Professor’s Fellowship Allows Renewed Focus on Sociology of Race in South Africa

Professor Whitney Pirtle recently became the first researcher to win the prestigious Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship while employed at UC Merced — a grant that will help her finish writing a book and move her closer to gaining tenure.

“It’s a really big honor,” Pirtle said. “It comes at a great time in my career.”

Starting July 1, Pirtle will take a year off teaching to focus on her research into the racial limbo faced by the “coloured” people of South Africa as a way to explore the social construction of race, how racial constructions are maintained through sociopolitical transitions and how the concept of race comes to have meaning for people themselves.

From 1948 through the early 1990s, apartheid — a system of institutionalized segregation and racism — was the law of the land in South Africa. The system was based on white supremacy and the repression of native black Africans. In creating racial categories, the government also needed to consider people of mixed ancestry. They became known as “coloureds,” and held a slightly higher place in society than the native blacks by “virtue” of having at least some white blood.

“The White Nationalist Party legitimized these labels to segregate people, and they implemented laws that structured people’s lives,” Pirtle said. “But what does it mean to be ‘coloured’ today in South Africa?”

South Africa now has a black-majority democratic system that purports antiracism via ideals of racial harmony and equality for all, but Pirtle said that’s not entirely the case.

“’Coloureds’ report that they are still left out by the Black government,” she said. “They don’t feel like they have a clear place there. They feel left behind, or in limbo.”

As a researcher with the Sociology program in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts , Pirtle said she is interested in the how ‘coloureds’ see themselves and what reimaginings they have about their roles in South African society and hierarchy, but also about their own heritage.

“’Coloured’ resonates with some, but many don’t like the label because it doesn’t really have any historical meaning outside of a racist system,” she explained. “Some people are looking into their indigenous ‘Khoisan’ roots, while others are identifying more as black.”