Europe judged Cape settlers provincial, debased by proximity to natives

Evidence

As it emerged over the next two and a half centuries, South Africa came to exemplify the effects of more or less intense cultural mixing, in denial perhaps but nonetheless undeniable. The settlers may have thought themselves European, and Europeans may have considered the Cape Colony an extension of Europe, civilization beset by premodern discontent, the perceived hostility of the landscape notwithstanding. But it is equally the case that from Europe the settlers generally were thought provincial, more or less marginal in thought and habit, debased perhaps not just by distance but by proximity of and to nativity too. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1332

Categorization

• XREF: The metropole-colony status hierarchy here parallels Edward Said’s and Goldberg’s broader argument about colonial marginality; also resonates with the reader’s material on how elites distance themselves from the periphery.