Analysis of race and racism discourse by academics in post-apartheid Higher Education.
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Date
2019
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Abstract
Despite being in the twenty-fourth year of a democratic South Africa with a
constitutionally enacted goal of non-racialism, South Africa continues to be plagued
by social explosions of race and racism incidents in various contexts including higher
education. While there is abundant research on race and racism issues in South Africa
there is still a need for more research in the multitude of specific and varied contexts
that make up South African society. This research study explicitly focuses on the
specific discursive positions of academics of the delineated racial categories of black,
white, coloured and Indian, within the South African post-apartheid Higher education
context.
The research study uses a social constructionist theoretical orientation that speaks to
the methodologically complex nature of the study of the socially constructed categories
of race. It was conducted at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and was guided by a
qualitative interpretive paradigm and employed a non-probability, purposive sampling
method. Four academics from each of the four delineated racial groups were
interviewed bringing the total to sixteen in-depth detailed interviews. Discourse
analysis as delineated by Antaki (2009) was used to analyse the discursive way
academics speak and position themselves with regard to race and racism in a postapartheid
higher education context. Coupled with discourse analysis, the researcher
employed a critical Africanist standpoint in the analysis.
With the limitations of qualitative studies notwithstanding in terms of generalisability,
there were some discursive elements identified that can add to the knowledge on the
subject matter of race and racism in our higher education South African context: i. Despite South Africa being constitutionally non-racial, nuanced reproductions of
apartheid divisions continue in the post-apartheid context. Regardless of having
sampled the delineated four racial categories (black, white, coloured and Indian),
racial bifurcation with either the white or the black identity was evident with some
Indian, coloured and black academics exhibiting denial and internalised racism.
ii. To straddle the racial division and the espoused norm of an integrated rainbow nation, a deracialized discourse was used by academics. Selected academics
also used race as a social construction discourse to solve the dilemma of race
as an unreality and a reality.
iii. Academics marginalisation discourse included experiences of being side-lined
where specific and personal examples were relayed by some academics, while
others discussed marginalisation in a more distanced manner.
iv. The battleground on which some academics fought racial division was through
the Africanisation discourse where the inferiority of black academics as
compared to the superiority of white academics was expressed, being couched
in terminology such as African scholarship versus scholarship which was
represented as neutral.
The thinking of academics regarding race and racism would appear to be progressive
and forward thinking overall; however, closer discursive scrutiny reveals thinking
similar to academics who were the very architects of the racial categories and racism
in an apartheid South Africa. To deal with the contentious subject matter of race and
racism the academics used deracialized and racialized discourse to take recognisable
racial positions on specific grounds. The ability of black academics and African
scholarship was in doubt as compared to the capability of white academics within
scholarship which is socially constructed as white and neutral. The study contributed
to current post-apartheid scholarship from a critical Africanist standpoint.
Description
Doctor of Philosophy in Social Psychology. University of KwaZulu-Natal. Durban, 2019.