Leigh:
Interesting chapter on apartheid and classification. I thought I should comment since I am from that part of the world. I couldn’t agree with you more that "classification systems are often sites of political and social struggles, but that these sites are difficult to approach."
Some years ago, I was surprised to find that in the late 19th and 20th century 'white' settlers of Afrikaner and English descent considered themselves to be two distinct racial groups. The distinction/classification reflected ongoing political and social struggles between the two groups. Britain and the English settlers went to war against the Afrikaners in the Anglo Boer war (1899-1902) which Britain won. The ‘racial’ conflict spilled into Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). About 30% of whites in Rhodesia were Afrikaners, and the rest were mostly of English descent. Afrikaners in Rhodesia struggled for a separate identity, and in particular for the recognition of Afrikaans as an official language. By 1930, political compromises on this and other issues had been resolved. With the rise of African nationalism, Afrikaners and English settlers in Rhodesia found a new solidarity based on the need to defend common political interests. When I was growing up in Rhodesia, the "Afrikaner" and "English" identities had given way to a common "European" identity. So the 'European' identity developed over time. This example also illustrates the historical appearance and disappearance of a racial distinction with changing political and power dynamics.
David Theo Goldberg describes two forms of classification in apartheid South Africa. (*Racist Culture: Philosophy and Politics of Meaning* , Blackwell, 1993). I will paraphrase his observations:
"Distinctions between Afrikaner, English, Portuguese, and so forth as sub-groups are drawn largely informally among whites, and only when they have little bearing on more fundamental political relations (the analogy here is with brunettes, blondes, and so forth). "Blacks", on the other hand is a fractured concept in that ‘blacks’ is divided into ‘coloreds’, ‘Asians’, and ‘Africans’. ‘African’ is further divided into ‘tribal’ groups such as Zulu, Venda, etc. While ‘whites’ is a mass category considered more or less united, ‘black’ insinuates division. Use of the fundamental terms are used to divide the Other group into manageable units, and to combine the minority white group into an effective political unit.
I wonder how the two systems of classification, one for ‘whites’ and the other for ‘blacks’ relate to your argument about two forms of classification, that is the Aristotelian, and prototype classifications?
On another note, I have been reading Ivan Hannaford’s *Race: The history of an idea in the West* (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). Hannaford concludes that there is little evidence the systematic and logical description and classification ordering humankind based on observable ‘facts’ and tested evidence before the Reformation. According to Hannaford, Aristotle’s categorisation makes an important distinction between ‘species’ and ‘genus.’ "Bird is a genus. Man is a species, and so is everything not differentiated into subordinate groups."(Aristotle’s *Parts and Animals*). Aristotle argues that human diversity should be regulated through politics. States are classified as barbarous or political. "The barbarous state and the political state are distinguished on the basis of their capacity to exercise reason in the pursuit of human excellence beyond the limitations set by the declared judgments of the forebears or the customs and laws of primitive society." The barbarous/political distinction is consistent with what you say in your paper, I think. Any comments?
Cheers, kedmon hungwe
Center for Educational Technology, University of Zimbabwe.
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