The white male artist whose self-interrogation attaches to his whiteness, difference and former centrality, inevitably exposes himself to the critical scrutiny of current discourse on race and whiteness studies. In this dissertation I examine the concept and emergence of whiteness as a dominant construct in select socio-historical contexts, more particularly in the colonial sphere. While colonial whiteness has often failed to acknowledge or foreground the faceted nature of its composition, this became particularly marked in a South African context with polarisation in the political, cultural and linguistic spheres. However in encounters with the colonised, unifying pretensions of whiteness prevailed, reinforcing difference along racial lines. I examine the work of white South African male artist Brett Murray, in which the interrogation of whiteness and associated marginalization and invisibility is again foregrounded, but predominantly in a postcolonial context. As Murray cautiously navigates his satirical gaze at the culturally and conceptually flawed hybridity of South African (male) whiteness, he inadvertently exposes a nostalgic gaze at erstwhile racial centrality. I further consider whether as a postcolonial other Murray has in fact been able to transcend racially based self-interrogation by addressing more polemic issues associated with power, corruption and inhumanity that transcend race. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2009.

This study was conducted in two parts. In the first part, two assumptions presented in Janet Helms' White Racial Identity (WRI) development model (1990) were tested. First, Helms theorized that one's stage of WRI development is positively related to increased cognitive complexity achievement and suggests that later stages require greater complexity. A second assumption of Helms' theory was that continued interracial contact is essential for advancement in WRI stage development. Part one of this study examined the relationship of cognitive complexity and interracial contact (both formal and informal) to WRI, and the relationship between cognitive complexity and interracial contact as they relate to WRI.Part two of this study consisted of a factor analysis of Helms' WRI measure followed by a second set of analyses examining the relationship between the new obtained factors with contact and cognitive complexity. This analysis allowed a comparison to be made between Helms' 5 WRI stages and the obtained factor solution from the factor analysis. It also allowed a comparison of the relationship between the stages and cognitive complexity and contact and the obtained factor solution and these same variables.Three hundred and sixty eight White undergraduates completed Helms' White Racial Identity Attitude Scale, a 4 x 6 Repertory Grid, measuring cognitive complexity in social settings, and an interracial contact measure, including a measure of both formal and informal types of contact. Results of part one of the analyses indicated that neither cognitive complexity nor cognitive complexity x contact were significantly related to WRI scores. However, contact was significantly related to WRI scores. WRI stage two was positively related and WRI stage four was negatively related to scores on formal contact. Stage 4 was negatively related and stages 2 and 3 were positively related to scores on informal contact.The results of part two indicated again that neither cognitive complexity nor cognitive complexity x contact were significantly related to the obtained WRI factors. However, contact once again was significant. The factor analysis produced a 5 factor solution that while similar in theme and number to the 5 stages, nonetheless indicated a different relationship with contact scores than the stages did. Factor 3 (representing stage 4) was positively related and factor 4 (representing stages 2 and 3) was negatively related to formal contact scores. However, factor 3 (representing stage 4) was positively related and factor 4 (representing stages 2 and 3) were negatively related to scores on informal contact. There were discrepancies across the two parts of the study as to the stages and direction of the relationships between interracial contact (formal and informal) and WRI scores. Some of these results were in opposite directions than either the theory or study expected.These discrepancies are dealt with in chapter 5. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 148-161).

This research aims to map and represent whiteness for the purposes of proposing how whiteness might be included in a critical geographical agenda. An extensive literature review is represented alongside a limited amount of personal reflection and examples from public discourse. This research tells the story of the diverse ways in which the set of social ordering processes here called whiteness, works within systems of social relations and spatial configurations to shape our experiences of and practices in space and place. These are important considerations if whiteness is to be effectively challenged in both geography as a discipline and in social and spatial relations in post-apartheid South Africa. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2003.

Text in Afrikaans / Suid-Afrikaners bevind hulle tans in 'n era van snelle sosio-politieke veranderinge. Hierdie veranderinge dra by tot 'n gevoel van ongemak en onsekerheid by die meeste Suid-Afrikaners, daarom ook by baie wit Afrikaners. In hierdie navorsing het ek gefokus op die reaksies van ses wit Afrikaanse egpare. Hoe reageer hulle op verandering? Hoe 'storie' hulle hul lewens om in te pas by die veranderende 'groter' Suid-Afrikaanse storie? Al die deelnemers was dit eens dat verandering in Suid-Afrika noodsaaklik was. Hulle is egter bekommerd oor die hoë voorkoms van geweld en die onsekerheid oor die toekoms. Hulle kinders se veiligheid en toekoms is veral 'n hoë prioriteit. In my navorsing bet ek ook aandag geskenk aan die rol van die pastor in hierdie proses. Ten slotte het ek aanbevelings gemaak wat waardevol kan wees vir die pastor en sy pastorale werk. / South Africans find themselves amidst an era of rapid socio-political change. These changes create a sense of impermanence and uneasiness amongst most South Africans, and therefore amongst white Afrikaners too. In this study I focused on the reactions of six white Afrikaans couples. How do they react to change? How do they 'story' their own lives to fit in with the changing 'bigger' South African story? All these couples felt that change was necessary. They are coping well with the changes but they are worried about the high levels of violence and the uncertainty about the future. Their children and their safety seem a priority. In my research I have also attended to the pastor' s role in this process. Lastly I made recommendations that can be helpful for the pastor and his pastoral work. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / M. Th. (Praktiese Teologie (Pastorale Terapie))

Thesis (MA (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The thesis examines the lives of four families in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal and what the situation in which these families find themselves tells us about race, poverty and social change in contemporary South Africa by using ethnographic participant observation techniques. Central to the thesis is a concern with contradiction expressed in the entanglement of these four families with a particular moral order. This moral order is the basis of continued material survival, but at the same time, it is not adequate to transform conditions of poverty nor to change feelings of entitlement, making it impossible for these families to imagine their condition as shared with other races. The problem appears to be just about individuals not thinking correctly about their position and about them not seeing how many South Africans are struggling to survive and therefore share similar difficulties. The thesis shows that the difficulties experienced have rather more to do with changing the families' common sense notions. Their common sense is grounded in material realities, in realties of institutions that provide for them but also dictate a particular way of seeing the world, a moral order. Common sense is embedded in the material practices of people, in how they inhabit space and make place for themselves, in how they interact with family, in how they work with the institutions that are the very condition of their survival, and in how they come to understand and judge the past. At the moments when the limits of the moral order become clear, it is then not the moral order that comes into question but rather it is reasserted through explanations based on particular structural changes as contingencies that reinforce the moral order rather than challenge it. It is at these moments that people reassert race since their common sense explanations seem limited. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie proefskrif ondersoek die alledaagse lewens van vier families in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal en wat hul situasie ons kan vertel van ras, armoede en sosiale verandering in 'n kontemporêre Suid-Afrika gebasseer op deelnemende waarneming en etnografiese tegnieke. Sentraal tot die proefskrif is 'n fokus op die teenstrydigheid wat voorkom in die verstrengeling van hierdie vier families met 'n bepaalde morele orde. Hierdie morele orde is die grondslag vir voortgesette materiële oorlewing, maar terselfde tyd is dit nie voldoende om die kondisies van armoede te transformeer of om hul gevoelens van geregtigheid te verander nie en maak dit amper onmoonltik vir die families om hulle kondisie as gedeel en gemeenskaplik met ander rasse te sien. Die probleem blyk om meer te wees as net individue wat nie korrek nadink oor hul posisie nie of nie sien hoeveel ander Suid Afrikaners sukkel om 'n bestaan te maak nie en dus soortgelyke probleme ervaar. Die tesis wys dat dit het eerder te doen met 'n verandering in wat die families „weet‟ gebaseer op hulle gesonde verstand (common sense). Hulle gesonde verstand is gegrond in materiële realiteite, die realiteite van instellings wat vir hulle voorsiening maak en gevolglik die spesifieke wyse waarop hulle die wêreld sien dikteer; 'n morele orde. Hulle gesonde verstand is gegrond in die materiële praktyke van mense, in hoe hulle in ruimtes leef en plek maak vir hulself, in hoe hulle omgaan met familie, in hoe hulle te werk gaan met instellings wat die basis is vir hulle oorlewing en in hoe hulle sin maak van die verlede asook dit oordeel. In die oomblike wanneer die grense van die morele orde bereik word, is dit nie die morele orde wat bevraagteken word nie. Die morele orde word eerder gehandhaaf deur regverdigings gebasseer op spesifieke strukturele veranderings wat dit verder versterk, eerder as uitdaag. Dit is in hierdie oomblikke wat mense fokus op ras omdat hulle gesonde verstand se rationalisasies of regverdigings beperk is.

Early in Richard Wright's Native Son, we see Bigger and his friend Gus “playing white.” Taking on the role of “J. P. Morgan,” the two young black men give orders and act powerful, thus performing their perceived role of whiteness. This scene is more than an ironic comment on the characters' distance from the lifestyle of the J. P. Morgans of the world; their acts of whiteness are a representation of how whiteness is constructed. Such an analysis is similar to my own focus in this dissertation. I argue that whiteness is a culturally constructed identity and that work serves as a performative space for defining and transgressing whiteness. To this end, I examine work and its influence on the performance of middle class and working class whiteness, as well as how those outside the definitions of whiteness attempt to “play white,” as Bigger does. Work enables me to explore the codes of whiteness and how they are performed, understood, and transgressed by providing a locus of cultural performance. Furthermore, by looking at novels written in the early twentieth century, I am able to analyze characters at a historical moment in which work was of great import. With the labor movement at its peak, these novels, particularly those which specifically address socialism, participate in an understanding of work as a performative act more than a means to end. Within the context of this history and using the language of whiteness studies, I look at how gendered whiteness is transgressed and reinforced through the inverted job-roles of the Knapps in Dorothy Canfield's The Home-Maker, how work can cause those who possess the physical attributes of whiteness to transgress this cultural identity, as the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath demonstrate, and how the ascribed identities as non-white for Sara in The Bread Givers, Jurgis in The Jungle, and Bigger in Native Son are by far more compelling than their performative acts.

D.Phil. / The purpose of this study is to investigate the situation of the white labourer in the secondary industries during the years 1924 to 1933 on the Witwatersrand. This research is, however, not limited to working conditions such as wages, working hours and physical circumstances, but it also takes a look at the daily living conditions of the labourer. In the first place the study focuses on the secondary industries as milieu within which the labourer functioned. The development and growth of the secondary industries were to a large extent inspired and encouraged by the First World War, the mining industry and also urbanisation. These factors led to certain demands on the secondary industries that had to be met. The above factors not only contributed to increased production and: markets, but, also created much needed job opportunities for the inhabitants of the Witwatersrand. During and after the war the industrial growth was to a large extent without direction. The labourer also had only the labour union which he could appeal to. To provide the necessary order and direction, important legislation had been introduced since 1918 to serve as framework within which employer and employee could act. When the Pact Government assumed power in 1924 industrial growth was therefore not only further stimulated, but the government made a conscious effort to eliminate problems between employer and employee. Then a look is taken at the men, women and youth labourers.

Utilizando dados da Pesquisa Nacional por Amostra de Domicílios (PNAD), o trabalho investiga o comportamento e os determinantes dos diferenciais de rendimento do trabalho entre negros e brancos no Brasil, bem como as causas da mudança observada nesse diferencial, no período 1995-2013. Contatou-se que, embora a diferença remanescente seja substancial e inaceitável, houve nesse período uma redução do hiato de rendimento entre os dois grupos de cor. Os resultados da decomposição de Oaxaca-Blinder indicam que a diferença entre os níveis de escolaridade média e as desiguais distribuições geográfica e ocupacional dos dois grupos são os principais determinantes dos diferenciais de rendimento observados. No que diz respeito à mudança observada no hiato de rendimento entre 1995 e 2013, os resultados da decomposição de Smith-Welch apontam para a queda nas taxas de retorno à escolaridade e para as mudanças na distribuição regional da população negra ocupada como seus principais determinantes. / Using data from an annual household survey (PNAD), this study analyses the behavior and the determinants of black-white income gap in the Brazilian labor market, as well as the causes of the observed change in this gap, in the period 1995-2013. It was observed that, while the remaining income gap is substantial and unacceptable, during this period there was a reduction in this gap between the two groups of skin-color. By applying the Oaxaca-Blinder procedure it was identified that the difference between the average level of education and the unequal geographical and occupational distributions of the two groups are the main determinants of the observed income gap. The Smith-Welch procedure of dynamic decomposition shows that the main determinants of the reduction of the black-white income gap between 1995 and 2013 are the decline in the rates of return to education and the changes in the regional distribution of the black population.