Sara Nilsson is a master student in Cultural Anthropology at Uppsala University, in Sweden. Sara visited the Alan Paton Centre (APC) in July 2004. The purpose of Sara’s study is twofold: firstly, it will explore the concept of coloured identity and the different ways in which it has found expression in today South Africa. Secondly, it will focus on how the ‘coloured community’ navigates within national politics in an attempt to better understand the opportunities and constraints facing members of this multicultural social category.Sara will like to stress that her research does not conceptualize colouredness in terms of race. In her opinion, coloured identity is not something biological fixed, neither is it an artificial concept imposed by ‘others’. Instead, this research regards coloured identity as an on-going dynamic process and a product of human agency.
