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Discourse of whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa, as reflected in letters to the editor in the Cape Argus and Cape Times

Includes abstract.

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Gartushka, Itai
Other Authors: Jubber, Ken
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Sociology 2014
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access_status_str Open Access
author Gartushka, Itai
author2 Jubber, Ken
author_browse Gartushka, Itai
Jubber, Ken
author_facet Jubber, Ken
Gartushka, Itai
author_sort Gartushka, Itai
collection Thesis
description Includes abstract.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8245
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:06.010Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2014
publishDateRange 2014
publishDateSort 2014
publisher Department of Sociology
publisherStr Department of Sociology
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8245 Discourse of whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa, as reflected in letters to the editor in the Cape Argus and Cape Times Gartushka, Itai Jubber, Ken Sociology Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-104). South Africa's post-apartheid era of democracy has required whites to renegotiate their identities within a new dispensation; a task whites have responded to in ways ranging from deep acceptance to strong resistance. For whites who resist the new dispensation, the aim is to find ways of maintaining white privilege despite the end of apartheid. Based on this contention, the present study investigated how discourses of whiteness were justified and normalised in post-apartheid public discourse - namely in letters to the editor. Letters to the editor, printed during 2007 in two daily Cape newspapers - the Cape Argus and the Cape Times - were categorised into themes with the aid of NVivo. Two themes that dealt with issues of post-apartheid transformation were selected for detailed analysis using discourse analysis. The first theme explored resistance to street renaming in Cape Town and the second theme explored resistance to transformation in Springbok rugby within the context of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. An additional, pervasive theme which included white negativity towards Africa, and notions of white victimisation in the new dispensation, was also briefly explored. The analysis revealed the robustness of discursive attempts to block transformation within sites chosen for transformation. Moreover, it revealed how such discursive attempts were framed in ways that naturalised and normalised whiteness within the context of the new dispensation. These findings are congruent with a general view of whiteness as a shifting, flexible construct, and confirm the need to continuously investigate the changing discursive strategies employed to maintain whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa. 2014-10-08T09:36:22Z 2014-10-08T09:36:22Z 2009 Master Thesis Masters MSocSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8245 eng application/pdf Department of Sociology Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Sociology
Gartushka, Itai
Discourse of whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa, as reflected in letters to the editor in the Cape Argus and Cape Times
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Discourse of whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa, as reflected in letters to the editor in the Cape Argus and Cape Times
title_full Discourse of whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa, as reflected in letters to the editor in the Cape Argus and Cape Times
title_fullStr Discourse of whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa, as reflected in letters to the editor in the Cape Argus and Cape Times
title_full_unstemmed Discourse of whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa, as reflected in letters to the editor in the Cape Argus and Cape Times
title_short Discourse of whiteness in post-apartheid South Africa, as reflected in letters to the editor in the Cape Argus and Cape Times
title_sort discourse of whiteness in post apartheid south africa as reflected in letters to the editor in the cape argus and cape times
topic Sociology
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8245
work_keys_str_mv AT gartushkaitai discourseofwhitenessinpostapartheidsouthafricaasreflectedinletterstotheeditorinthecapeargusandcapetimes