Racial categories as resources and constraints in everyday interactions: Implications for racialism and non-racialism in post-apartheid South Africa

Abstract

The anti-apartheid struggle was characterized by tensions between the opposing ideologies of non-racialism (exemplified by the Freedom Charter) and racialism (exemplified by Black Consciousness). These tensions have remained prevalent in public policies and discourse, and in the writings of social scientists, in the postapartheid period. In this paper, I examine some ways in which issues of whether, when, and how race matters become visible in everyday interactions in South Africa, and what insights this may offer with respect to these ongoing tensions. Specifically, I employ an ethnomethodological, conversation analytic approach to examine some ways in which racial categories are treated as resources for action or constraints on action. I conclude by arguing that these findings point to the contingent and situational operation of a practical non-racialism (as well as practical racialism), and thus to the achievement of these ideologies in the moment-by-moment unfolding of interactions.

Discursive Approaches to Race and Racism

“…Some studies have, however, focused on people of color (e.g., Hughey, 2008), or on racial or ethnic categories and identities more generally (e.g., Durrheim, et al, 2011;Hansen, 2005;Verkuyten, 2004;Whitehead, 2009Whitehead, , 2012Whitehead, , 2013aWhitehead, , 2013b.…”

“…For example, building on pioneering analyses by Sacks (1984bSacks ( , 1986, Whitehead & Lerner (2009) examine a set of interactional mechanisms through which the otherwise typically "invisible" category of whiteness can be exposed and disturbed as a result of everyday interactional processes. Other studies based on naturally occurring interactional data have examined how racial and ethnic categories can be used and thus reproduced in institutional settings such including formal meetings (Hansen, 2005;Shrikant, 2015) and talk radio (Whitehead, 2012(Whitehead, , 2013a, and how they are interactionally produced as officially recognized categories of people for institutionally relevant purposes (Kameo & Whalen, 2015;Wilkinson, 2011).…”

Omni-relevant and contingent membership categories in research interview and focus group openings

“…Following a further pause (line 14) during which P3 still shows no sign of responding, the researcher pursues a response from her, gazing at her and using a self-categorization ('I am a masters student' -lines 15-16) as a further candidate account for anxiety on her part, and thereby proposing the possible relevance of her higher position (relative to the participants) in a hierarchically organized MCD of levels of study. This category thus appears to explicitly surface as a result of being deployed as a resource in pursuit of a response that had over a series of sequences repeatedly been made conditionally relevant (see Schegloff, 2007a), but had not been produced by one of the relevant responders (Whitehead, 2012).…”

Teacher as learner: a personal reflection on a short course for South African university educators

“…On the one hand, power inequalities shaped by imperialism and colonialism and created in law under apartheid as https://repository.uwc.ac.za/ 8 'race' have been and remain an important explanatory narrative in South African history. Today many, if not most, South Africans use these categories to self-identify because they have shaped individual lives in meaningful ways and because they continue to serve as both constraints and resources in everyday interactions (Whitehead 2012;Hunter 2011;Seekings 2008;Adhikari 2004). The need, in post-apartheid South Africa, to evaluate change in terms of equity and redress for specific groups further reinscribes the use of race.…”