Minority identities and negative attitudes toward immigrants

Prejudice and spatial difference amongst the coloured population in South Africa

Datos Bibliográficos

ID20404241
AutoresWendy Isaacs-Martin, Wendy Isaacs‐martin (autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen10
Número1
Páginas40-57
Fecha de publicación2018-11-05
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAfrica Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0974-4061 • E-ISSN: 0974-4061
EditorialWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1080/09744053.2017.1399562
OpenAlexW2768366305
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas48

South African communities, and their social identities, are overwhelmingly constructed around and projected through racial classifiers. Historical and political developments promoted segregationist, exclusionist policies that culminated in restricted but permanent primordialist, racial and ethnic classifications arguing that each group has a unique but constant culture and identity. Such racialized limitations problematized ‘mixed race’ individuals classifying them in an empty epithet of ‘Coloured’ that lacked racial ‘purity’ and therefore as a group were inferior and peripheral. From the perspective of a reference group – in South Africa that is informed by a racialized hierarchy – peripheral identities were subjected to negative stereotypes. Therefore, it is assumed that as the Coloured community experienced negative stereotyping, there would be an acute sensitivity to perceptions of prejudice. Using racial and ethnic identifiers as an overarching process to scaffold Gordon Allport’s hypothesis of intergroup contact and prejudice as a point of departure the question posed is whether members of Coloured population are prejudiced of other marginalised minorities, particularly black African and Asian immigrants in South Africa? The purpose of this study is to determine if significant social distance attitudes exist from the perspective of the Coloured population toward African immigrants. In 2014, an amended Bogardus Social Distance Scale was administered to ( n = 214) individuals who identify themselves as Coloured in former segregated suburbs in Port Elizabeth to examine prejudice within the communities. The conclusion reached is that social distance attitudes of selected members of the Coloured population are prejudiced toward those outside of the community. The findings are that prejudice against a particular group is not uniform but that this behaviour toward others is influenced by persistent reference group racism

Ethnic group · Geography · Immigration · Minority group · Population · Racism · Social distance · Social group · Social identity theory · Sociology · Anthropology · Demography · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender Studies · Medicine · Psychology · Racial and Ethnic Identity Research · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology