Culture as a Colonial Hub: My reflections as a 'Coloured' [Woman] in PostApartheid South Africa.

Africa is often overwhelmed with narratives that seek to devalue its location and its contribution to knowledge because of the reproduction of colonial knowledges. Consequently, the geopolitics of South Africa has created an awareness of the way that power spaces have impacted the identity formation of subjugated persons. This paper uses autoethnography to explore the author's legal racial classification as a 'Colored' [woman] in postApartheid South Africa. In addition, the author decided to bracket the word [woman] as symbolic of how colonialism and Apartheid were enacted to silence and disregard the gender of 'Colored' [women]. The author focuses on how her geographical location and culture have impacted on the negative stereotypes and perceptions surrounding her as a 'Colored' [woman]. The author's experiences are interpreted through decolonial feminism to illustrate how socio-spatial relations and ideas of culture have been saturated with colonial and Apartheid knowledges. The author references these spaces as colonial hubs to emphasize how the colonial and Apartheid epistemes are currently entrenched in her socio-spatial interactions. These oppressive epistemes are additionally responsible for colonizing the gender of 'Colored' [women] in South Africa. Moreover, the author draws attention to these colonial hubs to advance the call to decolonize such spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]