Blanc de Blanc : whiteness studies - a South African connection?
TL;DR: The authors proposes a version of whiteness studies for South Africa, and lays some of the groundwork for a research project that is yet to be comprehensively tackled, and suggests that if one were to reopen the category of South African whiteness and begin to de-essentialise it, in all likelihood what one might call the "difference within" would both contradict assumptions of uniformity and prove interesting.
Abstract: Summary Proposing a version of whiteness studies for South Africa, this article lays some of the groundwork for a research project that is yet to be comprehensively tackled. Over the past 30 or so years in progressive scholarship in and about South Africa, whiteness has become so deligitimised by virtue of its complicity with apartheid that it has often been rendered “blank”, a taken‐for‐granted negative essence, a place less looked‐into and a site of assumed uniformity. The essay suggests that if one were to reopen the category of South African whiteness and begin to de‐essentialise it, in all likelihood what one might call the “difference within” would both contradict assumptions of uniformity and prove interesting. The article summarises and analyses trends in whiteness studies in the US and suggests ways in which such a project might be differently tackled for South African purposes.
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TL;DR: Morrison as mentioned in this paper argues that race has become a metaphor, a way of referring to forces, events, and forms of social decay, economic division, and human panic, and argues that individualism, masculinity, the insistence upon innocence coupled to an obsession with figurations of death and hell are responses to a dark and abiding Africanist presence.
Abstract: Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison provides a personal inquiry into the significance of African-American literary imagination. Her goal, she states at the outset, is to \"put forth an argument for extending the study of American literature\". Author of \"Beloved\", \"The Bluest Eye\", \"Song of Solomon\", and other vivid portrayals of black American experience, Morrison ponders the effect that living in a historically racialized society has had on American writing in the 19th and 20th centuries. She argues that race has become a metaphor, a way of referring to forces, events, and forms of social decay, economic division, and human panic. Her argument is that the central characteristics of American literature - individualism, masculinity, the insistence upon innocence coupled to an obsession with figurations of death and hell - are responses to a dark and abiding Africanist presence.
244 citations
TL;DR: The authors used contributions to an online university students' forum to explore ways in which some white South Africans are embracing an African identity and to consider how black South Africans respond to white South Africa' shifting identities.
Abstract: The post-apartheid era necessitates the rethinking of white identities in South Africa. One way in which some white South Africans are seeking to redefine themselves is through describing themselves as African. However, claims by white South Africans that they too are Africans have been met with mixed responses from black South Africans. In this article I use contributions to an online university students' forum to explore ways in which some white South Africans are embracing an African identity and to consider ways in which some black South Africans are responding to white South Africans' shifting identities. I use contributions to this forum as a starting point to think about the possibilities and limitations that the embracing of an African identity has for the development of what Frankenberg calls ‘anti-racist forms of whiteness’ among white South Africans.
27 citations
Abstract: This article explores the potential for the ostensibly marginal discourse of Afrikaans zef rap rave, as performed by Die Antwoord, to present a meaningful ‘counter-narrative of nation’ (Bhabha 1994: 300) within a South African context in which ‘being “white” is replete with dissonance’ (Steyn 2004: 122). Die Antwoord is an Afrikaans zef-rap-rave band who are ‘taking over the interweb’ and have garnered a fair-sized fan-base both on the Internet and through live gigs. The band's image is ‘zef’ or ‘common’, making use of an amalgamation of ‘white trash’ and ‘Cape coloured gangster’ signifiers. This, however, is a carefully crafted appropriation of a particular mix of marginalised South African identities and, as such, offers fruitful material for analysis. In order to explore whether Die Antwoord does in fact suggest new narrative strategies that are able to simultaneously construct, resist, maintain and challenge dominant discourses of white identity in South Africa, this article attempts, first, ...
18 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the migration experiences of a group of post-apartheid white South Africans to Australia, using the constructivist grounded theory method (GTM) to analyse the data.
Abstract: The aim of the study is to explore the migration experiences of a group of post-apartheid white South Africans to Australia. The work is grounded in relational psychoanalytic thinking while using the constructivist grounded theory method (GTM), as proposed by Charmaz (2006), to analyse the data. The combination of these two frames represents an extension of the GTM by including a focus on the co-creation of data, and provides a structured approach to psychoanalytic research.
17 citations
Cites background from "Blanc de Blanc : whiteness studies ..."
...In 1 Selected examples of such studies are Ballard (2004a, 2004b), Bloom (2009), de Kock (2006, 2010), Hook 2011a, 2011b, 2011c, 2014), Krog (2003, 2009), Lemanski (2004, 2006), Sonn (2010), Steyn (2001, 2005, 2012), Straker (2011a, 2011b), Truscott (2011, 2012, 2013), Vice (2011a – and all the…...
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...Both Truscott (2012) and de Kock (2006) make a similar point when they allude to the many ‘confessional’ statements of complicity and positionality that have frequently come to preface whiteness studies....
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...While I will include some discussion of the findings in this and the three Results chapters that follow, as is common in psychosocial research, theoretical discussion will be limited, for I am persuaded by de Kock’s (2006) argument for the foregrounding of primary research data over one’s own theory-based conclusions: This is always a question of balance: how much weight one accords one’s primary research data, and how much one’s own conclusions ....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that some of the ways in which white people involve themselves in apparently anti-racist work actually result in the perpetuation rather than the erosion of white privilege.
Abstract: South Africans today live not only with the memory of the racial injustices of the past, but also with present injustices that are a consequence of that past. How should white South Africans live with these past and present injustices? On recognition of the racial injustices of the past and of the continuation of forms of white privilege today, involvement in ongoing anti-racist struggles seems to be an appropriate way for white South Africans to respond to past and present injustices. However, some discussions of the way in which white privilege operates and is perpetuated in post-segregationist societies suggest the need for caution with regard to white involvement in anti-racist struggles, arguing that some of the ways in which white people involve themselves in apparently anti-racist work actually result in the perpetuation rather than the erosion of white privilege. This article explores concerns about the intractability of white privilege while also ultimately defending the appropriateness of white ...
16 citations
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TL;DR: The authors argue that white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to black workers.
Abstract: This is the new, fully updated edition of this now-classic study of working-class racism. Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger's widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to blacks. In a lengthy new introduction, Roediger surveys recent scholarship on whiteness, and discusses the changing face of labor in the twenty-first century.
2,665 citations
Book•
01 Jul 1993TL;DR: Morrison as discussed by the authors argues that race has become a metaphor, a way of referring to forces, events, and forms of social decay, economic division, and human panic, and argues that individualism, masculinity, the insistence upon innocence coupled to an obsession with figurations of death and hell are responses to a dark and abiding Africanist presence.
Abstract: Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison provides a personal inquiry into the significance of African-American literary imagination. Her goal, she states at the outset, is to "put forth an argument for extending the study of American literature". Author of "Beloved", "The Bluest Eye", "Song of Solomon", and other vivid portrayals of black American experience, Morrison ponders the effect that living in a historically racialized society has had on American writing in the 19th and 20th centuries. She argues that race has become a metaphor, a way of referring to forces, events, and forms of social decay, economic division, and human panic. Her argument is that the central characteristics of American literature - individualism, masculinity, the insistence upon innocence coupled to an obsession with figurations of death and hell - are responses to a dark and abiding Africanist presence.
2,660 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to black workers.
Abstract: This is the new, fully updated edition of this now-classic study of working-class racism. Combining classical Marxism, psychoanalysis and the new labor history pioneered by E. P. Thompson and Herbert Gutman, David Roediger's widely acclaimed book provides an original study of the formative years of working-class racism in the United States. This, he argues, cannot be explained simply with reference to economic advantage; rather, white working-class racism is underpinned by a complex series of psychological and ideological mechanisms that reinforce racial stereotypes, and thus help to forge the identities of white workers in opposition to blacks. In a lengthy new introduction, Roediger surveys recent scholarship on whiteness, and discusses the changing face of labor in the twenty-first century.
2,192 citations
TL;DR: The authors traces the tattered history of Irish and African-American relations, revealing how the Irish used labor unions, the Catholic Church and the Democratic party to succeed in American, and draws a powerful connection between the embracing of white supremacy and Irish success in 19th century American society.
Abstract: Ignatiev traces the tattered history of Irish and African-American relations, revealing how the Irish used labor unions, the Catholic Church and the Democratic party to succeed in American. He uncovers the roots of conflict between Irish-Americans and African-Americans and draws a powerful connection between the embracing of white supremacy and Irish "success" in 19th century American society.
1,601 citations
TL;DR: Higham's Strangers in the Land as mentioned in this paper is a history of public opinion, whose purpose is to show how nativism evolved in society and in action, by tracing an emotionally charged impulse rather than an actual social process or condition.
Abstract: Higham's work stands as the seminal work in the history of American nativism. The work is a careful, well-documented study of nationalism and ethnic prejudice, and chronicles the power and violence of these two ideas in American society from 1860 to 1925. He significantly moves beyond previous treatments of nativism, both in chronology and in interpretive sophistication. Higham defines nativism as a defensive type of nationalism or an intense opposition to an internal minority on the grounds of the group's foreign connections. By defining nativism as a set of attitudes or a state of mind, he sets the course for his book as tracing "trace an emotionally charged impulse" rather than "an actual social process or condition." As he argues that the ideological content of nativism remained consistent, he uses emotional intensity as a measure to trace in detail public opinion from the relative calm following the Civil War to the Johnson-Reed act of 1924 that severely limited European immigration. Strangers in the Land is, then, a history of public opinion, whose purpose is to show how nativism evolved in society and in action. Higham seeks to explain what could inflame xenophobia and who resisted it. He saw his work as part of a renewed interest in the study of nationalism following the national upheavals in the wake of the McCarthy hearings. Surely Higham's mentor at the University of Wisconsin, intellectual historian Merle Curti, influenced Higham's approach in seeking to examine the power of nationalism as an idea. Also influential was the intellectual climate of the 1950s with its of distrust of ideology and distain of prejudice. Higham admits being repelled by the nationalist delusions of the Cold War, again helping to explain why his study concentrates on seeking some explanation for the irrational and violent outbreaks. The book thus focuses on points of conflict, "antagonisms that belong within ideologies of passionate national consciousness." For example, Higham's explains the 100 percent American movement in terms of progressive ideals and the desire of Americans to shape immigrants into a particular ideal of "Americanness" through education and assimilation. This intellectual construct eventually gave way to the racial thinking to which Higham assigns much influence in the efforts to restrict immigration. Ideology is also central to his chapter on the history of the idea of racism in which he argues that Anglo-Saxon nationalism, literary naturalism and a nascent understanding of genetics combined to bring forth arguments for immigration restriction to preserve the racial purity of the American people. Thus, key for Higham's argument is the power of ideas in shaping individual behavior and thereby shaping history. This text is an absolute must-read for anyone seeking to understand American nativism and the darker side of nationalism.
835 citations