Historical trauma of the Khoe and San people of South Africa: Trauma-informed community capacity building.

OBJECTIVE: In South Africa, settler colonialism resulted in enduring economic oppression, land dispossession, and more importantly, the historical trauma inflicted on the people of the land. African ethnic groups such as the Khoe and the San were among the first to have experienced land dispossession and economic oppression since 1652, which culminated in an ethnocide characterized by the erasure of their ethnicity as Africans. METHOD: In this article, a historical trauma framework was used to conceptualize the ethnocide and broader trauma responses of the Khoe and San, now racially classified as coloured, in a postapartheid South Africa. RESULTS: From a historical trauma perspective, the article argues that historical trauma responses are still evident in the Khoe and San people who remain to be classified as coloured. CONCLUSION: To address such trauma responses, the article proposes a historical trauma-informed community capacity-building approach to enable an integrative approach to ameliorate psychosocial issues underpinned by historical trauma among Khoe and San communities in South Africa. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).