White Belongings: Race, Land, and Property in Post-Apartheid South Africa

(Hardback)

---

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

White South Africans have continued to enjoy the lions share Africas land and riches since the end of statutory apartheid. With the recent threat of land expropriation without compensation, many believe that the racial order itself is about to be undone. It is in these dying moments of the myth of the Rainbow Nation that White Belongings: Race, Land, and Property in Post-Apartheid South Africa deepens ongoing critical deconstruction of the role of whiteness in maintaining racial order. The book analyses white discourse at a time of increasing stridency and defensiveness, arguing that the protection of white entitlement and cultural connection to the land are intimately interwoven. To show this, Scott Burnett uses detailed discourse analysis of campaigns aimed at preventing rhino poaching, stopping fracking in the Karoo, and advocating for the existence of a poverty crisis. These social and traditional media texts reveal how whites hold on to their belongings in everyday talk. The author mobilizes key strategies such as asserting ecological indigeneity, promoting enclave entrepreneurialism, and reproducing the rationality of market liberalism. White Belongings goes beyond the preoccupation with identity in whiteness studies to elaborate how specific subject roles and institutions are motivated and rationalized in hegemonic discursive regimes.

Reviews

"In this original and vitally important book, Scott Burnett applies a post-structuralist analytic toolkit to questions of property, land, ownership, and control in South Africa, weaving them together with narratives of home and feelings of belonging that are rooted in histories of colonial dispossession and ongoing capitalist exploitation. Burnett's analysis of South African whiteness and the politics of land represents a significant contribution to contemporary debates regarding land redistribution and justice."

--John E. Richardson, Keele University/University of the Sunshine Coast

"Scott Burnett's beautifully written discourse analysis uncovers how understandings of the 'land question' in post-apartheid South Africa are shaped within the interlocking dynamics of colonial legacies, liberalism, the valorization of private ownership, and whiteness. Taking on some of the most cherished tropes of whiteness in Africa, Burnett demonstrates how white belonging continues to be institutionalized and materialized, despite political and economic reforms. The work makes a significant contribution to critical whiteness studies and will resonate well beyond the borders of South Africa."

--Melissa Steyn, South African National Research Chair in Critical Diversity Studies

"Scott Burnett's book makes an important contribution to the study of whiteness by emphasizing the construction of a new white identity in South Africa that sheds the older, problematic white identity."

--Tom Nakayama, Northeastern University

"White Belongings is a timely, insightful, and sometimes enraging discussion of the enduring power of white supremacy in South Africa. Burnett analyzes the pervasive discourses that associate South African whiteness with naturalness and ownership of land, space, and property. Accessibly written and vigorously researched, White Belongings is a valuable addition to the growing literature on whiteness in the global south."

--Nicky Falkof, author of Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa

Author Bio

Scott Burnett is assistant professor in communications in the department of applied I.T. at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.