Apartheid scholarship defined race negatively as whatever is not class, never positively.

Evidence

Perhaps the most remarkable theoretical feature of this debate was the failure to engage the question of what “race” actually is, either in general theoretical terms or as an historical reality under apartheid. On the Marxist side, the concept of race was never explicitly defined; but tacitly, it became the signifier of all that was “not class,” in a debate which in fact confined itself - both empirically and theoretically - to a cluster of concerns about “class.” On the liberal side, scholars of apartheid tended overwhelmingly to take the realities of race and racism as given, the burden of analysis falling on showing how these features of the apartheid system supported Afrikaner nationalist political causes and ambitions. In these ways, the historiography of apartheid tended to sidestep what became one of the most significant issues in literatures on race elsewhere in the world: the critique of biological essentialism by way of different varieties of social constructionism. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 574

Categorization

• XREF: Qualifies vault-wide CRT definitions of race by showing race was long defined only residually (as ‘not class’) within Marxist apartheid historiography — contrasts with Omi & Winant’s own positive racialization framing. — connects to: Class-centered apartheid scholarship treated race’s relative autonomy as conceded but never analyzed. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 571; Apartheid historiography avoided defining race, treating it as residual or given — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 574; The race-class paradigm treated apartheid’s legal machinery as backdrop rather than research object — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 571 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Apartheid historiography sidestepped the theoretical question of what race actually is #corroborates (0.95)
• Apartheid historiography avoided defining race, treating it as residual or given #corroborates (0.92) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 574
• Apartheid scholarship neglected race itself until recently, leaving whiteness and hidden transcripts unstudied. #expands (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 595
• Little research has probed the social meanings of race under apartheid #corroborates (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 548
• The race-class paradigm treated apartheid’s legal machinery as backdrop rather than research object #expands (0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 571
• Class-focused analysis of apartheid neglected racist institutions outside the capitalist nexus #complicates (0.72)