The anatomy of ‘race trouble’ in online interactions

Date
2014-01
Authors
Cresswell, Catherine
Durrheim, Kevin
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Abstract
South Africa has a long history of race-related conflicts in a variety of settings, but the use of the concept ‘racism’ to analyse such conflicts is characterized by theoretical and methodological difficulties. In this article, we apply the alternative ‘race trouble’ framework developed by Durrheim, Mtose, and Brown (2011) to the examination of racialized conflicts in online newspaper forums. We analyse the conflicts using an approach informed by conversation analytic and discursive psychological techniques, focusing in particular on the emergence and use of race and racism as interactional resources. Our findings reveal some mechanisms through which the continuing salience of race in South Africa comes to be reproduced in everyday interactions, thereby suggesting reasons why race continues to garner social and cultural importance. Disagreements over the nature of racism were also recurrent in the exchanges that we examined, emonstrating the contested and shifting meanings of this concept in everyday interactions.
Description
Keywords
Race, Racism, Race trouble, Conflict, Online interactions, South Africa
Citation
Cresswell, C., Whitehead, K. A., & Durrheim, K. (2014). The anatomy of “race trouble” in online interactions. Ethnic and Racial Studies. DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2013.854920