The main goal of this thesis was an investigation into the ways in which whiteness is constructed and positioned in the South African soap opera, 7de Laan, and the Flemish soap opera, Thuis, with the emphasis on the possible implications of these constructions for local as well as global discourses on whiteness in the media. In conjunction with the above, this thesis endeavoured to answer a number of subquestions relating to the origin and history of the construct of “whiteness” and Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) as a theoretical approach and its relevance in the South African and Flemish contexts, specifically as it pertains to the analysis of mass media texts like 7de Laan and Thuis. It, moreover, sought to explore if and how whiteness functions as an organising principle in the narratives and representations of these soap operas with the emphasis on potential similarities, differences and the kinds of whiteness constructed in these texts. Finally, the goal was to draw conclusions on the possible implications of these differences and similarities in the wider context of the way in which whiteness functions in the media. To that end I conducted a controlled case comparison of a sample from these two community soap opera texts, which was informed by a literature review and deep description of each context as part of the qualitative approach I chose to take. Despite a number of similarities between the two contexts, they still differ significantly, and this afforded me an opportunity to highlight both the consistencies and particularities in the ideological patterning of representations of whiteness, across seemingly unrelated domains, to illustrate its pervasiveness. Added to the emergence of three shared rhetorical devices perpetuating whiteness in both texts, I was also able to draw conclusions about the unique way in which whiteness functions in 7de Laan in particular, since South Africa remains the primary context of the study. / Communication Science / D. Litt. et Phil.(Communication)

Com 8 décadas de existência, a Universidade de São Paulo tem se firmado como o grande modelo de universidade para o país. Seja pelos dados que apresenta, seja pela afirmação de sua história, tem marcado seu espaço na sociedade brasileira como referencial na formação científica, na produção cultural e na produção de elites que não raramente assumem postos de comando no país. Apesar dessas conquistas, a USP apresenta um quadro anacrônico em relação à diversidade étnico-racial, sobretudo, no seu corpo docente, que tem sido formado com um perfil étnico-racial extremamente homogêneo. A pesquisa ora apresentada objetivou entender a existência e a configuração de um possível nexo entre o debate racial das primeiras décadas do século XX no Brasil, com o processo histórico da fundação da Universidade de São Paulo. Na presente análise, três figuras ocupam papel de destaque: o eugenista Renato Ferraz Kehl e dois dos personagens centrais na configuração do Projeto USP, nomeadamente, Júlio de Mesquita Filho e Fernando de Azevedo. A partir da análise do corpus documental, formado por correspondências e textos dos intelectuais citados, foi possível identificar que muitos dos personagens ligados à história da criação da USP participaram ativamente do debate sobre raça e eugenia apresentado nas primeiras décadas do século XX. A despeito do relativo silêncio do envolvimento do tema raça com a história da USP, a presente pesquisa tem por objetivo trazer o tema à tona, por entender ser um dado relevante para a compreensão do papel da universidade e sua relação com a questão racial brasileira. Tendo estado presente na visão dos fundadores da instituição, bem como moldado o modo como estes compreendiam sua percepção da sociedade, a concepção racial vigente na elite pensante brasileira do início do século XX, manifestou-se na constituição da identidade (e identificação) entre a USP e São Paulo e está presente em seus símbolos. Tal dado fornece fortes evidências de que há, nesta instituição, uma cultura racial, isto é, uma tradição em lidar com a raça de modo implícito, por metáforas. Este fato também corrobora com a ideia de que a questão racial perpassa a USP da mesma forma como perpassa a sociedade brasileira como um todo. / The University of São Paulo (USP) with 8 decades of existence has made a model of University for yourself and for the roll country. This is shown in its numbers and the affirmation of its own historical contribution to the nation. In this process, the University marks an space inside the Brazilian society as a reference point in terms of scientific education, cultural production and in terms of elite formation, which, not rarely, it is the political elite of the country. Besides those achievements, the University of Sao Paulo has a quite anachronic context in term of ethical-racial diversity, especially within the university structure. We found out that the University its professors and researchers - is quite homogeneous in terms of ethnical racial matters. The main objective of this research was to understand the existence and how is configured the nexus between the racial debate of the early XX in Brasil and the historical founding process of the University of Sao Paulo. In this work, we discuss three major figures: Renato Ferraz Kehl, a eugenicist and other two majors figures of the Projeto USP, Júlio de Mesquita Filho and Fernando de Azevedo. From the analysis of the documental corpus, with is in part the mailing and the texts from those intellectuals, it was possible to identify that many of those that was part of the process of foundation of the USP was also part of the debate about race and eugenics from the early XX. There is a relative silence when the subject is the discussion of race inside and in the context of the foundation of USP; this research will bring up this discussion, understanding that this will be relevant to a comprehensive discussion of the roll of this University facing the racial debate in Brasil. Already present in the vision of the founders of the institution and shaping its social perception, the racial conception of the Brazilian elite from the early XX was heard and became part of the identity (and the identification) between USP and Sao Paulo and it is present in its symbols. With that in mind, we found strong evidence of a racial culture, which is a tradition to handle race in an implicit mode, working with metaphors. This fact also corroborate to the idea that the racial issue pervades the University as a corpus just like it pervades the society as a unity body.

This dissertation studies identity formation and race informed by the discipline Whiteness Studies. As such this dissertation conceptualizes Spanish Whiteness historically and analyzes its representation in Spanish narrative in prose and film. This research responds to two questions: 1) How has Spanish culture historically instrumentalized Blackness thus contributing to the creation of the Western’s conceptualization of Whiteness? 2) What does Spanish representation of Empire say about its Whiteness? In an effort to answer these questions, this study is divided into two parts that correspond to the conceptualization and representation of what are termed ‘Situational Whiteness’ and ‘Imperial Spanish Orientalism.’ I argue that both are the result of a Spanish differential exceptionalism based on Orientalist cultural practices of tactical assimilation, by means of which the Black experience is subsumed on the margins as a part of Spanish Whiteness. To prove this hypothesis, Spanish Whiteness is conceptualized for the purpose of exploring the strategies of tactical assimilation of the Spanish Orientalism (Hispanism, Arabism, Africanism, Hispanotropicalism) towards its former colonies in Latin America and Africa. In addition, the contrasting cases of instrumentalization of Blackness as resistance in José Martí and Fernando Ortiz’s notion of Cuban racial ‘counterpoint’ as well as and the racial ‘particularism’ of Joan Maragall and Blas Infante inform cultural notions of Spanish Whiteness as well as its fragmentation. In the second part of this dissertation, the analysis focuses on understudied cases of the Spanish Imperial Whiteness’s representation in relation to Equatorial Guinean and Afro-Cuban Blackness. The overall propose of this research is, on the one hand, to explain how the situational nature of Spanish Whiteness is present throughout foundational moments in diverse forms of Spanish Orientalism; and, on the other hand, to inform Whiteness Studies from a different cultural angle thus providing the discipline with a transnational bridge towards a better understanding of white processes of racial formation, historical strategies and cultural forms of structural domination.

<p>Drawing on broader discussions that attempt to envision new ways of negotiating identity, nationalism and race in a post-colonial, post-apartheid South Africa, this thesis examines how whiteness is constructed and negotiated within the framework of literary-journalistic narratives. It is significant that so many established journalists have chosen a literary format, in which they use the structure, conventions, form and style of the novel, while clearly foregrounding their journalistic priorities, to re-imagine possibilities for narratives of identity and belonging for white South Africans. I argue that by working at the interstice of literature and journalism, writers are able to open new rhetorical spaces in which white South African identity can be interrogated.</p> <p><br /> This thesis examines the literary narratives of Rian Malan (My Traitor&rsquo / s Heart, 1991), Antjie Krog (Country of My Skull, 1998, and Begging to be Black, 2009), Kevin Bloom (Ways of Staying, 2009) and Jonny Steinberg (Midlands, 2002). These writers all seem to grapple with the recurring themes of &lsquo / history&rsquo / , &lsquo / narrative&rsquo / and &lsquo / identity&rsquo / , and in exploring the narratives of their personal and national history, they attempt to make sense of their current situation. The texts that this thesis examines exhibit an acute awareness of the necessity of bringing whiteness into conversation with &lsquo / other&rsquo / identities, and thus I explore both the ways in which that is attempted and the degree to which the texts succeed, in their respective projects. I also examine what literary genres offer these journalists in their engagement with issues of whiteness and white identity that conventional forms of journalism do not. These writers are challenging the conventions of genre &ndash / both literary and journalistic &ndash / during a period of social and political flux, and I argue that in attempting to limn new narrative forms, they are in fact outlining new possibilities for white identities and ways of belonging and speaking. However, a close reading of these literary-journalistic narratives reveals whiteness in post-apartheid South African to be a multifaceted and often contradictory construct and position. Despite the lingering privilege and structural advantage associated with whiteness, South African whiteness appears strongly characterised by a deep-seated anxiety that stems from a perpetual sense of &lsquo / un-belonging&rsquo / . However, while white skin remains a significant marker of identity, there does appear to be the possibility of moving beyond whiteness into positions of hybridity which offer interesting potential for &lsquo / becoming-other&rsquo / .</p>

<p>Drawing on broader discussions that attempt to envision new ways of negotiating identity, nationalism and race in a post-colonial, post-apartheid South Africa, this thesis examines how whiteness is constructed and negotiated within the framework of literary-journalistic narratives. It is significant that so many established journalists have chosen a literary format, in which they use the structure, conventions, form and style of the novel, while clearly foregrounding their journalistic priorities, to re-imagine possibilities for narratives of identity and belonging for white South Africans. I argue that by working at the interstice of literature and journalism, writers are able to open new rhetorical spaces in which white South African identity can be interrogated.</p> <p><br /> This thesis examines the literary narratives of Rian Malan (My Traitor&rsquo / s Heart, 1991), Antjie Krog (Country of My Skull, 1998, and Begging to be Black, 2009), Kevin Bloom (Ways of Staying, 2009) and Jonny Steinberg (Midlands, 2002). These writers all seem to grapple with the recurring themes of &lsquo / history&rsquo / , &lsquo / narrative&rsquo / and &lsquo / identity&rsquo / , and in exploring the narratives of their personal and national history, they attempt to make sense of their current situation. The texts that this thesis examines exhibit an acute awareness of the necessity of bringing whiteness into conversation with &lsquo / other&rsquo / identities, and thus I explore both the ways in which that is attempted and the degree to which the texts succeed, in their respective projects. I also examine what literary genres offer these journalists in their engagement with issues of whiteness and white identity that conventional forms of journalism do not. These writers are challenging the conventions of genre &ndash / both literary and journalistic &ndash / during a period of social and political flux, and I argue that in attempting to limn new narrative forms, they are in fact outlining new possibilities for white identities and ways of belonging and speaking. However, a close reading of these literary-journalistic narratives reveals whiteness in post-apartheid South African to be a multifaceted and often contradictory construct and position. Despite the lingering privilege and structural advantage associated with whiteness, South African whiteness appears strongly characterised by a deep-seated anxiety that stems from a perpetual sense of &lsquo / un-belonging&rsquo / . However, while white skin remains a significant marker of identity, there does appear to be the possibility of moving beyond whiteness into positions of hybridity which offer interesting potential for &lsquo / becoming-other&rsquo / .</p>

In recent years, there has been a significant amount of new attention to white dominance and privilege (or whiteness) as the often unmarked inverse of racial oppression. This interest has spawned the academic domain called Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS). While the critical investigation of whiteness is not new, and has been pioneered by Black scholars beginning at least since the early 1900s in the work of W. E. B. Du Bois, what is notable about this new interest in whiteness is its advancement almost exclusively by white scholars. The paucity of literature centering the Black voice in the study of whiteness both suggests the lack of appreciation for the importance of this perspective when researching the phenomenon of racial dominance, and raises questions about the manner in which racial equity work is approached by some Whites who do work that is intended to advance racial equity. This study investigates the context of racial equity collaborations between Blacks and Whites, responding to this knowledge deficit in two ways: a) it centers the Black voice, specifically and intentionally seeking the perspectives of Blacks about racial equity collaborations b) it investigates the nature and effects of the relationships between Blacks and Whites in these collaborative endeavours. This qualitative research study uses in-depth interview data collected from ten Black racial equity workers who collaborate with Whites in doing racial equity work. The data makes evident that the Black participants find these collaborations to be necessary and strategic while at the same time having the potential to undermine their own agency. The study examines this contradiction, discussing several manifestations of it in the lives of these Black racial equity workers. It outlines the importance of Black embodied knowledge to racial equity work and to these collaborations, and outlines an epistemology of unknowing and a politics of humility that these Blacks seek in their white colleagues. The study also outlines the collective and individual strategies used by these Black racial equity workers to navigate and resist the contradictory terrain of their collaborations with Whites in racial equity work.

The purpose of this study is to create a broader understanding of the concept of afrophobia. The purpose of the study is also to investigate how the term ”afrophobia” is expressed in public documents. The research questions are: When did the concept of afrophobia begin to be used on an international level, but above all in Sweden? How is the term ”afrophobia” defined by different organizations and public bodies? What alternative terms are also used, and how does their meaning differ? What possible effects can different definitions contribute to? The method that will be applied by an idea analysis on my primary material. As an analysis tool, I will use five different dimensions that consist of the following: Historical perspective, Cultural identity, Intercultural perspective with a postcolonial point of departure, Strategic essentialism/cosmopolitism and critical whiteness perspective/color blindness. The result will show the different definitions of the primary material and is analyzed based on my chosen dimensions.

Com 8 décadas de existência, a Universidade de São Paulo tem se firmado como o grande modelo de universidade para o país. Seja pelos dados que apresenta, seja pela afirmação de sua história, tem marcado seu espaço na sociedade brasileira como referencial na formação científica, na produção cultural e na produção de elites que não raramente assumem postos de comando no país. Apesar dessas conquistas, a USP apresenta um quadro anacrônico em relação à diversidade étnico-racial, sobretudo, no seu corpo docente, que tem sido formado com um perfil étnico-racial extremamente homogêneo. A pesquisa ora apresentada objetivou entender a existência e a configuração de um possível nexo entre o debate racial das primeiras décadas do século XX no Brasil, com o processo histórico da fundação da Universidade de São Paulo. Na presente análise, três figuras ocupam papel de destaque: o eugenista Renato Ferraz Kehl e dois dos personagens centrais na configuração do Projeto USP, nomeadamente, Júlio de Mesquita Filho e Fernando de Azevedo. A partir da análise do corpus documental, formado por correspondências e textos dos intelectuais citados, foi possível identificar que muitos dos personagens ligados à história da criação da USP participaram ativamente do debate sobre raça e eugenia apresentado nas primeiras décadas do século XX. A despeito do relativo silêncio do envolvimento do tema raça com a história da USP, a presente pesquisa tem por objetivo trazer o tema à tona, por entender ser um dado relevante para a compreensão do papel da universidade e sua relação com a questão racial brasileira. Tendo estado presente na visão dos fundadores da instituição, bem como moldado o modo como estes compreendiam sua percepção da sociedade, a concepção racial vigente na elite pensante brasileira do início do século XX, manifestou-se na constituição da identidade (e identificação) entre a USP e São Paulo e está presente em seus símbolos. Tal dado fornece fortes evidências de que há, nesta instituição, uma cultura racial, isto é, uma tradição em lidar com a raça de modo implícito, por metáforas. Este fato também corrobora com a ideia de que a questão racial perpassa a USP da mesma forma como perpassa a sociedade brasileira como um todo. / The University of São Paulo (USP) with 8 decades of existence has made a model of University for yourself and for the roll country. This is shown in its numbers and the affirmation of its own historical contribution to the nation. In this process, the University marks an space inside the Brazilian society as a reference point in terms of scientific education, cultural production and in terms of elite formation, which, not rarely, it is the political elite of the country. Besides those achievements, the University of Sao Paulo has a quite anachronic context in term of ethical-racial diversity, especially within the university structure. We found out that the University its professors and researchers - is quite homogeneous in terms of ethnical racial matters. The main objective of this research was to understand the existence and how is configured the nexus between the racial debate of the early XX in Brasil and the historical founding process of the University of Sao Paulo. In this work, we discuss three major figures: Renato Ferraz Kehl, a eugenicist and other two majors figures of the Projeto USP, Júlio de Mesquita Filho and Fernando de Azevedo. From the analysis of the documental corpus, with is in part the mailing and the texts from those intellectuals, it was possible to identify that many of those that was part of the process of foundation of the USP was also part of the debate about race and eugenics from the early XX. There is a relative silence when the subject is the discussion of race inside and in the context of the foundation of USP; this research will bring up this discussion, understanding that this will be relevant to a comprehensive discussion of the roll of this University facing the racial debate in Brasil. Already present in the vision of the founders of the institution and shaping its social perception, the racial conception of the Brazilian elite from the early XX was heard and became part of the identity (and the identification) between USP and Sao Paulo and it is present in its symbols. With that in mind, we found strong evidence of a racial culture, which is a tradition to handle race in an implicit mode, working with metaphors. This fact also corroborate to the idea that the racial issue pervades the University as a corpus just like it pervades the society as a unity body.

This study explores how white social movement activists in Madrid, Spain, relate to race and racism, a previously unexamined issue in the Spanish context. The study is based upon qualitative semi-structured interviews and analytically framed within critical whiteness studies. The first part of the study focuses on how the interviewed activists understand race, whiteness and racism at a conceptual level. The second part analyses three dominant discourses that the white activists employ to make sense of race and racism in the specific context of social movements. The findings indicate an important gap between the two and show that when referring to social movements, all activists engage in racism evasiveness, allowing them to reproduce a sincere fiction of the white self as a "good" and "non-racist" person. The study moreover discusses how the three discourses may influence the way in which anti-racist work can be framed and despite some differences, they all present serious limitations in terms of challenging both internal and external racial power relations.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Drawing on broader discussions that attempt to envision new ways of negotiating identity, nationalism and race in a post-colonial, post-apartheid South Africa, this thesis examines how whiteness is constructed and negotiated within the framework of literary-journalistic narratives. It is significant that so many established journalists have chosen a literary format, in which they use the structure, conventions, form and style of the novel, while clearly foregrounding their journalistic priorities, to re-imagine possibilities for narratives of identity and belonging for white South Africans. I argue that by working at the interstice of literature and journalism, writers are able to open new rhetorical spaces in which white South African identity can be interrogated. This thesis examines the literary narratives of Rian Malan (My Traitor’s Heart, 1991), Antjie Krog (Country of My Skull, 1998, and Begging to be Black, 2009), Kevin Bloom (Ways of Staying, 2009) and Jonny Steinberg (Midlands, 2002). These writers all seem to grapple with the recurring themes of 'history', 'narrative', 'dentity' and in exploring the narratives of their personal and national history, they attempt to make sense of their current situation. The texts that this thesis examines exhibit an acute awareness of the necessity of bringing whiteness into conversation with 'other' identities, and thus I explore both the ways in which that is attempted and the degree to which the texts succeed, in their respective projects. I also examine what literary genres offer these journalists in their engagement with issues of whiteness and white identity that conventional forms of journalism do not. These writers are challenging the conventions of genre - both literary and journalistic - during a period of social and political flux, and I argue that in attempting to limn new narrative forms, they are in fact outlining new possibilities for white identities and ways of belonging and speaking. However, a close reading of these literary-journalistic narratives reveals whiteness in post-apartheid South African to be a multifaceted and often contradictory construct and position. Despite the lingering privilege and structural advantage associated with whiteness, South African whiteness appears strongly characterised by a deep-seated anxiety that stems from a perpetual sense of ‘un-belonging’. However, while white skin remains a significant marker of identity, there does appear to be the possibility of moving beyond whiteness into positions of hybridity which offer interesting potential for ‘becoming-other’ / South Africa