The advent of democracy opened learning opportunities for all students and racial segregation no longer characterizes institutions of higher learning in South Africa. The racially diverse student body confronts universities with the challenge of racial tension amongst students as well as staff. Recent protest movements such as #Rhodesmustfall and #FeesMustFall have highlighted uneasy race relations in South African universities. Although such incidents are crucial, equally important are the everyday realities of race relations that continue to define the lives of students in these institutions. The purpose of this study was to provide an in-depth understanding of student leaders‟ experiences of race relations at a South African university. A qualitative research approach was adopted to shed light on these experiences. Purposeful sampling was employed to recruit six student leaders of various races. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the participants. The analysis of the interview material revealed that the history of South Africa as a racially segregated, unequal society affects race relations. Racial discrimination and distrust hamper racial integration in the student body and external factors such as politics also affect student leaders‟ experiences of race relations. Even though friendships afford opportunities for good race relations, they are largely class dependent. It is recommended that the university invest into personnel diversity training and the creation of platforms for intercultural and interracial exchanges within the university. / Dissertation (MA (Research Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Psychology / MA (Research Psychology) / Unrestricted

In April 2015, the bronze statue of Cecil John Rhodes- notorious mining magnate, archimperialist and champion of a global Anglo-Saxon empire- was removed from its concrete plinth overlooking Cape Town, South Africa. This came as a result of the #RhodesMustFall (#RMF) movement, a movement that would see statues questioned and vandalised across the country. Two years later, fierce contestation over the hegemonic narrative told through the American South’s symbolic landscape erupted over the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, resulting in the deaths of multiple people in Charlottesville, Virginia. Increasing research on the removal of Rhodes and the removal of Confederate statuary has emerged in recent years. However, previous scholarship has failed to compare the wider phenomena of the calls for removal, from the memorialised figures to their change in symbolic capital, the movements’ inception and its outcomes. There is subsequently a gap in the literature understanding what the politics of statue removal tell us about not only the American and South African commemorative landscapes, but the nations’ interpretations of the past and societies themselves. Therefore, this thesis uses descriptive comparative analysis to compare two case studies where the debate over statue removal has surfaced most vehemently: Rhodes’ statue at the University of Cape Town and Lee’s statue in Charlottesville. Ultimately, this dissertation finds that the calls for the removal of statues are part of a wider change in tenor towards understanding and disrupting prevailing hegemonic narratives of white supremacy, in both society and its symbolic landscape. The phenomena demonstrates that heterogeneous societies with pasts marred by segregation and racism are moving to reject and re-negotiate these histories and their symbols, a move that has elicited deeply divided, emotional responses. Despite waning attention to monument removals, the issue remains unresolved, contentious, and capable of re-igniting.