in South Africa 1770s-1970s

南非社会及其随时间的变化尤其具有社会科学意义，因为它是探索社会变化机制的熔炉，包括围绕种族隔离和制度化种族隔离组织起来的种族、性别和阶级不平等的独特重叠等级。最近，它的民主转型已经成为社会转型的典范。然而，只关注最近一段时间，它掩盖了一个持续不断的更零散变化的过程：随着时间的推移，不同肤色和语言群体的普通人以不同的方式生活在种族构成中。“白人写作白度”项目通过调查17世纪70年代至70年代的书信和信件中的“白人写作”和“写作白度”来捕捉到这一点，这是该项目历史上的一个关键时期。这种对书信交流的关注将重点放在了少数白人人口上，并通过这一点解决了白人作为一个社会类别的表现，以及随着时间的推移，高度种族主义的社会制度中种族主义等级制度的相关创建。有很强的理由研究和使用写信作为研究社会变化的适当和有效的来源：它是一种将社会生活的情感和物质方面结合在一起的关系活动，它对不断变化的社会风俗和习俗做出了高度反应，因此它提供了一个镜头，让我们了解在这个重要的时期，白人生活、感知和表现白人(也隐含着黑人)的方式发生了变化。南非的社会变化是如何以及为什么会采取这种形式的？这是如何经历的，从早期的殖民时期，到帝国主义的干预，到1948年国民党选举的胜利和种族隔离，以及20世纪70年代的变革之风？在该国的不同地区，以及来自不同政治、经济和宗教立场的个人和网络，发生了哪些抵抗和迁就？人们是如何在他们的信件、书信和其他“生命文件”中表现这些随时间变化的呢？这项拟议的研究将在17世纪70年代至70年代的社会、经济和政治变化的背景下调查白色的变化表现并将其理论化，以解决和回答这些关于种族主义的重要研究问题。研究基础是对C25-30家庭收藏品的详细调查，这些收藏品跨越17世纪70年代和70年代(最后一封信写成的时候)至少三代到六代人，以及对C12子集的案例研究。这些藏品和档案分布在南非各地，包含大量的个人和家庭信件和信件，在某些情况下还包括日记、反思笔记本和其他自传作品，这些家庭的家庭财富随着时间的推移发生了显著的变化。这些数据将使用为之前的ESRC项目开发的在线虚拟研究环境(VRE)进行管理。奖学金提案提供了一个连贯的工作计划，其中包括对17世纪70年代至70年代的信件和信件的调查，重点是“中等类型”的白人家庭，并从我在南非的研究中收集想法、见解和数据，以对白人及其创造的种族主义类别、等级制度和社会实践进行理论化。它使自1994年以来通过成功完成的项目而建立的研究基地能够朝着实质性和创新性的新方向向前推进。

South African society and its changes over time is of particular social science interest, as a crucible for exploring the mechanisms of social change, including what became its distinctive overlapping hierarchies of racialed, gendered & classed inequalities, organised around segregation and institutionalised apartheid. Latterly, its democratic transition has been a model for social transformation. Focusing just on the recent period, however, glosses a constant process of more fragmentary changes: away from 'high' politics, ordinary people of all skin colours and language groups have lived out its racial formations in different ways over time. The 'Whites Writing Whiteness' project captures this through investigating 'whites writing' and 'writing whiteness' in letter-writing and correspondences from the 1770s to the 1970s, a crucial period in its history. This attention to epistolary exchanges gives focus onto the small white population and through this addresses the representation of whiteness as a social category and the related creation of racialised hierarchies within what over time became a highly racialised social system. A strong case exists for researching and using letter-writing as an appropriate and effective source for investigating social change: it is a relational activity which brings together affective and material aspects of social life, it is highly responsive to changing social mores and conventions, and consequently it provides a lens on the changing ways in which white people lived, perceived and represented whiteness (and by implication blackness too) to each other over this momentous time period.How and why did social change in South Africa take the form it did? In what ways was this experienced, from the early colonial period, through imperialist intervention, to the 1948 National Party election victory and apartheid, and the 1970s & the winds of change? What resistances and accommodations occurred in different areas of the country, and from individuals and networks of different political, economic and religious standing? How did people represent such changes over time in their letters, correspondences and other 'documents of life'? The proposed research will investigate and theorise changing representations of whiteness in the context of social, economic and political change from the 1770s to the 1970s so as to address and answer these important research questions regarding racialisation.The research base is provided by detailed investigations of c25-30 family collections which span at least three and up to six generations between the 1770s & the 1970s (when the last letters were written) and case studies of a sub-set of c12. The collections and archives are located across South Africa, contain very large numbers of personal and family letters and correspondences and in some cases diaries, reflective notebooks and other auto/biographical writings, and with marked changes in family fortunes occurring for these families over time. The data will be managed using an online Virtual Research Environment (VRE) developed for a preceding ESRC project.The Fellowship proposal provides a cohesive programme of work which encompasses the investigation of letters and correspondences from the 1770s to the 1970s focusing on white families of the 'middling sort', and also draws together ideas, insights and data from across my researches in South Africa to theorise whiteness and its creation of racialised categories, hierarchies and social practices. It enables a research base built up through successfully completed projects since 1994 to be taken forward in a substantial and innovative new direction.