Dirty Subjects

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/decohori.7.1.0007
• Pages: 7-40
• Published date: 07 April 2022
• Date: 07 April 2022
• Author: Mitchel Joffe Hunter
• Subject Matter: Judíos,Sudáfrica,Peruanos,Peruvnik,Suciedad,Memmi,Blancura,Colonialista,Colonialismo de colonos,Subjetividad,Judeus,África do Sul,Sujeira,Brancura,Subjetividade,Jews,South Africa,Peruvian,dirt,Whiteness,colonialist,settler colonialism,subjectivity

Horizontes Decoloniales Volumen 7 (2021): pp. 7–40

horizontes

decoloniales

ISSN 2545-8728

eISSN 2422-6343

Volumen 7

2021

7

Dirty Subjects

Shaping Jewish Colonial Subjectivities

in Early Twentieth-Century South

Africa

Mitchel Joffe Hunter

University of the Western Cape

Resumen

A principios del siglo XX, en los estados colonizadores del sur de África,

las incipientes instituciones de la comunidad judía tomaron medidas para

evitar la acusación racializada de suciedad, lo que hizo que la comunidad

adoptara subjetividades colonialistas blancas. Utilizando el marco analítico

de Albert Memmi sobre colonizadores y colonialistas, y la conceptualización

de Anne McClintock sobre la función racial de la suciedad, este artículo

reevalúa las fuentes de archivo existentes a través de la lente de los cuerpos

sucios, el sexo sucio y el trabajo sucio para mostrar cómo se formaron

las subjetividades comunitarias a través de la estrecha connivencia con el

estado colonial y la imposición interna de los hábitos sociales de la blancura.

Este artículo sostiene que esta formación del sujeto colonial excluyó las

posibilidades de un peruvnik, una potencial barbarie judía anticolonial

sudafricana.

Palabras clave: Judíos, Sudáfrica, Peruanos, Peruvnik, Suciedad, Memmi,

Blancura, Colonialista, Colonialismo de colonos, Subjetividad.

Resumo

No início do século XIX, nos estados coloniais colonizadores da África

Austral, as instituições nascentes da comunidade judaica tomaram medidas

para evitar a acusação racializada de sujeira, moldando assim a comunidade

a adotar subjetividades colonialistas brancas. Usando a estrutura analítica

de Albert Memmi sobre colonizadores e colonialistas, e a conceituação de

Anne McClintock da função racial da sujeira, este artigo reavalia as fontes

de arquivo existentes através da lente de corpos sujos, sexo sujo e trabalho

sujo para mostrar como as subjetividades comunitárias foram formadas

através de uma estreita conivência com o estado colonial e a imposição

DOI:10.13169/decohori.7.1.0007

Mitchel Joffe Hunter Dirty Subjects

horizontes

decoloniales

ISSN 2545-8728

eISSN 2422-6343

Volumen 7

2021

8

interna dos hábitos sociais da Brancura. Este artigo argumenta que esta

formação de sujeitos coloniais excluiu as possibilidades de um peruvnik,

uma potencial barbárie judaica anticolonial sul-africana.

Palavras-chave: Judeus, África do Sul, Peruanos, Peruvnik, Sujeira,

Memmi, Brancura, Colonialista, Colonialismo de colonos, Subjetividade.

Abstract

In the early 1900s in the settler colonial states in Southern Africa, the nascent

Jewish community institutions took actions to avoid the racialised accusation

of dirtiness, thus shaping the community into adopting white colonialist

subjectivities. Using Albert Memmi’s analytic framework of colonisers and

colonialists, and Anne McClintock’s conceptualisation of the racial function

of dirt, this article reassesses existing archival sources through the lens of

dirty bodies, dirty sex, and dirty work to show how communal subjectivities

were formed through close collusion with the colonial state and the internal

enforcing of the social habits of Whiteness. This article argues that this

colonial subject formation foreclosed the possibilities of a peruvnik: a potential

South African anticolonial Jewish barbarism.

Keywords: Jews, South Africa, Peruvian, Peruvnik, dirt, Memmi,

Whiteness, colonialist, settler colonialism, subjectivity.

Mitchel Joffe Hunter

He is a South African Jewish student and activist. He completed his

MA in Sociology at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in Cape

Town in 2020 which theorised the historical transformation of Jews in

South Africa from colonisers to colonialists through their mobilisation

of race and racism. Prior to that Hunter got his undergraduate degree in

Labour and Economic sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand in

Johannesburg and was involved in labour and student organising which,

academically, culminated in a decolonial critique of the sociological canon.

In 2021 he was completing a Diploma in Library and Information Sciences

at UWC with the aim to take projects of decolonising canonical knowledge

into other intellectual spheres.

Mitchel Joffe Hunter Dirty Subjects

horizontes

decoloniales

ISSN 2545-8728

eISSN 2422-6343

Volumen 7

2021

9

Introduction

In the 1880s, Jews from the Pale of Settlement in Eastern

Europe started arriving in Cape Town, South Africa. They were a

small offshoot of a much larger migration of Eastern European Jews

to settler colonies around the world, leaving racial discrimination,

poverty, and violence behind to find a place to begin a new life.

They were not the same as the other people from Europe who got

off the boat in Cape Town. They did not come with state support,

or from social contexts in which colonialism was a great national

achievement, nor were they Christian. And in the eyes of many

people from Europe, they were not even Europeans.

But, from the point of view of the setter colonial context, they

were settlers like any other. In the legal-political framework,

and largely in the economic framework, they were regarded

as settlers. Their social, religious, and linguistic positions

however put them at risk of being placed otherwise. There

were other groups of people who did not quite fit into the

colonial bifurcation but they were worse off in many respects.

The Jewish community, seeing the doors of whiteness held

open for them took whatever actions they could to push

through and shut the door behind them. They could only do

this by enforcing the social habits of whiteness, and through

that adopting a colonialist subjectivity.

This article will examine how this subjectivity was formed

through the attempts to avoid the racialised violence that

comes with being classed as dirty. Dirt functions as a tool of

social control, and the responses to the accusation of dirtiness

were fundamental to the shaping of Jewish colonial values,

to the transformation of Eastern European Jews, who I will

call Yidn,1 from colonisers into colonialists. Following Anne

1 Yidn means Jews in Yiddish, the majority language of the Jews of Eastern

Europe. I use the term throughout the article to refer to Eastern European

Jews.