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是一个特别的社会科学兴趣，作为探索社会变革机制的熔炉，包括围绕种族隔离和制度化种族隔离组织的种族，性别和阶级不平等的独特重叠等级制度。最近，它的民主转型已成为社会转型的典范。然而，只关注最近一段时期，掩盖了一个更零碎的变化的持续过程：远离“高级”政治，所有肤色和语言群体的普通人随着时间的推移以不同的方式生活在其种族形态中。“白人写作白度”项目通过调查从18世纪70年代到20世纪70年代的信件和通信中的“白人写作”和“写作白度”来捕捉这一点，这是其历史上的一个关键时期。这种对书信交流的关注使人们把注意力集中在少数白人人口上，并通过这一点来解决白人作为一种社会类别的表现，以及随着时间的推移，在高度种族化的社会体系中产生的种族化等级制度。研究和使用信件写作作为调查社会变化的适当和有效的来源存在一个强有力的案例：它是一种关系活动，将社会生活的情感和物质方面结合在一起，它对不断变化的社会习俗和习俗高度敏感，因此它提供了一个镜头，在这个重要的时期，白人生活、感知和表现白人（也暗示黑人）的方式在不断变化。南非的社会变革是如何以及为什么会采取这样的形式？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，再到20世纪70年代的变革之风，这种经历是以什么方式发生的？在这个国家的不同地区，来自不同政治、经济和宗教地位的个人和网络，发生了什么样的抵抗和妥协？人们如何在他们的信件、通信和其他“生活文件”中表现这些随时间的变化？拟议的研究将调查和理论化从18世纪70年代到20世纪70年代的社会，经济和政治变革背景下不断变化的白人表征，以解决和回答这些关于种族化的重要研究问题。研究基础是通过对c25-30家族藏品的详细调查提供的，这些藏品在18世纪70年代和20世纪70年代（最后一封信写的时候）之间至少跨越了三代至六代，并对c12的一个子集进行了案例研究。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通信，在某些情况下还有日记、反思笔记本和其他自传/传记作品，这些家庭的家庭命运随着时间的推移发生了明显的变化。数据将使用在线虚拟研究环境（VRE）进行管理，该环境是为之前的ESRC项目开发的。奖学金提案提供了一个有凝聚力的工作计划，包括从18世纪70年代到20世纪70年代的信件和信件的调查，重点是“中产阶级”的白人家庭，还汇集了我在南非研究中的想法，见解和数据，以理论化白人及其创造的种族分类，等级制度和社会实践。它使自1994年以来通过成功完成的项目建立的研究基地能够朝着实质性和创新性的新方向前进。

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.