Context, Privilege, and Contingent Cultural Identifications in South African Group Interview Discourses

Abstract

Issues of context, levels of privilege, and the contingency of cultural identifications are addressed in this study of South African group interview discourses in 1992 and 1999. A Critical/Interpretive perspective revealed that histories, socioeconomic positioning, and political policies differentially enabled and constrained the actions and views expressed by the participants. The persistence of whiteness ideologies and prevalence of enacted privilege emerged in the group interviews with participants identifying as ‘white’ and Afrikaner, with ambivalence becoming marked in the 1999 group discourse. Changes in the sociopolitical landscape are also reflected in the group discourses of participants identifying as ‘black’; discourses in 1999 included overt resistance and exerting agency through critique of ‘blacks’ who were complicit and ‘whites’ who perpetuated race and class privilege.

Keywords:

• South Africa
• Group Interview Discourse
• Context
• Privilege
• Cultural Identifications
• Race
• Whiteness
• Ambivalence

Notes

[1] Quotation marks are placed around names of racial identification categories of ‘white’ and ‘black’ in order to underscore the constructed nature of racial labeling practices while acknowledging that these membership categories are widely circulated and used as a basis for predicting and judging conduct and allocating resources.

[2] Names of respondents have been changed in order to maintain confidentiality.