Investing in discourses of poverty and development: How white wealthy South Africans mobilise meaning to maintain privilege

Abstract

Twelve years after the transition from apartheid to democracy, South Africa remains a severely unequal society. On the one side of the divide are relatively prosperous white South Africans and an increasing black middle and upper class; and on the other side are harshly poor black South Africans. Despite decreasing interracial inequality, many white South Africans remain in a highly privileged position at the intersection of continued race and class systems of privilege. Research on whiteness in South Africa indicates that inequality is actively maintained by the discourses mobilised by white South Africans. This study was interested in furthering such research. A discourse analysis was applied to ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews with white, wealthy South Africans, to identify the ways in which meaning was being constructed around issues of poverty and development. j.B. Thompson's (1984) framework was applied to these discourses, to identify whether they were operating ideologically (to maintain unequal relations of race and class domination). Findings indicate that participants were mobilising discourses that function to maintain a system of race and class privilege. These findings have implications for the future focus of development strategy in South Africa.

Exotic Place, White Space: Racialized Volunteer Spaces in Honduras

“…As it is the rest of the world, the concept of race is complex. It is supported by and intertwined with systems of class and nation (Collins ; Morning ; Wale and Foster ). In this case, they interpreted interactions through assumptions rooted in their Western socializations.…”

Whiteness and non-racialism: White students' discourses of transformation at UCT

“…Accordingly, different studies identified discourses used by white South Africans to resist change and maintain privilege. One discourse invokes the notion of non-racialism as colour-blindness, or a disregard for "race" based on a perception that "race" is not related to advantage or disadvantage (Steyn, 2001;Wale & Foster, 2007). For example, reverse racism is a term used by white medical students in describing affirmative action measures, which admit black students to university with lower marks, as constituting an unfair and discriminatory advantage (Erasmus & De Wet, 2003).…”

“…Africans to ignore the structural inequalities and institutional racism which maintain their privilege and power (Steyn, 2001;Wale & Foster, 2007) and the exclusion of black students (Kessi & Cornell, under review).…”

“…These discourses marginalise black students by positioning them as inferior to their white peers (Steyn & Van Zyl, 2001). They are subjected to paternalistic perceptions of needing to be guided by white South Africans to more acceptable ways of being (Wale & Foster, 2007). Black students have to prove themselves as competent to white peers and lecturers and take on the burden of transformation under pressure to fit in to the white university culture (Erasmus & De Wet, 2003).…”

“…Exhibiting the individualism inherent in a capitalist system, white privilege was further dismissed by being understood as an individual rather than structural phenomenon (Wale & Foster, 2007). By positioning themselves as equally free consumers of a "normal" education system, participants neglected their lasting privilege from apartheid and colonial systems.…”