Exclusivity, hybridity and community: negotiating place, ethnicity and South African realities

Abstract

Living on a tract of land in the Soutpansberg allocated to them in 1888 by President Paul Kruger for ‘services rendered’ to the erstwhile Transvaal Republic (Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek), is the hybrid and largely exclusive Buys community. As descendants of Jean du Bois, a French Huguenot, but more significantly of his great-grandson Coenraad de Buys who married, or cohabited with, several indigenous women, these people have prevailed for generations and carved a singular niche for themselves in the South African political and sociocultural landscape.