W.E.B. DuBois Insitute for African and African American Research at Harvard University
Date: Spring 2010
Zimitri Erasmus, Senior Lecturer in Sociology
University of Cape Town
This study compares the effects of Miscegenation Laws in 20th century North America with those of apartheid South Africa’s Immorality (1927 & 1950) and Prohibition of Mixed Marriages (1949) Acts. It draws on three sets of primary data: a) law reports of cases tried and sent for appeal – under various versions of the Immorality Act – before 1948 under the government of the Union of South Africa and after 1948, under the Apartheid government; b) House of Assembly and Senate Debates of the South African Parliament, under both the Union and Apartheid governments; and c) related Government Commission Reports. It also draws on already existing analyses of similar data from the North American experience to produce a comparative analysis of relevant laws in South Africa and North America.
The project examines the logic, procedures and socio-political effects of these key laws of Grand Apartheid. I ask four broad questions:
- What can we learn from the North American body of knowledge on the administration of ‘interracial’ sex and marriage that might be of relevance to such administration in colonial and apartheid South Africa?
- What is different about the South African case?
- How does this difference contribute to knowledge in this field?
- What does this comparative analysis offer in support of a critical literacy for the use of ‘race’?