A research report submitted to the Faculty of Arts,
University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg,
in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
Degree of Master of Arts in the F'ield of Psychology
by Course Work arid Research Report: 1996 ..7
Johannesburg, 1997 / This research project set out to explore the racial identities of a selected group of
South African whites who were Afrikaans-speaking, Unstructured, in-depth interview
techniques were employed, in which the conversations with the participnnts were recorded
and transcribed, These transcripts were then subjected tr) a discourse analysis, whereby any
possible effeci s and functions of the talk were examined, A number of theoretical
approaches informed this task. These included Foucault's concept of discourse and his
account of the functioning of disciplinary power in modern societies. Adorno and
Horkheimer's ideas 011 prejudice and racism were also found to be of t;!C,lt relevance to this
research, as well i1S Altlmsser's formulation of the concept of ideology, ideological state
apparatuses, incerpellation and subject positioning. The relationship between psychic and
social structures was also explored in the light of Adorno and Horkhelmer's fermulation of
prejudice M ,\ defence mechanism. Within this broad framework, it was shown that aside
from its overt content, racise talk could be described as having important ideological
effects. These included normalisation. legitimation and j\lstificatioll of the existing unequal
relations ill. society. The discourse analytic striitcgy facilitated an ,111;11Y5is of the conditions
under which the participants were constructed .\S subjects, and the manner In which the
terms they used (such I\S race, culture and nation) were imbricated with broader discursive
and ideological formations, The influence of social class, gender and uge variables in the
interview settings were also evaluated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/20827 |
| Date | 05 August 2016 |
| Creators | Binnell, Brynn |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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