Ambivalent Whiteness in South Africa: Internationalizing Whiteness Studies in Educational Research

• In Event: 35.081 - Roundtable Session 13
  In Roundtable Session: 35.081-17 - Critical Education Across Multiple Spaces

Abstract

Based on interview data collected in 2011 from interviews with 12 white practicing teachers in Rosewood, South Africa I show how four participants in particular used racist/white supremacist discourse despite their own stated commitments to antiracism and their material antiracist practices with students in schools. This “white ambivalence” (Lensmire & Snaza (2010); Irby, Hall, & Hill (2013)) is the contradiction between using racially violent speech in the process of explaining one’s commitments to antiracism. I explore what such recurring manifestations of white ambivalence mean for future research on whiteness in education and pay particular attention to what the South African context enables, and makes more challenging, as we continue to theorize and research praxis-based pedagogies to counteract structural white supremacy.

Author

• Zachary A. Casey, Rhodes College