3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Reconceptualizing racism(2018) Zikalala, SibusisoIn the literature, the subject of racism has been approached by and large in a particular kind of way. In this paper, I aim to critically engage with standard racism discourse by doing two things. Firstly, I will be showing that the way racism is generally discussed is problematic both for the reasons that (a) its scope is limiting and (b) the way that the concept is used leaves out certain things that are important for what count or ought to count as racism. Secondly, I will be arguing that racism in its most basic form is the undervaluing, the devaluing, and not at all valuing someone else on account of their racial or racialized group.Item Exploring perceptions on racism and xenophobia at the University of the Witwatersrand(2018) Ntshiqa, Mzubanzi GivenThe purpose of this research is to explore the differences in perception on racism and xenophobia between male and female students at the Wits School of Governance. Literature has shown that there were incidents of racism and xenophobia at the University of the Witwatersrand. The following research questions were answered, that is – (i.) ‘To what extent are the differences in perception on racism between male and female students at the Wits School of Governance?’ and, (ii.) ‘To what extent are the differences in perception on xenophobia between male and female students at the Wits School of Governance?’ The two hypotheses were tested, that is(i.) ‘There are significant differences in perception on racism between male and female students at the Wits School of Governance’, and (ii.) ‘There are significant differences in perception on xenophobia between male and female students at the Wits School of Governance’. This research sought to bring the racism and xenophobia incidents to the attention of the Members of Parliament (MPs) and civil servants who happened to be students at the Wits School of Governance (WSG) as a way of influencing policy by bringing awareness, ensure understanding of the issue and its importance, and generate concern for racism and xenophobia. The WSG was chosen as the physical context for this research. This research employed the quantitative research strategy, the case research study design, the purposive sampling technique and an on-line questionnaire to draw data. This research found that there was no significant difference in perception on racism between male and female students at the Wits School of Governance, but there was a significant difference in perception on xenophobia between male and female students at the Wits School of Governance.Item Exploring negotiations of space and safety by international African students in South African higher education(2019) Hoxobes, GezinaThis study employed a phenomenological analysis to explore the negotiations of space and safety by international African students in South African higher education. Issues of how international African students enhance their safety, what identity consequences these safety enhancements have and how the sense of community amongst international African students influences their psychological wellbeing were of pertinence to this study. This study included international African students from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Pretoria, totalling 13 participants. It was found that international African students: employ diverse mechanisms to enhance their safety; have inhibitions to self-expression and enablers to identity expression in enhancing their safety; have a poor sense of community; experience feelings of happiness, sadness and loneliness as well as indifference and; have encountered xenophobia in diverse forms. These findings contribute to the scant body of knowledge about the experiences of international African students within the South African context and so encourages further research in this area.Item Discourses of whiteness and masculinity in conscripts' talk about the South African 'border war'.(2014-02-25) Caforio, DaniloThe primary aim of this research was to explore the experiences of formerly white conscripted combat veterans during the ‘border war’ and furthermore, to uncover discourses of whiteness and masculinity embedded in their recounted experiences. This research made use of a qualitative research design. This study drew on the experiences of white male South Africans who were exposed to some form of active combat during the ‘border war’. The sample consisted of 8 white South Africans who were born roughly between the 1960s and 1970s. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using discourse analysis. For the purpose of this research, a hybridised version of discourse analysis was used. This contained elements of critical as well as the discursive approaches to discourse analysis. This study concluded that both whiteness and masculinity are unstable constructs with no absolute definition. This study also found that many of the participants seemed conflicted and unsure of where to position themselves in relation to the ‘border war’, apartheid and contemporary South Africa as white men. For many it would seem it is easier to simply ignore those years of their lives. In terms of the intersectionality of whiteness and masculinity this research confirms the fact that both whiteness and masculinity, as socially and culturally constructed categories, work together and interact on multiple levels to either empower or marginalize individuals. However, in some instances it was also found that these discourses also function independently of each other. Ultimately it can be said that white masculinity exists in a space that is both troubled and unsettled. This study has illustrated that white men in South Africa have gone from a position of omnipotent power during apartheid to one of contested instability in present South African society. It is evident from this research that whiteness and masculinity are both complex and diffuse constructs that still warrant a great deal of exploration. That said, the future prospects for these individuals are both challenging and possible.Item South African volunteer perceptions : an exploratory study into the perceptions of female white South African volunteers working with black children orphaned by AIDS.(2012-02-10) Nichas, TraceyThis study explored the perceptions of ten White female South African volunteers working with black children diagnosed HIV positive and/or orphaned by AIDS. A qualitative research strategy was used in order to explore the participants’ perceptions of the role that racial dynamics and everyday racism play in their work as volunteers. Ten participants over the age of 18 years, that have been volunteering for a minimum of one month and that volunteer for a minimum of one hour a week at an organisation in Johannesburg, were interviewed. The data were transcribed and analysed using thematic content analysis and the findings were interpreted using a framework drawn from critical race theory and critical Whiteness studies. Notions of everyday racism were evidenced in the findings of the study. These findings challenge traditional notions in a novel way by expanding the current understanding of the racial dynamics at play in a country working towards equality. In doing so, the study raises theoretical and practical implications for efforts aimed to address racism in South Africa.Item The tailored suit : a reimagining of Can Themba's The Suit(2011-09-22) Lelliott, Kitso LynnThis research report examines the period of 1950s Sophiatown and its socio-‐cultural legacy pertaining to race and gender. Though the establishment of a cosmopolitan black identity was significant in its undermining of Nationalist Party segregationist ideology, the struggle for equality was predicated on a racial struggle that subsumed a gendered agenda. The work of Can Themba and Drum magazine, which have become mythologized in the contemporary South African imaginary, are interrogated with particular emphasis on one of Themba’s iconic pieces, The Suit. Through engagement with Themba’s text, this research report foregrounds the processes through which black women have been subjected to multiple, compounded subjugation. In response to the representations of black femininity in The Suit, the film component of this report, The Tailored Suit, privileges the black woman, Matilda’s, articulations. It thus functions to foreground the agency of marginalised subjects. In articulating from the periphery, the subjugated destabilise the hierarchical social structures that would subordinate and objectify them. By engaging the representations in The Suit, part of an iconic historic moment prefiguring the contemporary socio-‐cultural milieu, the reimagining in The Tailored Suit offers a fragmented frame of reference, positing an alternative to a homogenising masculine discourse on history.Item Self-identity and discourses of race : exploring a group of white South Africans' narratives of early experiences of racism.(2011-05-26) Makhanya, ZamakhanyaThis research project falls under the broader Apartheid Archives Project. The aim of the project was to collect the narratives of black and white South Africans, of their earliest quotidian or everyday racist experiences. This project focused particularly on the nature of the experiences of racism of (particularly ‘ordinary’) white South Africans under the old apartheid order and their continuing effects on individual and group functioning in contemporary South Africa, especially on the ways in which white South Africans are positioned by racialised discourses and the reproduction of power relations through these positions. The project utilised narratives that were written by white South Africans and were available on the Apartheid Archive Project’s database. In total, the narratives of twelve white, middle-aged, middle class South Africans were analysed using Parker (1992) and Willig’s (2008) guidelines for analysis of the discourses which converge with Foucault’s ideas. This research report gives prominence to the discourses of race present in the narratives of white South Africans which were examined and it also focuses on how racialised discourses offer the narrators different subject positions to occupy in present day South Africa. Three discursive themes were identified, namely rationalising discursive strategies, race and racism discourses and discourses of redemption. Rationalising discursive strategies were found to utilise discourses of innocence, discourses of denial and discourses that avoid complicity. These discourses enabled the narrators to be positioned as victims. Race and racism discourses included othering discourses, discourses of whiteness and discourses of interracial relationships. Through an appeal to these kinds of discourses narrators were able to occupy opposing positions, such as perpetrator, hero, privileged and non-racial. Finally, discourses of redemption were also found to be prominent in the narratives. These comprised of religious discourses and notions of white liberalism. The utilisation of such discourses enabled constructions of the narrators as moral, virtuous and honest.Item Perceptions of cross-racial adoption in South Africa.(2010-08-06) Hall, Victoria AnnThis study aimed to explore possible ways in which racist ideology and counter positions to this ideology are played out in discourses about cross-racial adoption (CRA) in the current post-apartheid context of South Africa. Three focus group interviews were conducted with 18 psychology students at the University of the Witwatersrand. The study adopted a social constructionist approach to knowledge and transcripts from the focus groups were analyzed using discourse analysis that combined techniques from Braun and Clarke (2006) and Parker (1992, 1999). Analysis revealed that students’ discussion focused mainly on the extent to which they thought black children raised by white parents should (or should not) be exposed to black culture. The discourses underlying these opinions appeared to gain social legitimacy for their speakers through three overarching repertoires, all of which tended to be used to divert attention away from the political ramifications of arguments. Firstly, participants claimed that their arguments were made with “the best interests of the child” at heart. Secondly, participants constructed particular meanings of the relationship between ‘race’ and identity by framing these meanings as central to “knowing who you are”. Thirdly, participants distanced themselves from accountability for their opinions by framing them as reflections of “other South Africans’ attitudes” towards ‘race’ and CRA. Overall, the analysis revealed that processes of racialisation show strong persistence in both black and white people’s discourses about CRA, but tend to be overtly expressed as a value and tolerance of different cultures and ethnicities. However, counter voices to these discourses did emerge in prominent challenges to the idea that ‘race’, ethnicity and culture are intrinsic and immutable features of people. Less prominent were the occasional counter voices that suggested these constructs are nevertheless pertinent, because of the ways in which they may be used to either challenge ‘racially’-derived inequalities between groups, or to fuel the prominence of racist ideology in society.Item The understanding and approach of trained volunteer counsellors to negative racial sentiments in traumatized clients.(2009-03-02T08:35:20Z) Sibisi, HleziphiIn the current South African context there is a strong likelihood of the occurrence of trauma incidents that involve people of different races. Anecdotal evidence suggests that this has contributed to the increased expression of negative racial sentiments by victims of trauma, especially in crime related trauma, when the perpetrator/s are of a different race group to the victim. This research study locates itself within the small number of studies that have sought to engage with the problem of negative racial sentiments as a response to trauma. This study focused particularly on the observations, explanations and interventions of volunteer counsellors in having to engage with this content in traumatized clients. The study sought to understand the impact that the expression of negative racial sentiments had on the process of trauma counselling and debriefing and on counsellors personally. The research was operationalized within a hermeneutically oriented qualitative research framework. The participant group was comprised of 11 volunteer counsellors from different parts of Johannesburg and from different organizations. Participants were chosen through purposive sampling and face to face semi-structured interviews were used as the method of data collection. Thematic content analysis was employed to analyze the interview texts. The findings suggest that negative racial sentiments are a commonly occurring response following a trauma. Counsellors predominantly understand negative racial sentiments to be part of the trauma symptom pattern, in that they explain such responses as ‘trigger’ reactions. Counsellors also understood the sentiments to represent pre-existing prejudice, exaggerated and re-evoked by the trauma. The findings indicate that counsellors were developing and utilizing skills and interventions mainly of their own design in engaging with negative racial sentiments, as they are generally not trained on how to engage with this content in trauma counselling. Counsellors use interventions such as normalizing, psychoeducation and CBT based interventions when they do intervene, but in some cases make a choice not to intervene. Counsellors reported considerable discomfort and suggested that although case by case intervention was important, some guidance as to how to work in this area would be useful. The contextual nature of the problem and related interventions was also highlighted.