The long career of Dr Coert Grobbelaar: engaging the history of physical anthropology at Stellenbosch University

This article locates Stellenbosch zoologist, C.S. (Coert) Grobbelaar at its centre to engage the history of physical anthropology and the study of race within a particular institutional, intellectual and political context at Stellenbosch University. An engagement with Grobbelaar’s career reveals that his scientific practice was deeply entrenched in political ideology. This was shaped by Afrikaner nationalism and a home institution which emphasised its intellectual connection with Germany rather than the Commonwealth in the interwar period. The alliance with Germany ultimately shaped Grobbelaar’s disciplinary orientation as well as the disciplinary identity of physical anthropology at Stellenbosch University. Grobbelaar pursued his science in the context of Afrikaner nationalism at an institution where science was meant to serve the interests of the Afrikaner volk. During his career Grobbelaar missed profound international departures in the study of race. He could ultimately not detach his scientific practice from the political context in which it operated.