Knowledge is preciousUniversity of Venda
Discourses on Difference and Oppression

‘Listen here, just because YOU think I’m a coloured … ’:

RESPONSES TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF DIFFERENCE IN RACIST DISCOURSES

Norman Duncan

[FIRST ROUGH DRAFT]

Of late, there has been a growing awareness of the need, indeed, the scientific imperative, to acknowledge the right of formerly un- or misrepresented groups to speak for and represent themselves in domains defined, politically and intellectually, as normally excluding them, usurping their signifying and representing functions, over-riding their social reality (Said, in Connor 1999: 264). Currently, in South Africa, this imperative would be particularly crucial in attempts to gain a more comprehensive picture of the functioning of the ideology of racism, as well as the manner in which the ideology mediates the development of prevailing social group identities. It is generally acknowledged that most of the extant studies on racism have been signally remiss in terms of allowing the targets of racism to ‘speak for and represent themselves’ in attempts to understand the ideology, particularly in terms of how it structures social group identities. This has resulted in current theory and research dealing with the contemporary manifestations of racism frequently being somewhat inadequate (Berger 2000). In this regard, the study on racism recently conducted by the Media Monitoring Project (1999) is a case in point. This study’s principle objective was to explore the ways in which blacks are stereotyped and negativised in the local media. While this objective cannot be faulted, the study nonetheless provoked vociferous public debate and endless criticism (see Berger, in Keeton 2000, Harvey 2000). One of the primary criticisms was that the study based its findings virtually exclusively on the ‘expertise’ in textual analysis of a group of researchers, most of whom could not experience the impact of racism in the way that ordinary black working class people do (Harvey 2000, Meintjies 2000). To my mind, this and many other criticisms that followed in the wake of the study could have been avoided if the primary targets of racism in South Africa (viz. ordinary black working class people) had been more centrally involved in the study (Harvey 2000).

In view of the above, the present chapter attempts to ‘give voice’ to members of a group of people traditionally on the margins of social scientific research on racism, namely, a group of black working-class parents. In so doing, it is hoped that this chapter will contribute not only towards bringing the targets of racism closer to the centre of debate and ‘authoritative’ discourse on the racism, but also towards a broader and more comprehensive understanding of the ideology.

More specifically, this chapter will examine the above-mentioned research participants’ responses to the articulation of group differences contained within a selected set of racist discourses. It is generally accepted that the ideology of racism has played (and, indeed, continues to play) a central role in the construction of social group differences and social group identities in South Africa. Yet, to date, very little research has been conducted on the genesis and articulation of these differences and identities as a function of the ideology. Certainly, since the beginning of the 1990s, social group – and particularly, ‘ethnic’ – differences and identities have increasingly been placed at the centre of debate and academic writing in the social sciences (Pickel 1997). Unfortunately, however, these debates and writings have tended to neglect the role of racism in structuring these differences and identities. More seriously, there has been a distinct proclivity to neglect the meanings attributed to these differences and identities by the putative members of the social groups constituting the focus of these debates and writings. As indicated above, this chapter aims at breaking with this tendency.

The present chapter is based on a series of focus group discussions with 26 adults from various working-class, so-called ‘coloured’ communities in the Cape Peninsula (Western Cape) during the two years preceding the first democratic general elections in South Africa in 1994. In terms of temporal location, therefore, these discussions took place during the interstice in South African history which saw the dismantling of the old repressive apartheid order on the one hand, and the emergence of a democratic, professedly non-racial system of governance, on the other; an interstice which also witnessed the final disintegration and deligitimation of the hegemonic discourse of ‘racial’ inferiority/superiority of the old apartheid order, and the ascendancy of a discourse of ‘cultural’ or ‘ethnic’ group ‘difference’ (Carrim 1995, Stevens 1997). While the above-mentioned focus group discussions took place more than six years ago, I believe that they are still inordinately relevant today. Specifically, they are relevant because of the manner in which they illustrate how a group of people at the receiving end of racism negotiate issues concerning their domination or marginalisation, and particularly issues concerning their construction by or within the ideology.

The focus group participants were divided into five groups of between three and seven participants each. The groups were tasked to discuss their understanding of the ideology of racism. Two vignettes (See Appendix A) based on two overtly racist incidents reported in the media at the time that the focus group discussions were conducted were utilised to initiate these discussions. The discourses generated in these group discussions were tape-recorded and subsequently transcribed and analysed. In view of the essentially exploratory nature of these focus group discussions, a thematic analysis based on Wetherell and Potter (1988) as well as Levett’s (1989) approaches to the analysis of qualitative data was performed on the discourses collected. This analysis was conducted within the broad framework of Thompson’s (1990, 1984) depth hermeneutics approach to the analysis of ideological discourses.

While the meanings which the focus group participants gave to the ideology of racism generally were very informative, it is the manner in which they engaged with issues of social group ‘difference’ as articulated within the ideology, which forms the primary focus of the ensuing discussion. In the present political period where (as alluded to above) discourses of social group difference and, more specifically, ‘ethnic’ group differences, have become increasingly dominant within the socio-political domain, and the affirmation of identities based on assumed, quasi fixed ‘cultural’ or ‘ethnic’ differences have become de rigueur in public – and in particular, mass media and party political – discourses (Carrim 1995, Harvey 2000), the content of these interviews should be instructive.

Before considering the findings of this study, however, it might be useful to firstly make a few general, introductory comments regarding the genesis and some of the basic characteristics of racism.

Despite the devastation that it has wrought throughout the world over the last few centuries, racism is one of those social phenomena which seems to elude clear and concise definition (Harvey 2000). This is undoubtedly a result of the multifaceted and constantly changing character of the phenomenon. However, while it is difficult to define racism, it is not so difficult to identify its central constitutive properties (cf. Goldberg 1988). Consequently, this discussion will proceed by means of an enumeration of some of the key features of the phenomenon. This enumeration can obviously not be exhaustive and will focus only on those features of racism that are pertinent to the discourses to be examined in the second half of this chapter.

1. Racism is inextricably linked to the notion of the existence of human ‘races’

Any meaningful examination of racism has to start with an examination of the concept of ‘race’ as applied to humans. After all, the notion of the existence of human ‘races’ constitutes the basis of the phenomenon under scrutiny. As Skutnabb-Kangas (1990: 80) puts it, racism at the outset presupposes a discourse of ‘race’ (or whatever term it is substituted with) or ‘racial’ differences.

Since the term ‘race’ was first introduced into the literature in the early seventeenth century to describe the apparent differences between certain groups of people, it has given rise to several ongoing and, at times, very acrimonious debates (Lieberman 1975). All of these debates in essence centred around the same basic question, namely, whether the human species can be divided into discrete categories based on biological and associated psychological criteria or not.

In recent years, the prevailing view in social scientific circles has been that even though, in terms of physical appearance, a range of differences characterize the human species, these differences are not sufficiently systematic and significant (from one group to another) to warrant classifying humans according to discrete ‘racial’ categories (Alexander 1987, Boonzaier 1988, Miles 1989, Stringer 1997). Here it needs to be noted that this position is not entirely ‘new’. As early as 1793, Blumenbach (in Lieberman 1975: 28) observed that ‘no variety of [humankind] exists, whether of colour, countenance, or stature, etc. so singular’ that it justifies the belief in the existence of human ‘races’.

Given that the concept of ‘race’ is not only misleading but also prejudicial as far as its implications for the quality of human life and social organisation are concerned, Miles (1989), suggests that the concept ‘be explicitly and consistently confined to the dustbin of useless terms’. And indeed, partly as a result of scientific imperatives, the devastation caused by Nazi and apartheid ‘race’ theories and politics, as well as a growing concern for human rights world-wide, the term ‘race’ has increasingly fallen into disfavour throughout the world (Essed 1987).

Nonetheless, while the use of the term ‘race’ has become increasingly proscribed, this does not mean that the notion underlying the term has been abandoned. As Essed (1987) and Skutnabb-Kangas (1990) observe, in contemporary society, the term ‘race’ is increasingly being replaced by more socially ‘acceptable’ terms such as ‘ethnic group’, ‘cultural group’, and ‘language group’. However, the latter group of terms nonetheless often continue to fulfill the primary function of the now-outmoded term ‘race’, namely, to divide people into categories so as to justify extant patterns of domination.

2. Racism has a consistently deleterious effect on the lives of its targets

It is telling that relatively few attempts at defining racism make significant reference to the impact of the phenomenon on the lives of its victims (See Duncan 1993). Perhaps this can be seen as a consequence of social scientists’ long-standing (and legitimate) preoccupation with establishing the causes and dynamics of the phenomenon. However, it can also be seen as an indication of the extent to which researchers in the area of racism have themselves been influenced by extant racist discourses which do not only seek to inferiorise the targets of racism, but also to negate the impact of the ideology on the latter’s lives (Skutnabb-Kangas 1990).

Whatever the causes for this lacuna, it is essential that it be recognised that racism is not a phenomenon which merely seeks to justify the privileged position of a dominant ‘race’ or ‘races’ vis-à-vis another ‘race’ or races. Rather, it is a phenomenon which, as Memmi (1982: 147) correctly observes, also operates ‘to the benefit of the racist [and] to the detriment of his/her victims’. This is clearly illustrated by the profound impact which apartheid racism, for example, had on the lives of black people in this country. Amongst others, it meant that blacks generally did not have the franchise, that their family and community lives were systematically destroyed, that they were subjected to totally inadequate and primitive housing, educational and health facilities, and that the majority of blacks were effectively doomed to abject poverty. Needless to state, all these factors, and the host of others not mentioned here had a decidedly adverse impact on the psychological integrity of black people in this country. Various writers (e.g., Bulhan 1985, Goldberg 1988, Cooper 1990, Fanon 1990) have written extensively on the potentially deleterious effects of the violence of racism on the psychological well-being of its targets – effects such as the sense of alienation, despair and violation which so frequently saturate the psychological reality of oppressed or marginalised groups.

Given space constraints, the various consequences of apartheid racism will not be explored here in detail. Suffice it to state that the ideology has been shown to have had a consistently destructive impact on the social, economic, political and psychological reality of the majority of people in this country. Indeed, its effects are still very evident in South African society. For example, the racialised patterns of poverty which typified the apartheid era, to a large extent, are still prevalent, with the poorer sectors of the black community in fact becoming even poorer (Wilkinson 1996, Harvey 2000).

Here it should perhaps be noted that while racism’s profoundly negative impact on the well-being of its targets has been emphasised in this section, the intention was not to present the latter as hapless or helpless victims of the ideology. The various anti-racist struggles being waged throughout the world against racism provides clear proof of the contrary. Despite its extremely constraining influence on human agency, racism, wherever it manifests itself, inevitably provokes opposing, anti-racist strategies and discourses (as I hope to illustrate in the latter part of this chapter)( Essed 1991, Duncan 1993).

3. Racism is an ideology that attempts to justify the domination and marginalisation of certain ‘races’

Many of the more authoritative writings on racism describe the phenomenon as an ideology, and more specifically, an ideology by means of which the domination or marginalisation of certain ‘races’ by another ‘race’ or ‘races’ is legitimated (Foster 1991, Donald and Rattansi 1992). This typification of racism has one important advantage, and that is that it highlights issues of power related to the maintenance, functioning and perpetuation of the phenomenon (Thompson 1984). Here it can be noted that while there are many issues regarding the nature of racism about which social scientists would disagree, the one issue on which most would concur is the fact that racism is inextricably linked to processes of domination, that is, processes involving ‘systematically asymmetrical relations of power’ (Thompson 1984). Indeed, as Thompson (1984) observes, domination and its justification can be seen as representing the raison d’être of racism.

Therborn (1980) argues that the manner in which different ‘races’ are constructed or represented constitutes the principal means whereby racism as ideology justifies domination. Building on Althusser’s seminal work on ideology, he posits that the legitimation of racial domination occurs primarily at the alter and ego levels of the ideology. The ego level of ideology (designated, ‘ego ideology’ in Therborn’s writings) refers to the ideological dimension which constructs the Self, or the in-group. The alter level (or ‘alter ideology’), on the other hand, refers to the dimension which constructs the Other, or the out-groups(s). With the ideology of racism, the ego ideology of the dominant group or ‘race’ essentially represents in-group members as fundamentally superior to out-group members. Conversely, the alter ideology of this group invariably attempts to represent the out-group as inferior or different.

It is essentially by means of this binary representation of ‘races’ at the ego and alter levels of the ideology of racism, Therborn (1980) argues, that dominant ‘races’ attempt to justify or defend their privileges and power, and the Other’s marginalisation and relative lack of power. The ‘success’ of an ideology depends largely on its ability to ‘construct’ subjects who will take up the subject positions indicated to them by the ideology.

Obviously, the alter and ego levels of the ideology of racism do not operate independently. As Miles (1989: 79) asserts, racism ‘has a dialectical character in so far as the representation of the Other serves simultaneously to refract a representation of the Self [and vice versa]’.

4. Racism, as ideology, is formulated and transmitted through discourse

Discourse is central to the functioning of racism as ideology. This is because it is largely through discourse that justifications in defense of ‘racial’ domination and marginalisation are formulated and transmitted (Thompson 1984). Discourse, by virtue of its essential openness or indeterminacy (Ricoeur, in Thompson 1984), obviously also is inordinately suited to obfuscating, so as to perpetuate, asymmetric relations of power between racialised groups. Furthermore, as should be clear from the preceding discussion, discourse plays a central role in constructing the identity and structuring the subject positions of the Self and Other within the context of such relations of power (Goldberg 1988). Here it should perhaps also be noted that while discourse is pivotal to the perpetuation of racism, it also plays a central role in the formulation and transmittal of attempts to counter or resist the ideology. Given the centrality of discourse to attempts to perpetuate or counter racism, it stands to reason that the study of discourse would be critical to attempts to understand the reproduction of, or opposition to, the ideology. By way of concluding this section it should of course be noted that while discourse is central to the perpetuation of, and opposition to, racism, it is the non-discursive material conditions in which it is inscribed that which ultimately determines its credibility and power (Essed 1986).

After this somewhat protracted introduction we can now turn our attention to the focus of this chapter.

DISCOURSES ON DIFFERENCE: THE FINDINGS

As indicated earlier, the discourses on ‘difference’ contained in the focus group discussions conducted forms the focus of this section. However, by way of introducing these discourses, it might be apposite to briefly consider the most dominant theme that emerged from the full corpus of texts analysed (particularly in view of the fact that the content of this theme intersects with the discourses on difference to follow). The theme in question concerns the extent of racism in South Africa.

Discourses on the extent of racism in South African society

Scrutiny of the discourses constituting this theme reveals that most of the focus group participants appeared to believe that despite the many visible social and political changes that South Africa was undergoing at the time of this study, racism was still widespread and deeply ingrained in the social fabric of this country, and particularly in the collective conscious of the dominant group. By way of illustration, a selection of statements by the participants regarding the enduring pervasiveness of racism in South Africa is presented below:

There are many whites who believe the things that the person [in Vignette 2] said (Allie, Interview 1).

About eighty percent of whites still believe this (Leila, Interview 5).

Interesting to note is that, in the entire corpus of texts analysed, whites were consistently held out as being the primary perpetrators of racism in South Africa. Furthermore, as two of the participants in this study posited, though many whites might not have expressed the views of the speakers in Vignette 1 and 2, this did not mean that they did not share these views: I think there’s a lot of whites who believe things like this ... although, when confronted with the situation ... they don’t speak up what they really think (Wesley, Interview 2).

Here’s a guy who is brave enough to express his what he feels ... what he really believes. He’s maybe one of the few that does that. The majority [do not] really say it in so many words, but you can see it in the way they react that they think nothing of you (Don, Interview 2).

Interestingly, many of the participants argued that racism was so deeply embedded in South African society and that it had become so quotidian that it was virtually ineradicable:

Racism cannot be eradicated (David, Interview 1).

We cannot really get rid of racism, but we can try. I remember reading about this black student who went to study in America ... but being there did not mean that he is being treated better than in South Africa. He’s still ... looked upon as a black man (Carmen, Interview 1). While the participants generally viewed racism as ineradicable, a number of participants, as reflected in the following selection of statements emanating from the group discussions, also perceived it as essentially being a function of whites’ socialisation (which, paradoxically, implies that the phenomenon can in fact be eradicated): So sometimes I think that these whites ... they were ... indoctrinated by their parents, you know, and they grew up with that (Amelia, Interview 3).

Because of their upbringing ... they [whites] believe it is okay to behave like this (Allie, Interview 1).

So-called whites are brain-washed since they are small to believe that we are inferior (Hannah, Interview 1).

Many of the participants also argued that racism is a function of certain personal characteristics of (certain) whites, such as (mental) pathology, ignorance and age: [Racists] are sick people. They are really sick (Susan, Interview 5).

I would tell my children not to believe these ignorant, stupid people [referring to Vignette 2] (Hannah, Interview 1).

It’s the older ones who are the most racist (Daphne, Interview 3).

Very interesting to note is that very few of the participants referred to the institutional or other factors that contribute to racism. To the extent that the discourses analysed generally linked the cause of racism to socialisation processes and individual characteristics rather than to broader systemic processes, they obviously resemble dominant academic – and more specifically, psychological – discourses on racism. Academic discourses in South Africa have typically tended to negate the extent of racism by arguing that the phenomenon is caused by a limited group of individuals who are predisposed to reproducing the phenomenon as a result of their socialisation and personality characteristics (see Duncan 1993).

This then leads us to the manner in which notions of difference were constructed within the discourses analysed.

Discourses on difference

The analysis of the texts produced by the focus group discussions produced six fairly distinct discursive themes related to group ‘difference’. To facilitate clarity of presentation and ease of reading, however, these themes have been collapsed into the following two broad thematic categories:

The construction of blacks in white racist ideology

An acute awareness of their construction as a negative and inferior Other in circulating racist discourses pervaded the discourses of the research participants:

Recently [on television] ... when that white guy said he can’t work with Africans because ... you can’t communicate with them ... their brains don’t function properly ... whatever. And I thought ... but who built all the things in South Africa? Who did all the labour? And he still has the nerve to say that he can’t work with blacks (Amelia, Interview 3).

You, as a so-called coloured ... [are] a lesser person (Allie, Interview 1).

They mean ... black people are barbaric (translated from Afrikaans, Eileen, Interview 4).

Black[s] or coloured[s] ... were treated as a different species and not as people (Leona, Interview 5).

You know, they think that [blacks] are not human ... They look at us like animals ... Why must they share with people they don’t think are people? (Laura, Interview 2).

The last statement above leads to another important finding. Not only were the participants acutely aware of their construction as a sub-human or negative Other, but the discourses analysed also reveal an awareness on the part of some of the participants of what the functions and consequences of this representation are. As Laura (see the quotation above) and some of the other participants pointed out – and in keeping with the dominant view amongst scholars in the area of racism – this representation basically enabled whites to justify white domination and privilege in this country. Furthermore, as Daphne (Interview 3) observed, if blacks were constructed as an inferior Other, they would ultimately believe this and act accordingly: At the back of their [blacks’] minds they must be thinking, "There must be something lacking in me. I must not be good enough, else that person would not have called me an animal" (Daphne, Interview 3).

If blacks are treated like animals they will [act] in such a manner (Daphne, Interview 3).

It is perhaps because they were aware of the possible legitimatory function which these dominant group representations of blacks could serve in the ideology of racism, and more specifically, the manner in which these representations negativise blacks, that the individuals interviewed (as illustrated by the following quotations) reacted to, or rejected, these representations as vehemently as they did: That they can say [we] are animals. This makes me so mad (Hannah, Interview 1).

Then I confronted this [white] woman. I said, "What do you mean [he is a] skolly?" I said, "He’s a little boy" (Amelia, Interview 3).

So I said, "Listen here, just don’t think that because I’m black ... I’m just a coloured" ... Sorry... "Just don’t think I don’t have the right to speak up" (Patricia, Interview 1).

Other reasons posited by the participants for their rejection of these representations are that they are ‘humiliating’, ‘offensive’, ‘traumatic’ and ‘cause damage’ (Patricia, Interview 1; Wayne, Interview 2; Merle, Interview 4; Jeanne, Interview 5), as well as the fact that they did not concur with the participants’ world view or religious beliefs which dictate that all people are equal in the eyes of God. In the words of one of the participants,

‘We are all God’s creation’ (Doreen, Interview 3).

Furthermore, as this speaker intimated, the ruling-class representation of blacks as ‘inferior’ to whites could be considered untenable simply because:

All our blood in our veins is red. Ours isn’t black and theirs isn’t white (Doreen, Interview 3). Here it is interesting to note that to add weight to their rejection of blacks’ negativisation in dominant group racist discourses, the participants in this study made use of elements from an array of ‘authoritative’ ‘scientific’ and theological discursive repertoires: from a ‘psychological’ discursive repertoire (‘[these representations are] humiliating’, ‘traumatic’ and ‘cause damage’), to a ‘medical’/ ‘biological’ repertoire (‘[Our blood] isn’t black and theirs isn’t white’), to a ‘sociological’ repertoire (‘[Difference is a result of] where they stay or the economic conditions’), to a ‘religious’/ ‘theological’ discursive repertoire (‘We are all God’s creation’). En passant, also informative to note is that, within the context of the texts analysed, the diverse reasons posited for the rejection of dominant group representations of blacks were all built on, or held together by, a strongly expressed belief (as illustrated in the foregoing excerpts) that these representations were both patently spurious and unmistakably harmful to black people.

While the majority of participants dismissed the representation of blacks as ‘inferior’ to whites out of hand, their response to dominant group constructions of (quasi innate) ‘differences’ amongst blacks, however, seemed much less unequivocal. To a certain extent, this is evidenced by the fact that a significant number of participants, at various points, when referring to the dominated in South Africa, consistently employed the labels traditionally used by the former apartheid regime in pursuit of its divide-and-rule policies; labels such as, ‘native’, ‘coloured’, ‘African’, ‘Xhosa’ and ‘blacks’ (as referring to only so-called Africans):

Once I met this native ... (Carmen, Interview 1, emphasis added).

And what do we coloureds have? (Doreen, Interview 3, emphasis added).

People who were raised in homes where the maids were black or coloured ... (Leona, Interview 5, emphasis added).

We have a little Xhosa boy, Angelo, in our class. We have another little girl, Amy ... she’s a coloured ... (Susan, Interview 5, emphasis added).

If that position had been with Africans ... they’d think the same way (Wayne, Interview 2, emphasis added).

While a significant number of participants appeared to experience no difficulty in employing the above-mentioned ‘racial’ descriptors traditionally used by the apartheid state in pursuit of its goal to divide blacks into various discrete racial categories, a large number of the participants appeared to avoid or resist the use of these labels. Indeed, as the focus group transcripts revealed, a large number of the participants seemed to be fairly reticent to employ these labels. Hence, when they were constrained to utilise labels like ‘coloured’, they would preface the term with distance markers such as ‘so-called’: They are raised to believe everything is theirs ... and that you as a so-called coloured ... is a lesser person (Allie, Interview 1).

The way in which some so-called coloureds have been brought up ... (Wayne, Interview 2).
 

By employing the term ‘so-called’, it is as if the participants wished to indicate that they did not accept the meaning normally given to the label that follows the term. The following speaker, while she did not preface the label ‘coloured’ with the term ‘so-called’, apologises instead when she is constrained to employ the label: So I said, "Listen here, just because you think that I’m black ... I’m a coloured ..." Sorry "... just don’t think that I do not have the right to speak up" (Patricia, Interview 1, emphasis added). Very interesting to note here as well is that the speaker further distances herself from the label ‘coloured’ by the manner in which she formulates her attack: ‘just because you think ... I’m coloured’ (instead of saying, ‘just because .... I’m coloured’, for example).

Another participant, June (Interview 5), instead of employing the label, ‘Indians’, spoke of people who come from ‘a strict Hindu tradition’. Other participants again, rather than using terms such as ‘coloured’, like Patricia above, frequently employed the term ‘black’ instead:

We grew up in the time when whites were this side and blacks were [that] side ... and [my] child wouldn’t understand that we went through things like that and now he’s got to confront, you know, "you’re blacks, so you can’t come where I am" (Laura, Interview 2).

But when he wanted to board there wasn’t any place for [my son], only for the white officers ... Just to show that white comes before black (Rita, Interview 1).

I don’t think whites can take everything that we can take. That’s why you’ll always find them shooting themselves. We blacks don’t do that again (Doreen, Interview 3)

The fact that all three these women were classified as ‘coloured’ by the apartheid regime obviously makes the statements presented above very significant. By referring to themselves or members of their families as ‘black’, they are firstly asserting that they do not accept their classification or construction as ‘coloureds’; and secondly, that they reject the meaning often given to the term by the former apartheid regime (namely, as referring only to ‘Africans’).

The apparent aversion to labels such as ‘coloured’ and ‘Indian’ also emerges fairly clearly from statements such as the following:

My sister went to work in a hospital in London. So she had to get a reference from the hospital here, but the whole letter just read, "She’s a coloured, she’s a coloured, she’s a coloured"... To them that means a lot here (Hannah, Interview 1).

Recently, on "Agenda", when that white guy said he can’t work with Africans because you can’t communicate with [them] ... And Monday still ... I thought that man said he can’t work with Africans ... But who built all the things in South Africa ... who did all the labour. I mean, whites always gave all the instructions and blacks did the work (Amelia, Interview 3).

While not stated explicitly, Hannah’s rejection of the term ‘coloured’ is nonetheless conveyed fairly unambiguously by the generally deprecating tone of her statement. Amelia also appears to take up a clear position regarding the use of the label ‘African’. While acknowledging ‘that white guy[‘s]’ use of the term ‘African’ in the first part of her statement (‘that white guy said he can’t work with Africans’), she opts for the term ‘black’ when she expresses her own opinion in the latter part of her statement.

A small number of the participants appeared to question the appropriateness of even the label ‘black’ when referring to the formerly disenfranchised in South Africa and consequently prefaced the label with the term ‘so-called’ when they were compelled to employ it:

Why do so-called black children at this crêche come out at this hour and whites come out at the next hour? (Ursula, Interview 4).

I think in South Africa it’s important for us to teach our children what life is about. I mean, especially when the news come on and reference is made to blacks, and you will have to say, "Not blacks, it’s just another man" (Ursula, Interview 4).

I grew up in District Six, and there we had all the colours of the rainbow. We all lived together. I think that parents have a great role to play in this ... in the sense that you learn certain values. One day when my mother got home and asked if anybody called ... then I said "Yes Mommy, there was a tall black man" [Laughs.] Then my mother always used to get upset. "That is not the way to describe somebody," she always used to tell me. "You don’t say that it is a tall black man ... It’s a man who was here. A tall man" (Leila, Interview 5).

On the whole, therefore, the participants’ reactions to their representation in dominant group discourses were relatively variable. On the one hand, they rejected the negative representation of blacks out of hand. On the other, however, their response to the (often) socially constructed differences among blacks was much more complex. For example, many of the participants appeared to employ the divisive apartheid inspired ‘race-ist’ labels without any apparent reservation. Very informatively, however, their discourses revealed no significant attempts at stereotyping or negativising any of the groups designated by these labels, indicating that, to a certain extent, these labels were assigned different meanings in these discourses to what they had in dominant group discourses. The participants’ discourses also revealed a marked tendency to highlight the lack of significant ‘differences’ amongst the black groups designated in their discourses. Furthermore, as evidenced in the following statement, where differences amongst blacks in South Africa were acknowledged, they were presented as largely a consequence of relatively specific socio-economic conditions for which the dominant group and the institutions under their control were ultimately responsible: It so happens that, coloureds live together ... blacks live together ... So, when you put them together you will notice the differences. It is because of where they stay or the economic conditions (Jeanne, Interview 5). To wit, if there were differences amongst the various black groups in South Africa, these differences were neither innate nor immutable.

While, in certain respects, there was a tendency in the discourses to deny or downplay the differences between formerly disenfranchised groups (as constructed within dominant group discourses), as reflected by the contents of the following theme, differences between blacks and whites appeared to be emphasised in the discourses analysed. This then leads to the following theme.

Constitution of whites in participants’ discourses

The central element contained in the representation of whites that emerged from the discourses comprising this theme was that the latter were fundamentally different to blacks in this country. This ‘differentness’ or ‘otherness’ was most frequently reflected in the strategic use of the pronouns ‘us’/ ‘we’ and ‘they’/ ‘them’. For example, the discourses analysed were inundated with statements such as: ‘They [whites] are always out to get us [blacks].’‘They [whites] think they are superior to us.’ (See for example, Hannah, Interview 1; Allie, Doreen, Interview 3; Ursula, Interview 4; Jeanne, Interview 5.) Yet, as many of the focus group participants maintained, whites are no better than blacks. Indeed, as the quotations presented below should illustrate, whites were presented in a decidedly negative light in the discourses analysed:

I again would contemplate telling my child how stupid they [whites] are ... you understand? ... and that my child is better than them. He must actually look down on them because they are not at his level (Hannah, Interview 1).

This was a Robin Jones dressing, so they could not put on only one bandage. Dit wys jou net hoe dom is die boere [That shows you how stupid the boers are] (Ursula, Interview 4).

I would tell my child not to believe these ignorant, stupid white people (Daphne, Interview 3).

Very interesting to note is the fact that whites’ ‘differentness’ generally was not ascribed to ‘cultural’ or other social factors. Like their racist attitudes, their ‘differentness’, in most cases, was attributed to personality factors. Thus, it was found that whites’ ‘differentness’ was attributed to the fact that they were ‘stupid’ (see quotations presented above), rude and generally lazier than blacks: They’re [i.e. whites are] uncouth pigs ... They’re not human (Daphne, Interview 3).

So I said, "Man, julle wit goed ... Julle’s onbeskof" Patricia, Interview 1).

They hate us so much, but the fact remains that the white man can’t make do without the black people, because the black man has to do everything. [The white man] can just stand with his cigar and his hands in his pockets and give orders. They can’t make do without us. (Doreen, Interview 3).

And Monday still ... I thought that man said he can’t work with Africans ... But who built all the things in South Africa ... who did all the labour. I mean, whites always gave all the instructions and blacks did the work (Amelia, Interview 3).

The dominant white group was also caricatured as avaricious, weak and as a group that was ‘not to be trusted’: I don’t think whites can take everything that we can take. That’s why you’ll always find them shooting themselves, gassing themselves. We blacks don’t do that again. We’re so used to having little. We can make do with little. The more whites get, the more they want (Doreen, Interview 3).

Allie: I don’t trust them [whites] as far ...

Hannah: As far as you can throw them! (Laughter)

Very interesting to note too, is that in the last two interview excerpts presented above, whites were not merely negativised, but reduced to the level of inanimate objects (‘wit goed’) and animals (‘not human’; ‘uncouth pigs’). Very importantly, however, these two statements constitute the only instances in the focus group discussions where whites were compared to animals or inanimate objects. This relatively ‘low’ frequency of instances where whites, as dominant Other, are relegated to the realm of the ‘non-human’ more or less corresponds with Kuper’s (1974) observations regarding dominated groups’ constructions of the Other. According to Kuper, while dominant groups often resort to reducing the Other to the level of animals and inanimate objects, this is less frequently the case in dominated groups’ discourses on the Other. The reason for this, he argues, is that dominant groups – unlike dominated groups – need to inferiorise the Other in order to justify their dominance; hence their easy and frequent recourse to animal and ‘non-human’ imagery when representing those whom they dominate.

Here I wish to reiterate a point raised in the first half of this chapter: the constitution of the Other simultaneously refracts an antithetical or opposite image of the Self. In other words, the negative representation constructed of whites concomitantly reflects a relatively positive image of blacks. Indeed, this representation of the latter was frequently stated fairly explicitly in the discourses analysed:

I don’t think whites can take everything that we can take. That’s why you’ll always find them shooting themselves, gassing themselves. We blacks don’t do that again. We’re so used to having little. We can make do with little. The more whites get, the more they want. We are so blessed with what we’ve got (Doreen, Interview 3).

I again would contemplate telling my child how stupid they [whites] are ... you understand? ... and that my child is better than them. He must actually look down on them because they are not at his level (Hannah, Interview 1).

To summarise, in the discourses analysed, whites were represented as craven, ‘stupid’, ‘greedy’, ‘lazy’ and ‘inhuman’. Interesting to note here is that the elements of this representation which the focus group participants constructed of whites are identical to those found in the representation of blacks which typically emerged from apartheid racist discourses (See Kuper 1974, Duncan 1993).

Bhabha (in Connors 1999: 265) argues that whites’ racist representations of blacks can largely be seen as reflections of unconscious fetishist projections

of those things which are disavowed by the [white] self. To objectify the frightening forms and forces of irrationality, perversity ... and evil in the shapes of the subjugated races is reassuringly to distance these forces’. If this is true, then possibly, what is reflected in the discourses of the focus group participants in relation to the representation of whites, is a re-projection of whites’ initial projections. It can be argued that whites’ projections are re-projected to them primarily because these projections are too painful and persecutory for the psyche of their original targets to deal with. Very interesting to note is that the content of these ‘detoxifying’ re-projections are frequently formulated within the same language as the initial projections. As Raboul (1980: 40) observes in this regard, ‘an oppressed group will appropriate the language of the oppressor [in order to oppose the latter’s discourse]’.

While the negative representation of the (white) Other that emerged from the discourses of the focus group participants correspond in large measure with the negative representation of the Other characterising whites’ racist discourses during the apartheid period, it can however be seen to differ from the latter in one important respect. Whereas the latter served the function of legitimating existing relations of domination, the former, as writers such as Kuper (1974) and Essed (1991) contend, essentially serve as a means whereby blacks endeavour to defend themselves against whites’ attempts to inferiorise and dehumanise them (and in this sense then cannot be considered as racist). Furthermore, as indicated in the last selection of participant statements above, through a process of refraction, the negative representation of the Other allows the targets of racism to construct a positive representation of the Self. Therborn (1980: 28) argues that this difference between ‘racially’ dominant and dominated groups’ negative constructions of the Other is ‘inscribed in the asymmetry of [racial] domination.’

Obviously, this does not mean that the focus group participants’ representation of whites is devoid of power. On the contrary: there is always an exercise of power involved in the representation of the (white) Other. Representing all whites as, amongst others, ‘stupid’, ‘greedy’, ‘lazy’ and ‘inhuman’, as the focus group participants did, is an exercise in power. However, as Connor (1999) observes, this kind of power is based on a representation which – like the representation of blacks in racist discourses – stereotypes the Other. As writers such as Biko (1988) and Connor (1999) observe, ‘fixing’ the other in such a representation is problematic for a range of reasons. The most important of these reasons is that it inevitably traps the targets of racism in a negative discourse in which they become the ‘ventriloqual echo’ of the Other (Connor 1999: 264), rather than subjects speaking in their own voice, on their own terms, and in their own discourses – which, according to Biko (1988) is one of the more crucial pre-conditions for the full actualisation and liberation of dominated groups.

Here it should be pointed out that the essentialised stereotypification of whites reflected in the focus group participants’ discourses is at times countered by various discordant portrayals of the former. For example, at various points (admittedly, very infrequently) in the interview transcripts analysed, whites’ intrinsic ‘humanness’ and ‘sameness’ are emphasised or acknowledged. The following quotations more or less illustrate this ‘alternative’ characterisation of whites:

Maybe these [AWB] whites were brought up in this manner ... I just think that maybe they were brought up ... I don’t know (Wayne, Interview 2).

I think a person must feel sorry for these [AWB] people. In fact, I always feel ... that these people must feel very insecure, very threatened (Leona, Interview 1).

We are all [i.e. blacks and whites] God’s creation (Doreen, Interview 3)

In essence, Wayne and Leona’s statements seem to imply that it is because of such ‘human’ weaknesses as their fear or insecurity and their socialisation that whites are racist.

While much more can be said of the discourses considered in this chapter, because of space constraints, unfortunately, I will have to terminate my discussions on these discourses at this point.

By way of conclusion

By way of conclusion, it might be useful to note some of the more informative aspects of the study on which this chapter is based. Firstly, and not surprisingly – given the indisputably deleterious effects of racism on the lives of its targets – the participants in this study were unanimous in their rejection of their representation in, and the logic of, racism. Particularly noteworthy in this regard, however, is the outright rejection on the part of some of the participants of the apartheid-engineered divisions among blacks. Certainly, a significant number of the participants quite frequently lapsed into using various apartheid inspired ‘race-ist’ labels to designate blacks (e.g. ‘coloured’, ‘Indian’, and ‘native’). However, in the discourses analysed, these labels (and particularly the label, ‘coloured’) are rejected unequivocally by many of the participants. Moreover, the underlying message that emerges fairly unambiguously from the discourses is that there are ‘no meaningful differences’ between the various black groups constructed by the ideology of apartheid. This finding should be instructive to those ethnic entrepreneurs, who – frequently, in their quest for political power – so easily appeal to, and exploit notions of ‘ethnic difference’ (See Harvey 2000).

Secondly, while the focus group participants tended to reject or underplay the existence of significant differences amongst blacks, they generally were inclined to emphasise differences between blacks on the one hand, and whites, on the other. Perhaps this is because of an awareness that the major dividing line in South African society lies, not between putatively ‘different’ black groups, but between white and black, i.e. those who have traditionally benefited from institutionalised racism in this country, and those who have not. If this is the message which the participants in this study had intended to convey, then it is a message that politicians and social scientists would do well to heed. The problem of racism in South Africa will not be solved by seeking out and ‘fetishising’ differences between racialised groups, but rather by seeking ways of eliminating the conditions which perpetuate the privileges of whites at the expense of blacks.

The third finding of note which emerges from the study on which this chapter is based, concerns the attempts by the participants in the study to re-construct a positive representation of the Self (i.e. in relation to the negative representation of blacks contained in circulating racist discourses). As reflected in the discourses analysed, the primary means whereby this is attempted is through a process of inversion; a process by means of which the elements of the representation of blacks contained in the ideology of racism are re-projected to whites. While attempting to construct a positive representation of the Self in this manner is understandable, as Biko (1988) remarks, it should not be considered the best strategy available to blacks to defend themselves against the debilitating negative representation of the Self contained in the racist discourses of the Other. Defending the Self against the destructiveness of white racism, while simultaneously affirming the Self, Biko (1988) argues, should not be done within the discourse of white racism. It is perhaps for this reason that some of the focus group participants, in the face of the predominantly negative portrayals of whites by the majority of the participants, appeared to stress the essential ‘humanness’ of the Other, and, therefore, the similarities between the Self and the Other.

A final notable feature of the study dealt with in this chapter concerns the contradictions which emerge from the discourses analysed. While the study reflects various discursive elements that can be considered decidedly anti-racist, it also contains various elements that unmistakably feed into the ideology of racism. A possible reason for these contradictions can be found in Gramsci’s (1978, in Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke and Roberts 1984) observation that common sense interpretations of the uneven relations of power reflected in contemporary society (and, to a large extent, the focus group participants’ explanations of the ideology of racism dealt with in this chapter, are ‘common-sensical’ in nature), by their very nature inevitably are eclectic and unorganised. Because they are eclectic and disjointed, they invariably are contradictory. Common sense (as opposed to ‘scholarly’ or ‘literary’) discourse, Gramsci (in Hall et al. 1984: 49) posits,

is strangely composite, it contains elements from the Stone Age and principles of a more advanced science, prejudices from all past phases of history at the local level and intuitions of a future philosophy which will be that of a human race united the world over. If this observation is correct then, notwithstanding the ‘reactionary’ elements reflected in the discourses contained in this chapter, there certainly is much that can be learnt from these discourses in terms of dealing with issues of difference and the problem of racism in South Africa today.
 



NOTES

1.  Here I am obviously not arguing for a position where the meanings given to racism by the targets of racism are privileged over, and to the exclusion of, those of other social agents. As a reading of Gramsci’s (1978, in Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke and Roberts 1984. See also concluding section of this chapter) views on common-sensical interpretations of social phenomena will reveal, such a position would be highly problematic. What I am arguing for is that due recognition be accorded to insights of everyone affected by racism, particularly those most adversely affected by the phenomenon.
2.  That is, people who, within the racist discourses of the ancien regime were constructed as different both to whites and ‘Africans’ (the main role-players in the racist drama of apartheid, according to the proponents of this ideology); and people whom, in the run-up to the 1994 general elections, it was frequently claimed in party political discourses, considered themselves to be ‘different’ from both ‘whites’ and ‘Africans’. (In apartheid ideological discourse, the term ‘Africans, generally did not refer to the inhabitants of the continent, Africa, but was used primarily as a marker of ‘racial’ identity. Hence the term’s insertion between inverted commas here.)
3.  Given space constraints a discussion of the method of analysis will not be provided here. Interested readers are, however, referred to Duncan (1993), Levett (1989), Wetherell and Potter (1988), and Thompson (1984) for a full description of this analytical framework. For a brief description of the method of analysis, see Appendix B.
4.   Space constraints do not allow for a thorough examination of these debates. However, readers interested in a detailed account of these debates are referred to Barkan (1991), Lieberman (1975) and Montagu (1969).
5.  En passant, at a psychological level, the Other, as constructed in the alter ideology of the dominant group normally reflects the projected fears, inadequacies and anxieties of the dominant group.
6.  See, for example, Alexander (1987), Memmi (1982), Miles (1989), and van Dijk (1987).
7.   In apartheid South Africa, when any crimes or scandals involving blacks were reported in the state media, mention was inevitably made of ‘race’ of those involved. Ursula is therefore probably responding not only to the use of the term black, but also to the accompanying representation of blacks typically conveyed by the media.
8.   Here the reader is referred to a very informative article by van Dijk (1987) on the strategic use in racism-related discourses of the pronouns of solidarity and attitudinal distancing employed in these quotations.
9.  Here I take cognisance of the frequently stated criticism that by resorting to psychoanalytic terms to describe and analyse racism, one risks representing the phenomenon as an individual problem, which it is not. However, my contention is that racism is a complex phenomenon that operates at various levels, including at an intra-psychic level. Consequently, it is important that one’s attempts to explain the functioning of the phenomenon accounts for all of the levels at which it operates.



References

Alexander, N. (1987) Sow the wind. Contemporary speeches (Johannesburg: Skotaville).

Barkan, E. (1991) The retreat of scientific racism (Cambridge: CUP).

Biko, S. (1988) I write what I like (London: Penguin).

Boonzaier, E. (1988) ‘Race’ and the race paradigm. In E. Boonzaier and J. Sharp (eds), South African key words. The uses and abuses of political concepts (Claremont: David Philip, 58-67).

Boswell, T., Kiser, E. and Baker, K. (1986) Recent developments in Marxist theories of ideology. The Insurgent Sociologist, 13(4), 5-22.

Bozzoli, B. (1987) Class, community and conflicts (Johannesburg: Ravan Press).

Brah, A. (1992) Difference, diversity and differentiation. In J. Donald and A. Rattansi (eds), ‘Race’, culture and difference  (London: Open University, 126-145).

Bulhan, H. A. (1985) Frantz Fanon and the psychology of oppression (New York: Plenum Press).

Carrim, N. (1995) From ‘race’ to ethnicity: shifts in the educational discourses of South Africa and Britain in the 1990s. Compare, 25(1), 17-33.

Chesler, M. A. (1976) Contemporary sociological theories of racism. In P. A. Katz (ed.), Towards the elimination of racism (New York: Pergamon Press).

Connor, S. (1999) Postmodernist culture (London: Blackwell).

Cooper, S. (1990) The violence of apartheid on the family. Psychology Quarterly, 1(1), 2-3.

Donald, J. and Rattansi, A. (eds) (1992) ‘Race’, culture and difference (London: Open University).

Duncan, N. (1993) Discourses on racism. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of the Western Cape, Bellville.

Essed, P. (1991) Understanding everyday racism (Newbury: Sage).

Essed, P. (1987) Academic racism (Amsterdam: CRES Publications).

Fanon, F. (1990) The wretched of the earth (London: Penguin).

Foster, D. (1991) On racism: virulent mythologies and fragile threads. Inaugural lecture (University of Cape Town).

Goldberg, D. (1987)Raking the field of the discourses of racism. Journal of black studies, 18(1), 58-71.

Gramsci, A. (1978) Selections from political writing (London: Lawrence & Wishart).

Hall, S., Critcher, G., Jefferson, T., Clarke, J. and Roberts, B. (1984) Policing the crisis: mugging, the State and law and order (London: MacMillan).

Harvey, E. (2000) What exactly is this ‘racism’? Mail & Guardian, 17-23 March, 32.

Keeton, C. (2000) A way to counter racism in the media. Sowetan, 7 March, 11.

Kuper, L. (1974) Race, class and power. Ideology and revolutionary change in plural societies (London: Duckworth).

Levett, A. (1989) Psychological trauma: discourses of childhood abuse. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town.

Lieberman, L. (1975) The debate over race. A study in social knowledge. In A. Montagu (ed.), Race and IQ (New York: OUP).

Media Monitoring Project (1999) The news in black and white: an investigation into racial stereotyping in the media. Johannesburg: South African Human Rights Commission.

Meintjies, F. (2000) Where were the victims of media racism? Sunday Times, 19 March, 24.

Memmi, A. (1982) Le racisme (Brassi?re ? Saint-Amand: Gallimard).

Montagu, (1969) The concept of race (London: Collier).

Miles, R. (1989) Racism (London: Routledge).

Pickel, B. (1996) Ethnicity and community awareness in the former coloured areas. Unpublished research report, Human Sciences Research Council/Multi-Party Democracy, Cape Town.

Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (1990) Legitimating or deligitimating new forms of racism. The role of researchers. Journal of multilingual and multicultural development, 11(1/2), 77-99.

Stringer, C. (1997) The myth that tears us apart. Mail & Guardian, 2-8 May, 15.

Stevens, G. (1997) Understanding ‘race’ and racism: a return to traditional scholarship. PRC Occasional Publications Series. Bellville, University of the Western Cape.

Therborn, (1980) The ideology of power and the power of ideology (London: Verso).

Thompson, J. B. (1990) Ideology and modern culture (London: Polity Press).

Thompson, J. B. (1984) Studies in the theory of ideology (Cambridge: Polity Press).

Van Dijk, T. (1987) Discourse and the reproduction of racism (Amsterdam: CRES).

Wetherell, M. and Potter, J. (1988) Discourse analysis and the identification of interpretative repertoires. In C. Antaki (ed.) Analyzing everyday explanations (London: Sage).

Wilkinson, B. (1996) Report lays bare apartheid?s legacy of poverty and despair. The Sunday Independent, 28 January, 7.


APPENDIX A

Vignette 1

At the beginning of this year a small group of black parents and primary school teachers took their children (all aged between five and twelve years) to the public swimming pool in De Aar. Although this particular swimming pool had in the past been reserved for the exclusive use of whites, some time during the course of last year, it had been opened to all De Aar residents.

On arriving at the pool, the children immediately jumped into the water. They had, however, not been in the pool for more than five minutes when they were approached by a group of white men who shouted at them to leave. Some of the children left the pool, but those who did not do so quickly enough were severely assaulted by the men. The latter told them that they should never come back to the swimming pool as it had been built for the exclusive use of whites and not for the sue of ‘animals’. When one of the parents tried to intervene he was also assaulted. The children and their parents and teachers left soon afterwards.
 

Vignette 2

Recently, a member of the Blanke Bevrydingsbeweging (BBB) was interviewed on television. He had the following to say about the people living in South Africa:

 There are basically two groups of people in South Africa: the white race and the non-white mud races. In order to protect its purity, the white race should have no contact with the mud races. God has created the white race superior to the mud races and it is consequently the white race’s duty to avoid being contaminated by the mud races. For this reason, whites should not send their children to schools where there are African, Indian and coloured children. Whites should guard against intimate relations with the lesser races. To sleep with a black is like sleeping with an animal; and we know that it is against God’s law. It is God’s will that the superior white race should never mix with the inferior mud races.

APPENDIX B

The method of analysis

The analysis utilised in the study was conducted within the framework of Thompson’s (1990, 1984) ‘depth-hermeneutics’ approach. The key objective of depth hermeneutics is to serve as broad methodological framework within which various methods of textual analysis can be situated (Thompson 1990, 1984). The primary value of depth hermeneutics resides in the fact that it allows for the analysis of not only texts, but also the contexts in which the latter are produced. As such, it is inordinately suited to the examination of ideological phenomena such as racism (Thompson 1990).

Briefly, Thompson’s (1990, 1984) depth hermeneutics approach to the analysis of textual data consists of the following three overlapping phases or dimensions of analysis:

The dimension of socio-historical analysis: When analysing social texts, an analysis of the socio-historical conditions in which these productions are generated is important, because as Thompson (1990) correctly observes, symbolic productions do not arise and exist in a vacuum. They are generated in specific socio-historical conditions. Hence, the aim of this first level of Thompson’s depth-hermeneutics framework is to reconstruct the socio-historical conditions of the (re)production and reception of the texts subjected to analysis.

The dimension of discursive analysis: Social texts are not only socio-historically located productions. They are also complex language productions which ‘display an articulated structure’ and which ‘claim to ... say something about something’ (Thompson 1990, p. 284). It is this feature of texts which necessitates this second dimension of analysis, namely the dimension of formal or discursive analysis. In view of the exploratory nature of the study on which this chapter is based, a thematic analysis based on Wetherell and Potter (1988) as well as Levett’s (1989) approaches to the analysis of qualitative data was performed at this level of analysis.

The dimension of interpretation: The final phase of the depth hermeneutics approach is what Thompson (1990) refers to as the dimension of interpretation. While analysis at this dimension is facilitated by the discursive analysis, it also differs fundamentally from the latter. Discursive analysis essentially proceeds by analysing, breaking down, and deconstructing the texts studied. Conversely, the process of interpretation proceeds by synthesising the product of the discursive analysis (Thompson 1990). Given the plurivocity of symbolic forms and the creative or synthetic nature of the interpretative process, the researcher’s interpretations are obviously open to contention and conflict (Thompson 1990).

Here it must be emphasised that though the methodological framework outlined above is presented in various stages, these stages are not discrete. Rather, they are interrelated phases of a complex, but single ongoing process. In this chapter, therefore, these stages will not be reflected in the neat sequence outlined above.


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