South Africa's Poor Whites and Whiteness Studies: Afrikaner Ethnicity,Scientific Racism,and White Misery

This article introduces a new way to evaluate the political and theoretical significance of the Carnegie Commission Poor White Study conducted from 1927 to 1932 in South Africa. Building on the recent literature on whiteness and the older literature on scientific racism, I argue that the scientific language about biology and physiognomy that is usually linked to scientific racism must be brought back into conversation with the literary, historical, legal, and cultural analysis of critical whiteness studies to be a more effective scholarly rejoinder to white supremacy. Critical whiteness studies must track the institutional and professional investments in the creation of white supremacy and white nationalism through various colonial relations across geographical and territorial space. In a productive turn toward the specificity of South African history, this essay also makes claims about the nature of whiteness vis-à-vis Afrikaner and British identity that provide powerful antidotes to the historiographical obsession with autochthonous ethnic identities among white supremacists. Finally, through close attention to the actual experiences of “poor whites” a set of moral directives and knowledge claims emerge about the urgency of anti-racist research that makes this racial formation more than simply an add-on in the litany of radical projects.     

Afrikaner Nationalism, Electioneering and the Politics of a Volkstaat

The liberation of South Africa from the shackles of apartheid signifies the end of the last out-post of white domination in South Africa, and opened a new chapter on the search for a common South Africanism. The process of nation-building is haunted by relics of nationalist trends, one of which is Afrikaner nationalism. This article deals with certain aspects of Afrikaner nationalism which have continued into the post-apartheid era. It uses the division among Afrikaner nationalists to show the link between conservative Afrikaner nationalism, electioneering and the pursuit for a volkstaat (white homeland).     

现代美国种族矛盾和冲突述论

美国反种族歧视斗争长期以来一直是该国社会运动的一个重要组成部分。由于美国黑人及其他有色人种在政治、经济等各个方面存在着严重的不平等现象 ,使得他们在政治权利、经济利益上与白人的差距加大。 80年代以来 ,美国的民权运动进一步发展 ,种族斗争的规模超过 70年代 ,并出现了数次具有全国性的暴力行动 ,对美国社会产生了深刻影响。种族歧视长期以来之所以一直得不到解决 ,其根源在于美国社会长期存在的白人种族主义 ,美国政府对这一社会问题措施不力也是问题的症结所在     

Managing South African transformation: the story of cricket in KwaZulu Natal, 1994–2004

Sport has historically been an important element of South African popular culture, even though it was divided along racial lines for much of the country's history. In post-apartheid South Africa, sport is seen by politicians, sports officials and many ordinary people as a means to surmount race and class barriers and to forge nationhood. But sport remains a site of acute contestation over what transformation means: ‘merit’ versus ‘affirmative action’, beneficiaries of change, pace of transformation and so on. This conflict reflects the broader tensions over how South African society should be restructured. Change in racial composition at the level of leadership, coaching and players since 1990 has failed to transform cricket into a ‘people's game’. The cricket establishment is following the lead of government in prioritizing the empowerment of a minority. Class privilege has replaced race privilege. At the same time, tensions generated by change are producing further hostility along the fault lines of race and class. There is, for example, a conflict over resources among those previously labelled ‘Black’: Indians, Coloureds and the majority African population. These struggles reveal the fragmented nature of post-apartheid South African society, notwithstanding attempts to define South Africa as a ‘rainbow nation’. The historical, social, economic and cultural legacy of South Africa's conflicting pasts, the impact of globalization—and sport is a principal front of globalization, generating vast economic revenue and creating intolerable pressure to succeed—as well as post-apartheid discrepancies in economic and social conditions are all making it difficult to forge a united national culture, despite the attempt to use sport for the ‘mythic enactment’ of a collective South African identity. The tensions discussed in this article continue to be alive though the ‘patterns of prejudice’ are manifesting themselves in different forms.     

‘Ireland of the welcomes’? racism and anti-racism in nineteenth-century Ireland

Irish society, North and South, has been slow to develop a social awareness and legal framework in relation to racism. This has resulted, in the main, from an unwillingness to admit to the presence of racism in Irish history and culture. Yet an examination of Irish society at the time of the visits of two black abolitionists to the country Olaudah Equiano in 1791 and Frederick Douglass in 1845—reveals deep currents of racism in both instances. The attempt by Belfast merchant Waddell Cunningham, who had made his fortune through the provisioning of slave plantations in the Caribbean, to establish a slave-trading company in Belfast in 1786 is a case in point. And, in the mid-nineteenth century, the Young Irelanders, a radical and militant nationalist movement, viewed national liberation as more pressing than the abolition of slavery. At the same time, both Equiano and Douglass noted the warm welcome they received, the former from anti-slavery activists, and the latter from such global players in the international abolitionist scene as Daniel O'Connell. Rolston concludes that there is nothing mysterious in contemporary Irish racism and anti-racism. Both have deep historical roots and are ultimately explained by Ireland's complex relationship to colonization: colonized itself, while at the same time intimately involved in colonizing others through the key roles played by Irish people throughout the British empire.     

Patterns within prejudice: antisemitism in the United States in the 1940s

ABSTRACT

Ziege compares two field studies on ethnocentrism, racism and antisemitism among American workers during the Second World War: ‘Antisemitism among American Labor’ (1945) by the Frankfurt Institute of Social Research (ISR) in exile and Wartime Shipyard (1947) by Katherine Archibald at the University of California at Berkeley. The former was a large-scale team project headed by Friedrich Pollock, Theodor W. Adorno and Paul Massing, who had at their disposal a large number of fieldworkers as well as the support of the trade unions. Archibald worked in complete isolation. Yet, in spite of this and major differences in design and theory, the European Marxists and the American liberal came to similar conclusions: hostility towards Jews at that time had to be analysed in connection with hostility towards other groups (including women, Blacks, labourers from the American South and other ethnic and social minorities) and within the context of the war and the Holocaust. While aware of the innovations achieved in research by means of public opinion polls, both studies were pioneering in their ambition to improve on quantitative research by means of non-quantitative procedures and qualitative-participatory observation. Ziege links these studies to a third study, The Authoritarian Personality (1950), conducted by the ISR, particularly Adorno, which poses the question of how relevant the ISR's critical theory was for the innovations achieved in studies of prejudice, when Archibald's study, which eschewed social theory, arrived at similar conclusions regarding antisemitism.     

Federalism in Africa: Origins,Operation and (In)Significance

Abstract

Recent years have seen major advances in the comparative study of federalism and a growing literature on decentralization in Africa, but there has been surprisingly little systematic comparison of African federalism. This article explains several commonalities in the origins and operation of Africa's three main federal states: Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. Each country used ‘holding-together’ federalism in order to accommodate ethnic pluralism. Each country—especially Ethiopia and South Africa—also experienced several key centripetal forces: dominant governing parties, top-down state administration and high degrees of fiscal centralism. Federalism mattered in offering accommodative decentralization, but in its operation subnational governments have limited autonomy because of these interlocking centralizing features. This African variant of federalism can have certain salutary features, even as it precludes the possibility of many of the theorized advantages of federalism that are predicated on real subnational autonomy.     

The confection of a nation: the social invention and social construction of the Pavlova

Both Australians and New Zealanders claim the Pavlova (a large meringue cake, covered in cream and fruit) as their national dish. The historical record does not settle its birthplace. On the contrary, published recipes reveal the complex process of social invention through the swapping of practical experience across both countries. The illusion of a singular creation can be explained by distinguishing a second, associated level of social construction. This applies to the more ideal processes through which cooks and eaters attached a name, meanings and myths, producing a widely-held concept that was deceptively distinct. The Pavlova evolved along with other social constructs, notably femininity and nationalism, which became ironic in tone. Typically consisting of a set of instructions (“take 1/2 lb sugar”) and an often figurative title (“Pavlova”), recipes are valuable historical sources for mapping the social invention of material items and the social construction of ideas about them.     

The Black body and the Jewish body: a comparison of medical images

Hödl attempts to show how deeply the medical views of Blacks and Jews were embedded in racial theories in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Concepts of racial distinctiveness formed the framework that purportedly explained a specific liability of African Americans and Jews to various ailments. In particular, he compares the prevailing perception of the susceptibility of Jews and Blacks to tuberculosis in the United States from the 1840s to the early twentieth century, and shows that physicians advanced widely differing explanations for the proclivity to this disease, explanations that fall into three distinct periods. Within the same time span, however, there is continuity in the concepts of the 'sick Negro' and the 'healthy Jew'. The aetiologies were largely dependent on stereotypes of the bodily constructs of Jews and Blacks. Hödl thereby demonstrates the interdependence of racism and medicine.     

The Emergence of a Global Civil Society: The Case of Anti-Apartheid

Abstract

This article argues that the transnational anti-apartheid movement which, from a global perspective, must be seen as one of the most significant social movements during the post-war era, made an important contribution to the emergence and consolidation of a global civil society during this period. The transnational anti-apartheid movement lasted for more than three decades, from the late 1950s to 1994, when the first democratic elections in South Africa were held, and it had a presence on all continents. In this sense, the interactions of the anti-apartheid movement were part of the construction of a global political culture during the Cold War. Further, I argue that the history of the anti-apartheid struggle provides an important historical case for the analysis of present-day global politics, as it is evident that the present mobilization of a global civil society in relation to economic globalization and supranational political institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, has historical links to the post-war, transnational political culture of which the anti-apartheid movement formed an important part. Movement organizations, action forms and networks that were formed and developed in the anti-apartheid struggle are present in this contemporary context, making the transnational anti-apartheid movement an important historical resource for contemporary global civil society.     

Internet access as citizen's right? Citizenship in the digital age

Discourses about Internet and rights generate ideological, economic, and policy debates that bring to prominence the question of citizenship in today's digital age. But what does Internet access as a citizen's right imply? What are the pragmatic meanings of the intersection of citizenship, rights, and technology access? Specifically, what does citizens' right to technology mean for African states? This paper examines citizenship, rights, and Internet in South Africa, and attempts to move the discourse beyond philosophical rhetoric to practical policy interpretations. To do this, the study examines interpretations and reactions of policy-makers to the idea of Internet access as a citizen's right, and through a survey explores the views of many youth on this subject. Findings reveal strong opinions about rights and technology access in South Africa. For policy-makers, the reality of the socioeconomic challenges of Africa humbles an egalitarian aspiration of rights and Internet access.     

Nationalism and party competition in the Basque country and Catalonia

The party systems which have developed in Catalonia and the Basque Country since Franco's death are distinguished from the Spanish one, and also from each other, in three areas: the leading role of the largest nationalist member of each; the secondary one of Spain's ruling Socialist Party; and the presence of smaller nationalist parties. Analysis of these three factors shows that, despite appearances, the systems’ initial structures did indeed reflect the historical nature of nationalism in the two regions. It also indicates how the dynamics of competition within them have in turn affected the nature of contemporary nationalism.     

The concept of nationalism in discussions on a European society

ABSTRACT

In scholarship, nationalism has been found to be an integral ingredient of any sense of nationhood. In everyday public use, nationalism is used as a term of disapproval. The stubborn discursive border between the two uses of the concept of nationalism evokes questions about the historical preconditions of creating an ism concept based on the roots ‘nation’ or ‘national’. In the period often called ‘the age of nationalism’, from the French Revolution to the First World War, nationhood was essentialized in ways that did not allow nations to be explained as constructions of any ism. ‘Nationalism’ gained popularity from the 1890s onwards as a critical concept directed at ideas and actions that broke against what was seen as the legitimate role of a nation. Defining the role of nations and nationhood took place in a series of political contests utilizing the concept of nationalism. Debates on Europe and ‘European society’ created one of the contexts of these contests. In current scholarly discussion on the idea of a European society, the critique of ‘methodological nationalism’ has been targeted at the nation-state-bound notion of society. However, in much of policy-oriented research and policy planning, the references to nationalism only contain views and actions found to be reactions against globalization and European integration. ‘Nationalism’ does not apply to efforts to improve ‘our’ national and European competitiveness nor ‘our’ joint EU policies of external bordering.     

Global citizenship as a national project: the evolution of segye shimin in South Korean public discourse

The idea of global citizenship in contemporary South Korean public discourse has revolved mainly around a national endeavor to boost the county's stature and competitiveness amid economic globalization. Based on a review of two decades of published media references to segye shimin (‘global citizen’ in the Korean language), this article shows that the specific usages of segye shimin – mainly by elites from government, academia, and journalism – underscore how the ‘developmental citizenship’ that marked South Korea's past authoritarian military regimes has carried on since the transition to civilian-led democracy. In contrast with the burgeoning academic discourse on cosmopolitanism that focuses heavily on moral responsibilities to humanity and the planet, South Korea's discourse of global citizenship has been closely aligned with neoliberalism and filled with exhortations to the domestic population to overcome numerous perceived liabilities seen as impeding the country's advancement. While global citizenship discourse in South Korea has emphasized top-down national strategic imperatives, a bottom-up approach to cosmopolitanism is also emerging as the country gains confidence and the notion of segye shimin gradually gains traction across the wider society.     

The nation as hegemonic project

This article argues that the nation is best conceived as a hegemonic project. It starts with a discussion of the dialectical intertwining of the categories of nationhood and nationalism, and continues with a treatment of the analytical distinction and historical relationship between states and nations. It sketches the rise of and problems with the principle and practice of ‘self-determination’ in the post-Wilsonian world, and seeks to problematize still-influential Leninist-cum-Stalinist dogmas regarding the ‘self-determination’ of nations. It concludes with an extended consideration of Benedict Anderson’s sophisticated neo-Marxist apology for nationalist politics and ideology. It takes Anderson to task on three related counts: for paying insufficient attention to power relations; for underestimating the affinities between nationalism and racism; and for denying the intimate connection between nationalism and fascism.     

Race,rape and capital punishment in Connecticut to 1830

ABSTRACT

Goodheart's narrative of the death penalty in early Connecticut argues that the racist depiction of black men as violent sexual predators who preyed on white women goes back hundreds of years and flourished in New England. The depiction of African American men as lascivious and dangerous was well established during slave times. The resulting prosecutorial treatment of black-on-white rape was remarkably consistent during the colonial and early national period. After the only white man was hanged for rape in 1693, the remaining five executions were all of Blacks. No one of any race was hanged for the rape of a Native American or African American woman. A marker of the marginalization of African Americans is that the final person hanged in Connecticut for a crime other than homicide was a black man for rape in 1817. This persistent pattern of prejudice is a telling example of the impact of race on criminal justice, especially the capital crime of rape.     

Xenophobic violence and the ambivalence of citizenship in post-apartheid South Africa

This essay examines the way that the language of rights has been used to both justify and challenge xenophobia in South Africa. South Africa has struggled with incidents of xenophobic violence against African migrants, with major outbreaks of violence taking place in 2008 and in 2015, and despite substantial anti-xenophobia efforts, African migrants continue to be subject to discrimination and abuse. Part of the reason for the persistence of anti-African migrant sentiment is a prevailing rhetoric of victimization, which frames irregular African migrants as a threat to the rights of South Africa’s poor. This essay analyzes that rhetoric, as well as analyzing how a grassroots movement of shackdwellers, Abhlali baseMjondolo, has challenged that rhetoric by highlighting the interconnection between the rights of citizens and noncitizens in the country. In examining the contestation over rights in South Africa, this essay seeks to engage with the ambivalence of citizenship in South Africa and the conflict between the human rights framework that has been established in the country and the necessary limitation of the rights of noncitizens.     

What price fairness when security is at stake? Police legitimacy in South Africa

The legitimacy of legal authorities – particularly the police – is central to the state's ability to function in a normatively justifiable and effective manner. Studies, mostly conducted in the US and UK, regularly find that procedural justice is the most important antecedent of police legitimacy, with judgments about other aspects of police behavior – notably, about effectiveness – appearing less relevant. But this idea has received only sporadic testing in less cohesive societies where social order is more tenuous, resources to sustain it scarcer, and the position of the police is less secure. This paper considers whether the link between process fairness and legitimacy holds in the challenging context of present day South Africa. In a high crime and socially divided society, do people still emphasize procedural fairness or are they more interested in instrumental effectiveness? How is the legitimacy of the police influenced by the wider problems faced by the South African state? We find procedural fairness judgments play a key role, but also that South Africans place greater emphasis on police effectiveness (and concerns about crime). Police legitimacy is, furthermore, associated with citizens' judgments about the wider success and trustworthiness of the state.     

Establishing the link between representative bureaucracy and performance: The South African case

Representative bureaucracy is a critical element of modern public administration and governance. Since the advent of nonracial democracy, the South African government has transformed the apartheid bureaucracy into a new public service that closely mirrors the country's diverse population. Questions remain, however, about how this demographic transformation has impacted the public service. Grounded in the theory of representative bureaucracy, we use a mixed methods approach to examine the relationship between representation of historically disadvantaged groups and performance of national departments in South Africa. Analyses of panel data indicate that as national departments become more representative by employing a greater percentage of Blacks, they become more effective at achieving their goals. Interviews with officials in national departments corroborate this and reveal a range of underlying pathways linking representation of historically disadvantaged groups to performance.     

Margaret Fuller's Rome and the problem of provincial American democracy

ABSTRACT

Margaret Fuller's visit to Italy as a correspondent for the New York Tribune at the time of the 1848 revolutions gave her a unique perspective on them, not only as a feminist intellectual but also as a commentator on the American relationship with revolutionary Europe. In her Tribune writings she addressed issues at once more partisan and more global than those she had covered inside the United States, including the political condition of Italy as a subject state under Austrian imperial control, and as an object of ridicule by many American observers, and the condition of American slavery. Italian peoples and slaves, in her mind, were, like women, oppressed by a transatlantic patriarchy whose prejudices allowed only for white males to enjoy political independence. Fuller called for American support for the Roman republic, but her sympathies did not reflect the thrust of American opinion. Many Americans did not believe Italians were capable of maintaining republican self-government, which was different, they alleged, from their own version, part of the inheritance of the American Revolution. That heritage conferred a unique American revolutionary ‘exceptionalism’. For these Americans, the 1848 revolutions provided evidence that Europe was impulsive, reactionary and flawed; they saw in them confirmation of the superiority of American race relations and democratic society. After her death in 1850, the American Civil War would confirm Fuller's implicit sense that the United States and Europe were more alike than many Americans of her generation believed or realized. Her critique of American attitudes to the prospect for democracy in Italy provides perspective on the ambiguity of American global leadership today.