Description
The politics of race and identity, while always important in modern politics, is particularly salient in current global politics. With the retreat of globalisation, the consolidation of the populist right and the return of discourses of sovereignty, nationalism and identity are now crucial for contemporary political contestation. This paper investigates the importance of white identity through the counter-intuitive lens of the politics of indigeneity, placing this new articulation in the context of previous forms of colonial/post-colonial racial politics. It traces the evolution of colonial governance in Southern African settler states during the early 20th century from the civilizing mission, the indirect rule, before examining the current popularity of what I call “white indigeneity”. This rising articulation of whiteness takes on the mantles of minority and indigeneity, appropriating forms of anticolonial politics that were formerly resisted by the right. By examining the shifts, both in the political economy of settler colonial politics, and the political identity attached to them, the paper draws out the distinctiveness of current forms of right-wing whiteness, which emphasise the mistakes of colonialism, racial separation, and expulsion, rather than control and exploitation. By looking at colonial discourses of race in the British Empire, South African and Zimbabwe, the argument uses the extremes of settler colonial forms of politics to illuminate the broader global forms of politics that are popular among the global right.
