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 & 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 we examined, demonstrating the contested and shifting meanings of this concept in everyday interactions.

This study examined the discursive and interactional processes by which adolescent female participants present and discuss their romantic relationships in a ‘Love and Relationships’ MXit forum, a mobile phone-based project created by the South African Non-Governmental Organisation, HIVSA. In doing so, it was possible to explore some of the norms and ‘taken-for-granted’ practices of romantic relationships that the participants describe, which offered insight into present research into adolescent experiences of gender and romantic relationships, as well as new subjects for consideration during intervention or analysis. In particular, it is suggested that because conceptions of love and having children appeared not to be foreclosed normative practices, these could prove fertile points of intervention with young women’s choices, agency, and ultimately, empowerment. This study thus recommends disseminating and increasing the scope of hi4LIFE and similar projects that provide platforms for the production of female agency.