BECOMING-MINORITARIAN Constructions of coloured identities in creative writing projects at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa

Abstract

The institutional history of the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in some ways mirrors the paradoxes, ambiguities, absurdities, contradictions and possibilities – in short, the complexities – of the concept “coloured”. The one feature that remains constant in coloured identity constructions is the conception of marginality, a marginality which primes it for consideration through the lens of theoretical articulations of minority discourses generally, and minority literature, in particular. If published writers of coloured identity are a minority in the South African literature landscape, the creative writing student is an interesting minority within that minority. Perhaps what is most unique about the UWC creative writing programmes is the way in which they have fostered a “becoming-minoritarian” in respect of language, through the multi-and trans-linguality encouraged by cross-faculty collaborations, bringing in disciplinary expertise from Afrikaans, English and Xhosa, the Nguni language most commonly spoken in the Western Cape