The Journey of Identity for Coloured South African Immigrants in Aotearoa New Zealand Using an uBuntu Worldview

Abstract

The purpose of this narrative research study is to understand the lived experiences of individuals classified as coloured South African in the Southern African context who now reside in Aotearoa New Zealand. Research into the lived experiences of coloured South Africans in the country of their birth exists and is a growing area of interest for social sciences researchers focused on identity from ethnographical and phenomenological approaches (Adhikari, 2005; Nilsson, 2016; Groenewald, 2011; Bloom, 1967). Mohamed Adhikari, an academic and researcher at the University of Cape Town, is arguably South Africa’s highest profile researcher of the coloured lived experience. He has conducted more than twenty research studies exploring coloured identity from its origins in the early years of settler rule, to its transformation under apartheid, and most recently, the meaning of coloured identity in post-apartheid South Africa (Adhikari, 2013). His key findings uncover experiences of marginality, depth of community, in-group racism, racism towards black South Africans and assimilation to whiteness (Adhikari, 2005, 2006, 2013). His more recent research focuses on South Africa’s First Nations people groups, the Khoekhoe and San, who are classified coloured in present-day South Africa. Research into the lived experience of this group in the diaspora is more limited. Christopher Sonn, an academic at the University of Melbourne, who has done extensive research in this space. In his writing, he reflects on his lived experience growing up coloured under apartheid before migrating to Australia. Some key findings of his work explore the complexity of coming to terms with the coloured label being unaccepted outside of Southern Africa, and the psychological process of identity reconstruction that those in the diaspora are faced with (Sonn, 1995, 2009, 2013). Research exploring the lived experiences of the coloured South African community has been conducted in Australia (Sonn, 1995, 2009, 2013) and Canada (Langsdorff, 2018), but no known research has been conducted in Aotearoa New Zealand.