This article is a review of the concept of whiteness and how the power and privilege of whiteness is reproduced within societies such as Australia and South Africa. As well as providing a broad overview of whiteness, our aim is to highlight and establish dialogue about how research on whiteness may contribute to decolonisation and work towards social justice. The review begins by outlining the meanings and complexity of whiteness. Having established some parameters for understanding whiteness, the second part of the article focuses on how whiteness reproduces itself. Three different, but related, practices or mechanisms through which whiteness is reproduced have been identified in the literature. These are knowledge and history construction, national identity and belonging, and anti-racism practice. In conclusion, we briefly discuss how we are investigating whiteness further in relation to pedagogy and applied research. While this article is not aimed at providing a complete review of whiteness, it does provide a background against which we can start thinking differently about racism, race relations, and anti-racism. These different ways of thinking include interrogating power and privilege in the analysis of racism, which in turn may lead to more effective and critical action addressing racism.

The aim of this article is to explore how examining discourses of whiteness can contribute to an anti‐racism that does not only focus on those affected by racism, thereby locating the issue with the ‘other’, but also attends to the privilege and dominance that is central to unequal and unfair distributions of power. Based on the discourse analysis (see Henriques, Hollway, Urwin, Venn, & Walkerdine, 1998; Parker, 1992) of interviews and focus groups with white Australians about their involvement in Reconciliation we discuss how by examining discursive negotiations at the micro level we are able to critique dominance and privilege at the macro level. In particular, we identify spaces for the examination and critique of whiteness within white Australians' discursive negotiations of Reconciliation. We also discuss how engagement with Indigenous knowledges is a necessary part of the critique of whiteness. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

In this special issue we focus on exploring the tensions, challenges and possibilities for working in contexts where relationships between groups are characterized by dominance and resistance. Some of the impetus lies in our own struggles and frustrations with models, guidelines and ‘recipes’ that have been developed to guide sensitive, competent and empowering research and practice across boundaries of ‘race’, ethnicity and culture. These models and guidelines are often framed as tools that will enable culturally competent transactions across these boundaries

In this paper we describe the experiences of young homeless people in Western Australia during their transitions to more permanent accommodation and independent living. For these young homeless people, permanent accommodation provided an opportunity for 'feeling at home' and having a sense of control and stability associated with 'home'. Within this space, these young people wanted to be considered 'normal' home occupiers. In this context, we discuss how young homeless people experience and negotiate the social and cultural understandings of home outside socially accepted pathways of leaving the parental home and becoming 'normal' home occupiers themselves. We show how this experience of home, and the potential it offers previously homeless young people, is interrupted by discourses of youth workers, neighbours and and society at large, which serve to (re)position them outside the community of 'normal' home occupiers. The findings have implications for both policy and the delivery of services to young homeless people.

This article investigates how unacknowledged power can affect the political actions of those in the dominant group, in this case white Australians. To do this we identify connections between the discourses used by white Australians involved in Reconciliation, the power and privilege of whiteness in Australia, and participants\u27 understandings and actions towards Reconciliation. Using discourse analysis four discourses were identified from interviews and focus groups with white Australians involved in Reconciliation. These were labelled ‘indigenous project’, ‘institutional change’, ‘challenging racism’, and ‘bringing them together’.We argue that understanding the power relations that underlie the political actions of those in dominant positions is critical to ensuring the goals of anti-racism are achieved. Discourse analysis may allow us to gain a deeper understanding of the power and the potential impacts that may flow from particular positions and how power may be made more visible to the dominant group