ETHNIC identity has been a significant variable for political participation and the organization of state power in Africa. Recent studies have shifted our focus towards the constructed nature of ethnic identities, their multiple functions, and their imbrication with forms of governance in post-colonial states. Mamdani's (1996) emphasis on the ‘bifurcated nature of the state’, Bayart's (1993) stress on the ‘reciprocal assimilation of elites’, Lonsdale's (1994) differentiation between ‘moral ethnicity’ and ‘political tribalism’, and Ekeh's (1975) theory of the ‘two publics,’ are key texts highlighting both the specificity of African states and the change and continuities in the construction and employment of ethnic identity.

South Africa, too, bears the burdens and challenges of identity politics. Previous regimes used the markers of race and ethnicity to institutionalize privilege and forge control over the state. The post-apartheid state seeks to reverse the effects of ethnically based politics and race-based citizenship and distribution of resources through the dual process of creating a unified nation and the implementation of policies for redress. In constructing the new nation and effecting redistribution, the state is faced with the reality of fragmented identities and its corresponding socio-political tensions. The challenges of constituting the ‘Rainbow Nation’ were evident from its inception, i.e., as seen in the spiral of violence initiated by the dissent of aspiring ethnonationalist Afrikaner and Zulu groupings to the genesis of individually based citizenship, in the identity-based voting patterns of the first national democratic elections, and in the cries of ‘reracialization’ that accompanied the transformation process. The challenges were also located in the political salience and representations of marginal identities, for example, Coloureds, who began to reassert claims to particularity. These claims gained political expression when the majority of the members of the group voted for the National Party in the 1994 elections, in an attempt to limit the ANC's power and nationalist vision in the Western Cape, and through the formation of political and cultural organizations that emerged to ‘protect’ Coloured ‘interests’.

This chapter focuses on Coloured identity, highlighting the processes of identity construction, the tensions around group recognition, and the contexts in which group identities become politicized. It points to the ideological and structural factors that shaped the identity and how expressions of the identity articulate with post-1994 nation-building discourses and practices.