Can We Unlearn Racism? : What South Africa Teaches Us About Whiteness / Jacob R. Boersema.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Boersema, Jacob R., Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Post-apartheid era--South Africa.

Post-apartheid era.

Racism--South Africa.

Racism.

White people--Race identity--South Africa.

White people.

White people--South Africa--Attitudes.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (320 p.)

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2022]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In contemporary South Africa, power no longer maps neatly onto race. While white South Africans continue to enjoy considerable power at the top levels of industry, they have become a demographic minority, politically subordinate to the black South African population. To be white today means having to adjust to a new racial paradigm. In this book, Jacob Boersema argues that this adaptation requires nothing less than unlearning racism: confronting the shame of a racist past, acknowledging privilege, and, to varying degrees, rethinking notions of nationalism. Drawing on more than 150 interviews with a cross-section of white South Africans—representationally diverse in age, class, and gender—Boersema details how they understand their whiteness and depicts the limits and possibilities of individual, and collective, transformation. He reveals that the process of unlearning racism entails dismantling psychological and institutional structures alike, all of which are inflected by emotion and shaped by ideas of culture and power. Can We Unlearn Racism? pursues a question that should be at the forefront of every society's collective consciousness. Theoretically rich and ethnographically empathetic, this book offers valuable insights into the broader sociological process of unlearning, relevant today to communities all around the world.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: White without Whiteness

Chapter 2: Coming to Terms with Whiteness

Chapter 3: Elites and White Identity Politics

Chapter 4: Populism and White Minoritization

Chapter 5: White Embodiment and the Working Class

Chapter 6: Whiteness at Home

Chapter 7: Unlearning Racism at School

Conclusion: Learning from South Africa

Appendix: Methodological and Theoretical Considerations

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 02. Mrz 2022)

ISBN:

9781503627796

1503627799