Becoming African: debating post-apartheid white South African identities
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142409 , vital:38077 , DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2011.530440
- Description: The post-apartheid era necessitates the rethinking of white identities in South Africa. One way in which some white South Africans are seeking to redefine themselves is through describing themselves as African. However, claims by white South Africans that they too are Africans have been met with mixed responses from black South Africans. In this article I use contributions to an online university students' forum to explore ways in which some white South Africans are embracing an African identity and to consider ways in which some black South Africans are responding to white South Africans' shifting identities. I use contributions to this forum as a starting point to think about the possibilities and limitations that the embracing of an African identity has for the development of what Frankenberg calls ‘anti-racist forms of whiteness’ among white South Africans.
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- Date Issued: 2011
Differing interpretations of reconciliation in South Africa: a discussion of the home for all campaign
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142454 , vital:38081 , DOI:10.1353/trn.2010.0000
- Description: The theme of reconciliation remains an important one in South African politics. The issue of reconciliation was recently highlighted by South African Human Rights Commission chairperson, Jody Kollapen. According to Kollapen, in South Africa we have a problematic narrow interpretation of reconciliation, one that presents reconciliation and transformation as being in opposition to one another. This paper explores some of the debates about reconciliation as a process and then relates these to the Home for All Campaign. This Campaign was aimed at encouraging white South Africans to acknowledge the injustices of the past and to commit themselves to healing divisions and reducing inequalities in contemporary South Africa. It conceived of reconciliation as a process in which the onus is on white South Africans to take the initiative in reconciling with black South Africans. The Campaign received much publicity and provoked debate but never managed to gain the support of a significant number of white South Africans. In this paper, I explore the reasons for the Campaign's failure to meet all of its objectives, relating this to contemporary South African discourse on reconciliation. I argue that the Campaign's interpretation of reconciliation was valuable and necessary and that it remains imperative in South Africa that white South Africans critically reflect upon past and present privileges and take the initiative in processes of inter-racial reconciliation.
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- Date Issued: 2010
The ambivalence of African elitehood:
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142442 , vital:38080 , DOI: 10.1177/0021909609357416
- Description: Recent discussions in South Africa about the role of the so-called patriotic bourgeoisie highlight the much debated question of what role elite Africans can and ought to play in the upliftment of the poor. Those supporting the notion of a patriotic bourgeoisie believe that national or racial solidarity is sufficient to allow privileged Africans to act in the interests of their poorer fellow citizens. However, a reconsideration of an older discussion of African elitehood, that of Amilcar Cabral, suggests that something more may be needed before elites can act in the interests of the poor. Cabral argues that elites need to renounce their privilege and to live and struggle alongside the poor if pro-poor societal transformation is to be achieved. While Cabral may be right that shared racial or national identity is insufficient for elite solidarity with the poor, he does not consider all the complexities that arise when elites actually try to work with and for the poor. A consideration of the experiences of a long-standing Senegalese NGO reveal some of these complexities and suggest that any attempt by African elites to engage meaningfully in the upliftment of the poor, will inevitably involve continuous and difficult negotiation between paternalism and naïve egalitarianism.
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- Date Issued: 2010
The role of the privileged in responding to poverty: perspectives emerging from the post-development debate
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142476 , vital:38083 , DOI: 10.1080/01436590802201022
- Description: The debate between post-development theorists and their critics has raised several important questions, one of them being the question of how relatively privileged people may respond meaningfully to poverty while not perpetuating the flaws of past development practice. In this article I build upon the ideas of several contributors to the post-development debate in order to suggest three ways in which we who are relatively privileged may play a role in struggles against poverty. I argue that we can work to rethink the concepts informing development practice; that we may find ways to give our support to popular initiatives, and that there are aspects of our own societies which we may change in solidarity with the struggles of distant others.
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- Date Issued: 2008
Attaining a better society: critical reflections on what it means to be 'developed'
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2005
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142509 , vital:38086 , DOI: 10.3167/004058105780929228
- Description: It is clear from these and other definitions that development, no matter how it is conceived, involves change. However, it is also clear that not all change constitutes development. A particular change could be part of a process of development, but could also be part of several other processes, such as those of alteration, modification, deformation, adaptation, regression, degradation and the like. Thus it is necessary to differentiate between changes that can be said to be part of a process of development, and those that cannot. In an attempt to make such a distinction and in line with the above-mentioned definitions of development one could say that changes that are part of development are changes that bring about increased likeness to some more advanced or better state of being. A six-year-old child who, after years of talking, becomes mute is regressing rather than developing; and a child whose behaviour changes such that she begins to act like a dog would be considered to be in some kind of disordered state. However, when a child’s behaviour undergoes changes that lead to increased similarity to some conception of adult behaviour, then that child can be said to be developing. When assessing whether changes in a child’s behaviour constitute development, or some other kind of process, one has to have in mind some conception of what the child ought to be becoming.
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- Date Issued: 2005