Whiteness re-aligned : naratives of white residents from Munsieville, Krugersdorp

A Research Report submitted to the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts by coursework and researchThis research project is concerned with meanings of whiteness that are produced at its margins (the margins of whiteness). I challenge the dominant thesis of Whiteness Studies which theorises about whiteness as a social construct that is homogeneous and monolithic. Instead, I suggest that whiteness is best conceptualised as a structure. To this end I highlight the experiences of white people who do not embody the hegemonic and normalised form of whiteness. My primary method is an ethnography of white residents of the informal settlement in Munsieville, Krugersdorp. The participants in my study live in an area that is predominantly occupied by black people, most of whom are economically and socially better-off. Along with ethnographic observations, I used interviews to collect data. These were useful for providing a glimpse of the participants’ life histories. Most of them ‘inherited’ their poverty from their parents, the generation of ‘poor whites’ who lived under the colonial and apartheid eras. Historically, the participants were direct beneficiaries of the apartheid policies that were meant to assist ‘poor white’ people. This history shapes their feelings of nostalgia for the ‘good old days’ and of vulnerability in post-1994 South Africa. These feelings influenced their attachment to apartheid conceptions of blackness and whiteness and their irrational fear of black people (the swart gevaar). Alongside this attachment and fear, my study shows that the residents of Munsieville have developed an ‘ambivalent intimacy’ with the black people in their neighbourhood which has resulted in the formation of a different kind of whiteness. This re-aligned whiteness is a result of the articulation of their race and class position. Key Words: Whiteness, ‘Poor Whites’, Blackness, Structure and Articulation.GR201