Racial discourse among white Afrikaans-speaking youth : a Stellenbosch case study

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study seeks to present a picture of the racial discourses circulating among whiteAfrikaans-speaking youth in South Africa, with closer focus to students at the StellenboschUniversity (SU). Fifteen years into democracy, Afrikaans-speaking whites find themselves ina position where their 'Afrikaner' identity does not enjoy the same government-supportedsecurity as under apartheid. The responsibility is thus shifted onto white Afrikaans-speakersthemselves to negotiate and secure this identity in the light of new challenges brought onby the post-apartheid context. In this regard, the white Afrikaans-speaking youth, inparticular, are faced with the ambivalence of being both exposed to a habitual scheme ofnormalised racial divisions, as well as to a context where 'old' frameworks need to betranscended in the name of survival in multi-racial South Africa.SU, a historically white, predominantly Afrikaans-medium university, is currently faced withthe challenges of government-induced transformation and the attended 'language debate',the aims of which are to make the university more accessible to non-white sectors of societywho, under apartheid, was excluded from this institution. Making use of interviews andparticipant observation among students on the SU campus, an attempt was made to shedlight onto the types of discourses employed by white Afrikaans-speaking Stellenboschstudents to negotiate their position in this setting, as well as to determine to what extentsuch discourses are racially based. With the help of a social anthropological approach todiscourse analysis, the discourses encountered during fieldwork were considered within thecontext of macro-historical processes, and were conceptualised as complex sets ofmeanings produced within the context of interaction, appropriated and employed byindividuals, strategically and artistically, in response to moment to moment situations.It is argued that these discursive processes are immensely complex, as it is influenced andshaped by a plethora of factors. These youth are, firstly, faced with a received framework inwhich dualistic and racial distinctions are subconsciously reproduced. Secondly, they takepart in a rhetoric in which group boundaries manage to reproduce itself and, lastly, they areexposed to a popular discourse, reinforced by the media, that strongly relies on race-basedsense-making. However, politically induced transformation ideals do call for a readjustmentof priorities within white 'Afrikaner' discourse and students have been observed to respondto this in creative ways. Finally, it is argued that the heavy emotional baggage accompanyingthe race topic, exacerbated by media emphasis and the 'racist taboo', can lead to denial andindifference among white Afrikaans-speakers so that no space is created for constructiveengagement with the topic.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University