Whiteness in the Free State and Texas: A Duoethnographic Exploration of South African and U.S. Contexts

• In Event: (Re)New(Ed) and Intersectional Discourses of (Anti-)Racism, Politics, and Identity

Abstract

This unique, ongoing, collaboration between researchers from The Free State, South Africa and Texas, USA are undertaking a collaboration to explore whiteness in two places with legacies of violent colonial systems. These places differ in their approach to confronting their histories. At apartheid’s end in 1994, South Africa committed to racial reconciliation with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, while Texas, has renewed efforts to keep teachers and students from critically engaging with the past by prohibiting the centering of African American and Latinx perspectives and challenges to American Exceptionalism. This presentation will discuss the ongoing conversation and ongoing Duoethnography (Sawyer & Norris, 2013) where two scholars discuss their own whiteness and positionality in these colonized spaces.

Authors

• Michael L. Boucher, Texas A&M University - San Antonio

• Marthinus Conradie, University of the Free State