Exclusivity, Hybridity and Community: Negotiating Place, Ethnicity and South African Realities

Living on a tract of land in the Soutpansberg allocated to them in 1888 by President Paul Kruger for ‘services rendered’ to the erstwhile Transvaal Republic (Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek), is the hybrid and largely exclusive Buys community. As descendants of Jean du Bois, a French Huguenot, but more significantly of his great-grandson Coenraad de Buys who married, or cohabited with, several indigenous women, these people have prevailed for generations and carved a singular niche for themselves in the South African political and sociocultural landscape.This article considers the processes and influences that have shaped the Buys phenomenon over years, but more pertinently the Buyses strategy of both identity politics and politics of identity are examined. Using the specificity of this case study, ethnicity is ‘unpacked’ and the particular ways that space and place are articulated receive analytical attention.