Academic representations of ‘race’ and racism in psychology: Knowledge production, historical...

International Journal of Intercultural Relations

27 (2003) 189–207

Academic representations of ‘race’ and racismin psychology: Knowledge production, historical

context and dialectics in transitionalSouth Africa

Garth Stevens*

Center for peace Action, Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa, P.O. Box 1087,

Lenasia, Johannesburg 1820, South Africa

Received 7 May 2001; received in revised form 8 November 2001; accepted 14 March 2002

Abstract

The paper critically reviews thematic patterns and trends pertaining to constructions of

‘race’ and racism within South African psychology’s formal discourse between 1990 and 2000.

It notes that clear differences emerge temporally with shifts in the socio-historical terrain of

South African society, and it is the author’s contention that these manifestations relate directly

to ideological, political, social and economic conditions prevalent in South Africa and within

the global context. Political transformation and its associated perceived threats to economic,

social and cultural integrity; the impact of globalization and neo-liberal ideologies; and the

contested institutional dynamics underpinning ‘race’ and racism in postapartheid South Africa

are all explored as potential factors contributing to these academic discourses within South

African psychology. The study is a thematic analysis of the South African Journal of

Psychology during this period and highlights the shifting ontological, epistemological and

methodological frameworks as they relate to the study of ‘race’ and racism. Furthermore, it

provides us with the basis to examine how academia dialectically engages with ideological

contestations pervading the social fabric and mirrors material and historical shifts in the

political and socio-economic landscapes of South Africa. The paper argues for a revisiting of

critical understandings of ‘race’ and racism within the framework of modernity, a re-

commitment to historical and materialist deconstructions of ‘race’ and racism and cautions

against the potential contradictions within postmodernist understandings of these social

scientific phenomena. However, it simultaneously acknowledges the changing social and

economic relations upon which modernist theorizing has been premised and suggests a

theoretical re-calibration that allows for the interface between the benefits of critical theory

*Corresponding author. Tel.: +27-11-857-1142; fax.: +27-1-857-1770.

E-mail address: [email protected] (G. Stevens).

0147-1767/03/$ - see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/S0147-1767(02)00092-5

and postmodernism in order to begin to reflexively understand manifestations of ‘race’ and

racism in the new global context.

r 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: ‘Race’; Racism; Psychology; Academic discourses; South Africa; Representations; Modernism;

Postmodernism

1. Introduction

During the turbulent apartheid years in South Africa, the social sciences andhumanities displayed complex relationships to the social, political and economicstatus quo. Whilst always being characterized by internal ideological debate,disciplines such as sociology (Alexander, 1985), economic history (Saul & Gelb,1986) and political science (Wolpe, 1988) all attempted to provide credible analysesof the relationship between racism and economic exploitation, and therefore anunderstanding of the prevailing intergroup relations in South Africa. On the otherhand, several disciplines that could broadly be characterized as helping professions(including medicine, its allied professions and psychology) were all much lessvociferous in their critique of the social, political and economic crisis facing SouthAfrica and its populace (Baldwin-Ragaven, de Gruchy, & London, 1999). This waspartly due to the historical conservatism of these disciplines, but was also due to theirprofessionalization, the resultant guild mentality, and the associated economicbenefits of supporting an oppressive social system (Nell, 1993). Psychology as ahistorical case in point was not only unable, but unwilling to examine reflexively themanner in which it had contributed to the formation and maintenance of theseparticularly brutal intergroup relations.

Moreover, psychology did not merely display a lack of commitment to criticalreflexivity, but for the most part engaged directly in forms of knowledge productionthat invariably supported stereotypical notions of ‘race’1 and therefore, alsooppressive social relations in South Africa. During the early 1900s the disciplinehad already adopted a firm ideological position in relation to both knowledgeproduction and praxis in South Africa. Several authors have highlighted thecomplicitous relationship between psychology and a white, racist, politicalhegemony that had emerged in postcolonial South Africa (Duncan, van Niekerk,de la Rey, & Seedat, 2001; Nicholas, 1993; Nicholas & Cooper, 1990). This was tohave a fundamental impact on the very structure of the discipline and profession aswell as the content that drove research and praxis for years to come. At the peak ofthe crisis in the South African social formation during the 1960s and 1970s, socialpsychology was also engaged in its own internal crisis of social relevance (Foster &Louw-Potgieter, 1991). This period witnessed alternative social psychological

1The placing of words or concepts between single quotation marks generally indicates that its validity is

being queried, and suggests that the meaning broadly ascribed to the concept or word is not accepted by

the author. For a further explication of this process, see Duncan (1993).

G. Stevens / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 27 (2003) 189–207190

attempts to explain intergroup relations and even to generate potential mechanismsand strategies for intergroup harmony. However, even these attempts were oftenreliant upon the work of international scholars such as Dollard, Doob, Miller,Mower, & Sears (1939), Clark & Clark (1939), Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik,Levinson, & Sanford (1950), Sherif (1966), Gurr (1972), Pettigrew (1969) and Tajfel(1981), amongst others, and had limited application to South Africa because of theirinability to provide explanatory linkages between the prevailing intergroup dynamicsand racism as an ideology (Foster & Louw-Potgieter, 1991).

In the last two decades, South African scholars of psychology have increasinglycritiqued the conservative role that the discipline has played with regard to ‘race’ andracism and have also made significant contributions to newer and more relevantresearch efforts (Duncan, van Niekerk, de la Rey, & Seedat, 2001; Nicholas, 1993;Nicholas & Cooper, 1990; Seedat, Duncan, & Lazarus, 2001). Despite newcontestations, the degree to which critical reflexivity has been internalized in awidespread manner in the discipline and profession is unclear. Furthermore, thereappears to be a general malaise with regard to newer studies on ‘race’ and racism inSouth Africa at present. Even though ‘race’ has been central to South Africanhistory for the past 350 years and is certainly pivotal to social transformation, onlyapproximately one quarter of the publications in the South African Journal ofPsychology address ‘race’ directly or indirectly from 1990 to 2000. This is a relativelysmall proportion, given the importance of ‘race’ as a social scientific phenomenon inSouth Africa.

This paper therefore explores publication themes and trends emerging from withinthe discipline of psychology in South Africa over the past 10 years (i.e. from 1990 to2000), by examining the corpus of the only accredited psychological journal in SouthAfrica, namely the South African Journal of Psychology. This is critical as theproduction of formal knowledge is in itself a contested ideological process andreflects similar contestations in society at large. More importantly, it plays asignificant role in helping to shape commonsense discourses and practices related toracism (Cornforth, 1963; Thompson, 1984; Van Dijk, 1991). Whilst the study is anon-exhaustive thematic exploration, it does provide us with a snapshot of academicpublications and the shifting ontological, epistemological, theoretical and metho-dological frameworks that characterize constructions of ‘race’ and racism during thisperiod. Furthermore, it provides us with the basis for examining how academicconstructions and representations (that are often elevated to the level of beingcompletely reflexive) consciously or unwittingly mirror and engage with socialprocesses within South Africa during this period.

2. ‘Race’ and racism in contemporary South Africa

As discourses of ‘deracialization’ have become infused and mainstreamed into theprocess of social transformation in South Africa since the first democratic electionsin 1994, there appears to be less questioning of the validity of the construct of ‘race’and even less emphasis on the critical study and research into ‘race’ and racism. This

G. Stevens / International Journal of Intercultural Relations 27 (2003) 189–207 191

type of response amongst academics, social scientists and ordinary people is notunusual after periods of protracted, ‘racialised’, social conflict. It appears to be onepotential avoidance reaction when confronted with the imperative of criticallyreflecting on a society’s oppressive social behaviors, conditions, history and legacy(Stevens, 1996). On the one hand, it serves to normalize, deny and deflectresponsibility away from broader structural processes to the realm of the individualand the group context. On the other hand, heightened levels of social fatigue anddisillusionment that settle in after prolonged periods of conflict, personal traumas,the strong prevalence of a socially desirable reconciliatory discourse, and threats toexisting social, political, ideological and economic power bases may all in partaccount for this tendency (Stevens, 1996). Whatever the reasons, South Africansociety’s pre-occupation with not being pre-occupied with ‘race’ and racism providesan initial impetus for continued critical research, theorizing and study into thesephenomena. With regard to the psychological research that has been conducted,several contending approaches to the understanding of ‘race’ and racism—withdiffering ontological and epistemological bases—coexist and need to be consideredin any interpretations of the varied characterizations of ‘race’ and racism in SouthAfrica during this period.

Firstly, from a critical Marxist perspective relying on historical materialism, thestructural origins of racism are rooted in colonialism, imperialism and industrializa-tion (which are themselves constitutive elements of modernity). Despite the changingnature of global capitalism, a compelling modernist argument for theorizing on‘race’ today lies in the fact that as an ideology, racism has adjusted and adaptedwithin this new global context and its structural basis remains, even if in an alteredstate (Miles, 1994). This is also apparent from a historical and materialist analysis ofthe development and contemporary condition of the South African social formationand political economy (Alexander, 1992; Brecker, 1994; Bond, 1994, 2000).

Secondly, there is a widely expressed view that equates the dismantling of theapartheid state apparatus with the eradication of racism. This facilitates the denial ofany current social responsibility and minimizes negative internal attributions,allowing agents of racism to distance themselves from social inequalities that havetheir ongoing basis in the social system. At a more sophisticated level, this denial of a‘racialised’ past with contemporary and future consequences is epitomized in a clean-slate argument in which the former oppressors and the former oppressed nowapparently operate on a leveled playing field, due to the visible re-direction of socialskills and services toward the formerly disenfranchised black2 populace (Stevens,1996). The denial of racism is often found in contexts undergoing social change andis a more covert symbolic racism that emerges when social pressure dictates that

2The term black is utilized generically in this paper to include all people historically not labelled as

white. In South Africa it is a concept derived from the Black Consciousness Movement and is usually

utilized in a unifying manner, in opposition to the divisive and racist population classification system

which existed under Apartheid (Ramphele, 1995). However, it is the subjective choice of the author and

does not negate that there may be varied and diverse articulations, experiences and understandings of

being black.


overt expressions of racism are counterproductive and inappropriate (Sears, 1988;Van Dijk, 1987).

Finally, postmodernist arguments supporting the idea of multiple, valid truthsarising from varied experiences of social reality, diffuse sets of identities andfragmented and fluid social relations place the emphasis on subjectivities and inter-subjectivities. Here again, while there appears to be both a theoretical and empiricalbasis for such an argument, it also has the potential to nullify views that implicatesocial systems or components thereof in the production and perpetuation of racism;and to relegate ‘race’ and racism to the position of identity politics (Eagleton, 1996).

The rapid and fluid social transformation in South African society over the lastdecade clearly represents a fundamental point for social inquiry into issues of ‘race’and racism. Theorizing about ‘race’ and racism has needed to adjust to thistransformation, especially as articulations of Self and Other have becomeincreasingly complex and difficult to predict and understand (Duncan & de laRey, 2000; Rattansi & Westwood, 1994). Moreover, the imperative for thoseinvolved in theorizing and other formal knowledge production to evaluate themanner in which knowledge reflects and shapes everyday discourses and socialcontexts, is critical as we attempt to responsibly build non-’racialism’ and anti-racism.

3. Methodology

Within the present study, approximately 100 articles from the South AfricanJournal of Psychology (1990–2000) were selected and reviewed at the level of theirtitles and abstracts. In an attempt to be as inclusive as possible, articles with a directand indirect focus on ‘race’ and racism were incorporated into the data set. Theinclusive nature of the data set meant that not only were critical appraisals of ‘race’and racism sought out within the literature, but also as many discursive expressionsof ‘race’ and racism as possible. Abstracts were utilized to verify the nature of thearticle, especially since titles often represent the content of articles cryptically orabstractly. Whilst this appears to be a sizeable amount of literature within the dataset, and reflects approximately one quarter of all articles published within the SouthAfrican Journal of Psychology during this period, it should be noted that theyincluded several special issues that were in some way related to issues of ‘race’ andracism (e.g. the Truth and Reconciliation issue, two special issues on racism andblack scholarship and one special issue on qualitative methods). Also, the historicalperiod in which the data set is located reflects ‘race’ as a more salient feature ofSouth African psychology. Debates within psychology related to ‘race’ and relevancewere rife during this period, and the ever-changing manifestations of ‘race’ andracism associated with social transformation gave rise to greater theoretical flux,fluidity and conceptual diversity. In spite of the above, the argument that SouthAfrican psychology acted with complicity around issues of ‘race’ and racism stillholds true, as this data set does not adequately reflect the actual silences within thediscipline throughout its conservative history (Seedat, 1998).


Once the data set had been established, a thematic analysis was conductedusing the basic procedures of qualitative thematic analysis. These included a readingof the data, allowing themes to emerge organically, coding of data into moremanageable units, developing categories, observing patterns and generating themes(Marshall & Rossman, 1995; Potter & Wetherell, 1992; Terre Blanche & Durrheim,1999).

Rather than simply providing a descriptive commentary on the themes, a criticalsocial constructionist paradigm, using the Thompson (1990) ‘‘Depth-Hermeneutics’’,provided greater analytical depth to the interpretation of these hermeneutic units.This qualitative framework refers to the study and interpretation of the meaningsconveyed by social actors through their symbolic constructions. Such interpretationis undertaken within the socio-historical context in which these symbolicconstructions are embedded, and attempts to reveal their ideological significance.

More specifically, the ‘‘Depth-Hermeneutics’’ framework consists of three primarylevels of analyses, namely, providing the socio-historical context of symbolicconstruction and production, highlighting the social actors’ interpretations of thiscontext within their symbolic forms, and interpretation/re-interpretation of thesesymbolic forms by the researcher. These three levels of analysis constantly interactand influence each other. The social actor generates certain symbolic forms whichare determined by both the socio-historical terrain, and more importantly, by his/herinterpretation of this terrain. These symbolic forms may themselves then maintain ortransform the very socio-historical context in which they find themselves, resulting infurther interpretation and generation of symbolic forms.

Consequently, any research pertaining to ideology which utilizes this approach,will reflect similar interactive processes. The analyst may initially sketch a socio-historical context, then isolate particular symbolic forms, and attempt to interpretsocial actors’ interpretations thereof. However, when reaching the interpretation/re-interpretation level, the analyst may find that the initial assumptions which weremade about the socio-historical terrain were inaccurate, and therefore need to bemodified. The analyst therefore recognizes the influence of his/her own subjectiveinterpretation of social reality on the analytical process, and is willing to consideralternative interpretations which may present themselves through the researchprocess. Rather than separating the Thompson (1990) three levels of analysisarbitrarily, they were all combined to generate the analytical section below.

Even though this framework has been utilized extensively in discursive analyses ofideological phenomena (see for example Duncan, 1993; Stevens, 1996), it is as usefulin critically deconstructing the ideological significance of emerging themes withintexts. Duncan (1993) notes that in the field of psychology there is ‘‘a growingtrend...[to] focus (...) on extended sequences of sentences and statements’’ (p. 66).However, unlike content analysis where the thematic categories are often seen as anend in themselves, a hermeneutic framework allows for an analysis of the subjectiveunderstandings conveyed through these themes, as well as their functions andideological significance (Kress, 1985; Thompson, 1990).

Critical deconstructionist approaches have become increasingly popular amongstresearchers as a tool with which to study the reproduction and maintenance of


racism as ideology (Van Dijk, 1991). This popularity has been influenced by theexpansion in the literature base with regards to signification (i.e. attributed meaning)and the ideology of racism in the last decade (Thompson, 1990). Several studiesconducted by Van Dijk (1984, 1987, 1991) explored the manner in which racistprejudice is expressed and reproduced through face-to-face verbal interactions, pressreports, textbooks, academic discourse, political discourse and corporate discourseabout ‘ethnic’ affairs. Similarly, other studies have highlighted the subtle ways inwhich culture (Essed, 1991; Rattansi, 1992) and linguicism (Skutnabb-Kangas, 1990)are utilized in everyday and institutional discourses, to communicate racist prejudiceand to perpetuate broader racist ideology. In South Africa, critical analyses of textsand the manner in which racist ideology is perpetuated and challenged has beenconducted by Duncan (1993), Stevens (1996) and Nathoo (1997). In addition, trendanalyses have also been conducted on publications within South African psychologyby Duncan (1993, 2001) and Seedat (1988, 2001a, b), highlighting the distinctrelationship between racism and academia during the apartheid era. Unfortunately,a decline in this level of critical reflexivity has been evident in South Africanpsychology in recent years.

4. Emergent themes

The unanticipated social fluidity of the transitionary period, as well as theinfluence of globalization and its contradictory impact on nationalist movements (lePere & Lambrechts, 1999) has resulted in a diversity of constructions of ‘race’ andracism that have contended for hegemony at all levels of South African society.While some of these approaches have at points been complimentary, others haveappeared more adversarial in terms of their intellectual, political and socialimplications. Psychology, as a site of expression, has captured some of thesetensions, as is evident from the themes below.

In terms of the actual analysis of this data set, a review of the titles and abstractsallowed firstly for a categorization into three broad themes in which several sub-themes could then be identified. These included the object of research (i.e. the actualcontent area on which research was being conducted in the article), the subjects/participants on which research was being conducted (i.e. the target populationsreferred to in these articles, often highlighted by the authors’ ‘racialised’ descriptorsof the populations), and the methodologies adopted in the articles (i.e. the researchtools, analytical tools and frameworks being utilized). Whilst distinctions betweensubjects and objects were often unclear, this in itself provided insights into theconstructions and ideological functions of the research. Also, even though scrutinyof the subjects and objects provided an entry point for the analysis, a meta-analysisof the methodologies utilized helped to crystallize understandings of the ontological,epistemological and ideological trends within the data set. For the purposes ofbrevity in this article however, it should be noted that the following themes representa synopsis of these trends, rather than providing a comprehensive, 10-year analysisof the publications within the South African Journal of Psychology.


4.1. Objects of research

4.1.1. ‘Race’, racism and the South African transition

Within the early 1990s, publications focusing on ‘race’ and racism tended toexplore traditional social psychological conceptions, but with an emphasis on thechanging context of South Africa. Constructs and concepts such as ‘‘identifications’’,‘‘attitudes’’, ‘‘preference’’, ‘‘stereotypes’’, ‘‘racism scales’’ and ‘‘authoritarianism’’dominated the title trends within these articles. In addition to these constructs beingutilized, they were often juxtaposed with phrases such as ‘‘transitionary SouthAfrica’’, ‘‘black South African children’’ and ‘‘political activism’’. In spite of theongoing debates surrounding this particular approach to the study of racism, inwhich many of the traditional positivistic conceptualizations of ‘race’ and racismwere criticized (Katz, 1976; Stevens, 1996), the manner in which the content of whatwas being explored in the early 1990s was still fairly positivistic. However, thejuxtaposition referred to above is indicative of the shifts that occurred with regard toredirecting the discipline towards greater social relevance for the majority of theblack populace. The continued use of heavily critiqued conceptualizations of ‘race’and racism is in some way reflective of similar social difficulties experienced by manywhite South Africans, who recognized the inevitability of social transformation, butwho were as yet unwilling to break from their historical positions of power. Thejuxtaposition that occurred in these papers can be seen as attempts to give greatercredibility and legitimacy to fairly conservative analyses and concealed the truenature of the dominant conceptualizations of ‘race’ and racism (i.e. a narrowlydefined understanding that tends to reduce and generalize complex social issues of‘race’ and racism and views them in the context of individual or small groupdynamics). This fundamental flaw fails to take cognizance of the fact that ‘race’ isintegrally linked to the ideology of racism and has its genesis in a range of historicaland material processes (Duncan & de la Rey, 2000). This conscious or unwittingdenial of racism as ideology is in itself a manifestation of symbolic racism (Van Dijk,1987, 1992) and reflects to some degree the broader social resistances to the erosionof white power as a result of the transformation politics of the early 1990s in SouthAfrica. The characterization of ‘race’ during this period can be described in part asan uncritical acceptance of ‘racialised’ categories and their underlying ideologicalcomponents, combined with a growing awareness of the need to consider blacks andtheir experiences as an increasingly socially significant ‘racialised’ category intransitional South Africa. Fundamentally though, the apparently greater level ofsocial relevance evident in these titles belies the continued promotion of theontological and epistemological foundations of positivism within many of thesestudies, and consequently, partial and conservative analyses of ‘race’ and racism.

4.1.2. Psychometrics and the South African transition

In addition, a growing number of papers focused on the one domain thatpsychology has absolute control over, that being the area of psychological testing.Traditional psychological tests that were criticized for many decades for theirculture-bias and lack of validity, reliability and standardization in South Africa


(Cooper, Nicholas, Seedat, & Statman, 1990; Duncan, van Niekerk, de la Rey, &Seedat, 2001), was the focus of attention. The ‘‘Luria NeuropsychologicalInvestigation’’, ‘‘Junior Aptitude Tests’’, ‘‘Self-Directed Search’’, ‘‘Bender Gestalt’’and ‘‘Super’s Career Theory’’ all featured prominently in several publications. Thesewere again addressed within the context of their relevance to black South Africans,and scientific and social issues such as ‘‘problems in evaluating’’, ‘‘appropriateness’’to black South Africans, ‘‘translation’’ into Zulu, ‘‘test bias’’ and ‘‘validity’’ weretackled. What these tendencies reflect is the growing concern about psychology andits relevance to South Africa during the period of transition, especially at the pointwhere fundamental social change is imminent. This represents, in part, psychology’sresponse to the growing ideological pressure within the social formation that favorednon-’racialism’, democracy and egalitarianism. Whilst there was an acknowl-edgement of ‘racialised’ social categories based on the discourse of ‘race’, it appearsthat the position implicitly adopted in many of these papers was one of multi-‘racialism’ (i.e. the belief in the existence of different ‘races’ with unique and differentneeds). Even though multi-‘racialism’ has historically been one expression of racismto avoid miscegenation and to entrench social and economic control over blacks(CAL, 1987), the function of this conceptualization is more nuanced in theseinstances. Professional psychology appeared to be gearing itself up to the fact that anincreasing number of blacks would enter the education sector and the world of workand would have greater access to health and welfare services. These are all extremelystrategic areas in which psychology and psychological testing in particular arevalued. The multi-‘racial’ conception facilitated the professional class interests ofpsychologists who acknowledged the market and potential for economic gain fromfuture black clients, but in a politically and ‘scientifically’ acceptable manner.Racism and class interests still intersected, but in an altered and more sophisticatedmanner, as the social, political and economic relations upon which racism hadhistorically been founded began to change in South Africa (i.e. from ‘racial’capitalism to non-‘racial’ capitalism).

4.1.3. Critical evaluations of psychology’s history and relevance

Despite the superficial changes within psychology’s approach to ‘race’ and racismduring the early 1990s, they were clearly not sufficient and were in fact the precursorsto more critical contributions from within the discipline shortly thereafter. Criticalhistorical analyses began to emerge strongly in this period and continued throughoutmuch of the 1990s. This critical approach was often expressed in the form ofexploring the social relevance of psychology from a material and historicalperspective and focused on issues such as ‘‘liberatory psychology’’, questioned‘‘where we are headed’’, explored ‘‘exclusionary ideologies’’, ‘‘neutrality, relevanceand accountability’’, ‘‘mental health for all’’, the ‘‘reproduction of racism’’, ‘‘scienceand social accountability’’, and additional issues of ‘‘relevance’’. The ideologicalcontestations within South Africa during the mid-1990s were heightened, due to theformal transfer of political power and its associated social consequences. This wasalso reflected in the open debate and engagement amongst academics aboutthe future role of psychology and was not merely a collective attempt at disciplinary


re-definition, but was in fact a serious conflict about a discipline that had historicallyserved the direct interests of those who established and continued to benefit fromapartheid ideology. These tensions continued throughout this period and alsocoincided with the formation of a new representative body within South Africanpsychology—the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA). Adversarialrelationships between conservative and radical perspectives on the historical andmaterial evolution of ‘race’, racism and psychology in South Africa characterizedpsychological publications during this period. Even the discursive trends towardmore esoteric titles that tend to be steeped in political rhetoric and philosophyindicate a depth in the ideological tensions that were increasingly being articulatedwithin formal process of knowledge production.

4.1.4. The ‘black experience’

Furthermore, a number of papers started to reflect specifically on the experiencesof blacks in South Africa. As this was an absolutely unambiguous shortcoming ofpsychology that was recognized by many within the discipline (Cooper et al., 1990),there was a proliferation of papers on this matter. Publication trends indicated agrowing responsiveness within psychology during this period. Examples of thesepublications include the examination and exploration of ‘‘identification patternsamong black students’’, ‘‘response to dreams among Zulu South Africans’’, the‘‘worldview of black and white South African adolescent pupils’’, ‘‘black adolescentidentity’’, ‘‘black psychopathology’’, ‘‘academic performance among African womenstudents’’, ‘‘health behaviors among black South African students’’, and ‘‘Zulustudents’ views’’. What is of interest, is that despite a seeming re-orientation of thediscipline towards a historically marginalized and disadvantaged group, construc-tions of this group were still characterized by intense heterogeneity. Constructions of‘racial’ identity within these articles still very much reflected the contradictionsbetween apartheid and liberatory ideologies, but on the other hand, started to reflectthe growing in-betweenities with regard to group categorization. Articles referred to‘‘Zulu’’, ‘‘Black’’, ‘‘black’’, ‘‘African’’, etc. and it is apparent that constructions of‘race’ remained highly ambiguous and diversely defined. At a theoretical level, thewhite-black binary that had existed in South Africa (Bulhan, 1985) had becomeinfused with alternative meanings in the 1970s, through the emergence of the BlackConsciousness Movement. However, these meanings still remained circumscribedwithin the framework of binary opposites (Duncan 1993; Stevens, 1996). What isevident from the above illustrations, is that these binaries were themselves beingcontested within psychological publications, and modernist interpretations of ‘race’and racism relying on such binaries were indirectly being revisited and challenged.

4.1.5. Comparative experiences

Other than themes of the black experience, comparative studies also emergedsporadically in the literature. Attempts to be inclusive of newly formed political andnumeric minorities are common in countries experiencing political transition(Stevens, 1996). In line with this, one notes studies that compared ‘‘Black andwhite employees’ fairness perceptions’’, the ‘‘comparability of the scores of blacks


and whites’’, ‘‘performance values of blacks and whites’’, etc. Whilst these studiesattempted to highlight similarities and differences between these social categories,they also reflected the growing number of questions about the equivalence of thesegroups in postapartheid South Africa. Furthermore, they coincided with concerns of‘reverse racism’ emanating from various sectors of South African society, of blacksbeing favored unfairly through Affirmative Action policies as well as social andpolitical transformation processes (Stevens, 1996). Underpinning these forms ofmodern racism (Jones, 1997) is the frequent sense of being threatened and swamped(Ashmore & Butsch, 1972). Publications focused on questions of perceptions, valuesystems, competence and general abilities across ‘racialised’ categories, in order tostrengthen the position of minorities who were experiencing a perceived erosion ofpower and/or access to resources.

4.1.6. Emergent identities

Towards the mid-1990s, a range of articles emerged, focusing on identity morebroadly. One of the distinguishing characteristics of these publications as comparedto earlier studies, is that they attempted to incorporate social analyses more overtlythrough studies on ‘‘social identity’’, ‘‘social identity of township youth’’, and ‘‘socialidentity theory and gender’’. Two important points need to be made here. The first isthat ‘race’ was increasingly viewed as one of many potential identities, and thesecond, is that it represented an attempt to theoretically bridge critical social issuesand experimental social psychological investigations in the area of ‘race’ and racism.These are both extremely interesting reflections of the generalized reconciliatoryperiod in South African history, with its emphasis on the ‘rainbow nation’, increasedlevels of social desirability and social pressure to reduce the salience of ‘race’ issues.In reality however, this approach was criticized for not being sufficiently contextual,and coincided and reflected the growing unease and criticism of deceptive notionssuch as the ‘rainbow nation’. In fact, shortly thereafter a re-emergence of criticalpapers examining ‘race’ and racism within discursive frameworks, as well as morecritical historical publications on the discipline and profession of psychology inSouth Africa, became evident. As these contending positions postured for hegemonywithin the discipline, they partially reflected the prevailing conditions within theSouth African socio-political landscape.

The discursive and qualitative approaches referred to above, examined emergentthemes and linguistic reproductions of racism and more specifically, highlighted‘‘talking about racism’’, ‘‘discourses of public violence and the reproduction ofracism’’ and ‘‘racialised discourses’’. Moreover, additional qualitative articles thatplaced greater emphases on multiple identities, experiences and realities, of which‘race’ only constituted one component of the subject of inquiry, appeared inpublication. These included papers on the ‘‘discursive paradigm’’, ‘‘understandingsof psychology’s subject’’, and other more cryptic and esoteric titles. The particularfunction that these served, was to create the academic and intellectual space inpsychology to shift the salience away from ‘race’ and to focus on all forms ofidentities, interpretations and experiences of realities. Rapid developments at anational and global level such as the increase in information technologies, the


globalization of economics on an unprecedented scale, and the beginnings of thedemise of the nation-state, all facilitated challenges to modernist understandings of‘race’ and racism (even critical, modernist perspectives), and created opportunitiesfor the emergence of postmodernist understandings thereof. Within South Africansociety, this to some extent mirrors one of the contemporary debates related to ‘race’and racism, that being whether they are representations of class politics or of newforms of diffuse identity politics.3

4.2. Subjects/participants in research

4.2.1. The ‘racialised’ Self and other

The majority of the publications in the data set focused predominantly onpreviously marginalized or disenfranchised social categories. They referred primarilyto the experiences of ‘‘Zulus’’, ‘‘Africans’’, ‘‘Blacks’’, ‘‘blacks’’ and to a lesser extent,‘‘Coloreds’’, ‘‘Asians’’ and ‘‘whites’’.4 Very few articles reflexively examined theunderstandings of the ‘racialised’ terms that were utilized, and proceeded to employthem uncritically, either overtly as the apartheid state did, or as unquestionedconstructs and symbols. This lack of reflexivity was premised on an acceptance of thenotion of distinct and unchanging ‘racial’ categories, and revealed an ahistorical anddecontextualized understanding of ‘race’ that discursively reinforced dominant racistideological constructions. This is what Bulhan (1985) refers to as the internalizationof oppressive social relations and their consequent reproduction as acts of violence.Van Dijk (1991) also suggests that the actual utterances themselves allow forideological ‘‘enactment, expression, legitimation and acquisition in society.’’ (p. 2) Inaddition, they reflect the heterogeneous, fragmented and fluid experiences andunderstandings of ‘race’ and racism in a context that itself is in a state of social flux.In either case, what is missing is a relational and historical basis for the use of theseterms. As Duncan & de la Rey (2000) argue, ‘race’ is an empty signifier that ismeaningless without a relational and historical location. Moreover, the lack of sucha relational and historical location in any analysis leaves it open to an infinitenumber of interpretations, but ultimately ones that are supportive of the dominantideological discourse of racism. Unreflexive academic practices reveal a profoundfailure to see the manner in which they themselves often contribute to the discourseof ‘race’, thereby legitimizing it within formal processes of knowledge productionthat inevitably also influencing everyday, commonsense discourses (Van Dijk, 1991).

4.2.2. Methodologies

At the level of meta-analysis, four major competing trends in methodological andtheoretical orientations (all of which have already been alluded to above) can beidentified in the data set at different points in the last decade. These contendingapproaches reflect a distinct potential for overt or covert ideological contrasts to play

3This debate is discussed further in the latter section of this paper.4These ‘racialised’ categories were all institutionalised and artificially imposed on the South African

population during the apartheid era, through the promulgation of the Population Registration Act.


themselves out as they do in other areas of social reality, given their differingontological and epistemological underpinnings. There is little doubt that theoreticalframeworks are also ideological signifiers when located in particular historical andmaterial contexts, and their application therefore needs to be understood withinSouth Africa’s social climate of heterogeneity and contestation. As Cornforth (1963)states:

Ideas are not the product of pure intellectual processes, nor are they mereautomatic responses to stimuli reaching us from external objects. They areproduced (...) in the course of human social activity. They reflect the connections(...) with one another and with the external world. (p. 57)

4.2.3. Experimental social psychological approaches

The first trend that can be observed within the identified papers reflects what canbroadly be termed as traditional, experimental social psychological approaches tounderstanding ‘race’ and racism. These approaches mainly utilized positivisticunderpinnings and methods that attempted to quantify components of ‘race’ andracism through an analysis of ‘‘attitudes’’, ‘‘ethnic identifications’’ and ‘‘prefer-ences’’, using ‘‘scales’’, ‘‘stereotype measures’’ and so on. As pointed out earlier,these methods were frequently utilized in studies that attempted to responsivelyengage with the criticism that South African psychology had lacked fundamentalsocial relevance. At an ideological level, this mirrored a similar crisis of validity atthe time within the social system in South African society. During this period, therewas a collapse of apartheid, political conservatism, and a failure to relevantly re-define its role in postapartheid South Africa. Similarly, experimental socialpsychological approaches that relied on positivistic methods and conceptualizations,struggled to be relevantly re-defined in a meaningful manner, without a criticalawareness of and rupture with its historical role within South African psychology.Methodological frameworks in themselves are not necessarily ideological, bututilized in particular socio-historical locations, they clearly come to representideological viewpoints within contested spaces.

4.2.4. Critical historical and materialist approaches

A primary methodological contender during this period, was the more criticalhistorical and materialist framework of analysis, that was represented withinarguments about psychology’s limited relevance and appropriateness within SouthAfrican health delivery. In many respects, these analyses occurred at a time when itwas extremely socially undesirable to raise them, but the application of this methodalso represented a serious assertion amongst those opposed to apartheid and itslegacy, and provided a sound critique of ‘race’ and racism within psychology. Morebroadly, it was indicative of the growing tide of social change, the hegemony oftransformation politics and the growing socio-political trend against racistconservatism. This was further paralleled within South African society, by processesrelated to the transfer of power in government, greater levels of social confidence to


address issues of ‘race’ and racism more openly, and an emerging culture oftransformation.

4.2.5. Social identity theory and reconciliation

During the period of ‘purging and catharsis’ in South Africa, there was also aprevailing culture of reconciliation (e.g. the roles and functions of the Truth andReconciliation Commission), and psychological publications reflected similarprocesses. The re-emergence of Social Identity Theory as a conceptual andmethodological framework represented a bringing together of the ‘old’ (i.e.traditional experimental methods of scientific inquiry) and a simultaneousaccommodation of the ‘new’ (i.e. more critical, historical and social analyses).Transformation and reconciliatory politics equally played themselves out withinSouth African psychological publications through this accommodation of ‘old’ and‘new’. But, as in the case of the politics of reconciliation, Social Identity Theory andits application struggled to uncover and address the concealed ‘racialised’polarization of South African society. Reconciliation politics in some waysundermined the basis for truly addressing the atrocities, inequalities and disparitiesof the past and condemned them prematurely to history. Furthermore, it allowed fora glimpse into historical matters of oppression, but denied the opportunity toaddress these beyond the level of cathartic confession and disclosure (e.g. the Truthand Reconciliation Commission). Whilst uncovering many atrocities, it also servedto scapegoat some and concealed structural contradictions within the status quo. Ina similar manner, the shortcoming of Social Identity Theory’s application in many ofthese publications was that it was unable to account for deep rooted ideologicalprocesses that created conditions of oppression, resulting in specific patterns of socialcategorization and intergroup relations in the first place (Foster, 1991).

4.2.6. Critical modernism and postmodernism

The honeymoon period associated with reconciliatory politics in South Africaexperienced escalating pressures after the mid-1990s. This was evidenced by theincreasing emergence of underlying social tensions that were concealed during theprevious period. Claims of racism abounded, counter-claims of chauvinism werereported, the Human Rights Commission reported on racism in the media, criticismsof Affirmative Action policies unfairly favoring blacks surfaced, ordinary peoplerecognized that the state-driven Reconstruction and Development Programme hadnot improved their marginalized position, and varied manifestations of prejudice andracism began to emerge. Here again, psychology reflected similar tensions, with acontinued prevalence of critical historical papers on psychology, racism andrelevance and also more discursive analyses being published. In addition, an ever-increasing number of qualitative articles explored postmodernist conceptualizationsof ‘‘being in the world’’. On the one hand, there were arguments emphasizing ananalysis of ‘racial’ inequality, its history, legacy and consequences. On the otherhand, emergent arguments that the nature of the world could not be reduced togeneralities and totalities, and that ‘race’ was but only one component of identitiesthat may or may not exist, arose within publication trends. In the first instance,


many of the analyses provided in these articles had their basis within traditional,critical Marxist theory (and thus modernity), and in the latter, they developedarguments suggesting that the social, political and economic conditions upon whichmodernity was premised had changed in fundamental ways. The often unspokentension in psychological articles examined was between those who viewed ‘race’ as asalient social phenomenon, and those who viewed it as salient only for those whobelieved it to be salient. This co-existence of postmodernist and modernistinterpretations of ‘race’ and racism can be viewed as one of the significantcharacterizations of the status of ‘race’ in South African psychology at the end of the1990s and is firmly rooted in the changes occurring in the national and globalcontexts.

5. The Contemporary Status of ‘Race’ in South African Psychology: Identity Politics

or Class Politics?

Given the debates related to modernist and postmodernist understandings of‘race’ and racism that currently express themselves in South African psychology andother disciplines internationally (see for example Rattansi & Westwood, 1994), wenow turn our attention more specifically to these. The present section serves not onlyto examine contemporary debates in the field, but also to identify the differentontological and epistemological positions operating in a rapidly changing globalcontext.

Modernist and postmodernist approaches are often set up as binary opposites bythe proponents of both frameworks (ironically), when in reality they may beconstrued as different components of the same frame. By conceiving of them asbinary opposites, the dichotomy that this generates is essentially whether ‘race’ andracism should be viewed as an expression of class politics or identity politics(Eagleton, 1996).

Many postmodern purists are suspicious of notions of truth, reason, singleframeworks, grand narratives and of the idea of universal progress or emancipation.Rather, the world is construed as diverse, unstable, fragmented and consisting ofdiffuse and ephemeral sets of multiple identities. This is brought about by thechanging nature of social, political and economic shifts in a world that can becharacterized as ‘post-industrial’ due to the pervasive influence of finance capital,information technology, increased global mobility, etc. These factors are said toundermine the very nature of a class society and the premise upon which criticalMarxist thought was based. It is an approach that is highly reflexive—in some waysdescribed as a frame within a frame. It recognizes the fluidity and dynamic nature ofhuman interaction, while avoiding totalities and generalities. It validates the variedand diverse experiences of humans and values them all equally. As for ‘race’ andracism, it rejects the idea of uniform institutional processes that all collude as cogs inthe social machinery, giving rise to binary opposites of white and black, clever andstupid, rich and poor, oppressor and oppressed. Rather, it suggests multipleexperiences and understandings of ‘race’ and racism, thereby allowing for a


transcendence of modernist dichotomies/binaries and an encouragement of reflexiveand creative exploration of the alternative, the ambiguous and the ambivalent(Eagleton, 1996; Rattansi & Westwood, 1994).

On the other hand, those who subscribe to a purist modernist position wouldargue that a postmodernist approach is reflective of a disillusionment with criticalMarxist theory, and that it serves to divert critical attention away from oppressivesocial systems and to re-direct it towards the level of the individual’s perceptions,opinions, logic and mind (Cornforth, 1963). It acts as a mechanism for repentantlyrationalizing away the radical nature of critiques among disillusioned criticalthinkers. In so doing, postmodernism itself acts ideologically to conceal contra-dictions and to deny the need for a critical political project in the face of a systemthat is perceived to be impenetrable. Postmodernism, in some ways, turns inwardlyon itself as it begins to function contradictorily as a grand narrative of its own(Eagleton, 1996). With regard to ‘race’ and racism, critical analyses located withinmodernism argue that the fundamental structural basis of capitalist social relationsremains intact, in spite of global economic, political and social changes, and thatracism pre-supposes a discourse of ‘race’ that serves to conceal the contradictions ofcapitalist social relations.

What is pivotal to note here, is that in their dogmatic and purist forms,both these approaches are self-defeating and filled with contradictions.However, insofar as they both fundamentally support a critical analysis ofmodernity, they represent the potential to undo the binary and to re-calibrateour theoretical understandings of ‘race’ and racism. Whether one utilizes theBauman (1991) understanding that ‘‘postmodernism is modernity coming toterms with its impossibility’’, or the Giddens (1990) conceptualization of a‘‘radicalization of modernity’’, they both stress the necessity of emergent super-reflexivity, if we are to attempt to make sense of shifting phenomena such as ‘race’and racism in a global context in which institutional configurations are constantlychanging.

While it is clear that uniform institutional processes and outcomes that areconsistently and evenly applied with regard to racist oppression do not necessarilyoccur, consistent discriminatory outcomes associated with the allocation of resourcesmay provide pointers to broader and more ‘generalized’ forms of racist discrimina-tion and ideological practices. In this regard, Rattansi and Westwood (1994) arguethat:

racialised power relations (...) cannot be conceptualized as working andreproducing through a small number of tightly knit sites, such as those of stateand capital, aided and abetted by a capitalist media supposedly interested only individing black and white workers, as set out in some influential Marxist works.Instead, racialised power relations may be seen more usefully in neo-Foucauldianterms which do not deny the importance of state and capital, but see these as farmore fragmented and internally divided, together with a multiplication of sites forthe operation of racisms—playgrounds, streets, classrooms, doctors’ surgeries,mental hospitals, offices, etc. (p. 62)


For social scientists (and scholars of psychology in particular), this means theadoption of the ‘‘super-reflexivity’’ that is referred to above and a recognition of theimportance of both the subjective, as well as the context, in understanding ‘race’ andracism. Rather than reifying either at the expense of the other, certain authors havearticulated the necessity of bridging them. Thompson’s (1990) hermeneutic approachprovides a framework for considering the dialectical relationship between thesubjective and the context. In addition, Althusser (1971) noted the relationshipbetween ideology, material practice, and subjectification through interpellation,thereby recognizing the impact of base and superstructure on subjects, but alsosubjects’ agency to shape base and superstructure. Not only is an intersectionbetween these positions desirable, but also theoretically possible. Understandings of‘race’ and racism within the era of globalization can only be enhanced through morecritical, historical, materialist and reflexive analyses pitched at multiple subjectiveand contextual levels. In so doing, social scientists are also more likely to criticallyevaluate the manner in which their constructions, expressed within formalknowledge production processes, reflect and shape subjective locations and socio-historical contexts with regard to ‘race’ and racism.

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