White talk : white South Africans and the strategic management of diasporic whiteness

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dc.contributor.authorSteyn, Melissa Elizabethen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2014-10-18T06:01:29Z
dc.date.available2014-10-18T06:01:29Z
dc.date.issued2003en_ZA
dc.descriptionBibliography: leaves 286-321.en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation examines resistant whiteness in the context of post-apartheid South Africa. Situating white South Africans as part of the powerful racial dispersal of Europe formed as a result of colonial expansion, it argues that since democracy, which has placed white South Africans in a weak position to the immediate centres of state power, white South Africans are constructing typically diasporic dimensions to the way in which they operate. Utilizing insights from the Discourse Theory of Laclau and Mouffe, and based on four studies which range across a period of a decade and incorporate large samples of different forms of publicly available everyday discourse, the thesis traces the pervasive and resilient discursive formation that it calls white talk: a resistant and flexible set of ideologically-charged discursive strategies which attempt to perpetuate privilege into the new dispensation while paying careful attention to self-presentation. While the dynamics for English and Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans are not identical, the manipulative power of white talk is shown to depend on its ability to leverage the intersections within the social space that whites in South Africa occupy. This space incorporates elements of whiteness, the powerfully centred social positionality, and diaspora, which is usually theorized as a marginalized and weak positionality. The dissertation confirms the importance of understanding whiteness in both its global and local dimensions, and of recognizing how these interact and bolster each other to perpetuate seemingly innocent, but in fact reactive, sites in which racial advantage is normalized.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationSteyn, M. E. (2003). <i>White talk : white South Africans and the strategic management of diasporic whiteness</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of Psychology. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8605en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationSteyn, Melissa Elizabeth. <i>"White talk : white South Africans and the strategic management of diasporic whiteness."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of Psychology, 2003. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8605en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationSteyn, M. 2003. White talk : white South Africans and the strategic management of diasporic whiteness. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Steyn, Melissa Elizabeth AB - This dissertation examines resistant whiteness in the context of post-apartheid South Africa. Situating white South Africans as part of the powerful racial dispersal of Europe formed as a result of colonial expansion, it argues that since democracy, which has placed white South Africans in a weak position to the immediate centres of state power, white South Africans are constructing typically diasporic dimensions to the way in which they operate. Utilizing insights from the Discourse Theory of Laclau and Mouffe, and based on four studies which range across a period of a decade and incorporate large samples of different forms of publicly available everyday discourse, the thesis traces the pervasive and resilient discursive formation that it calls white talk: a resistant and flexible set of ideologically-charged discursive strategies which attempt to perpetuate privilege into the new dispensation while paying careful attention to self-presentation. While the dynamics for English and Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans are not identical, the manipulative power of white talk is shown to depend on its ability to leverage the intersections within the social space that whites in South Africa occupy. This space incorporates elements of whiteness, the powerfully centred social positionality, and diaspora, which is usually theorized as a marginalized and weak positionality. The dissertation confirms the importance of understanding whiteness in both its global and local dimensions, and of recognizing how these interact and bolster each other to perpetuate seemingly innocent, but in fact reactive, sites in which racial advantage is normalized. DA - 2003 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2003 T1 - White talk : white South Africans and the strategic management of diasporic whiteness TI - White talk : white South Africans and the strategic management of diasporic whiteness UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8605 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/8605
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationSteyn ME. White talk : white South Africans and the strategic management of diasporic whiteness. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Department of Psychology, 2003 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8605en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Psychologyen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherPsychologyen_ZA
dc.titleWhite talk : white South Africans and the strategic management of diasporic whitenessen_ZA
dc.typeDoctoral Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoral
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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