Racial positioning in the narratives of a South African student

What is it about?

This article explores the ways in which one student talks about race, identity and position in a focus group on a South African campus. It explores the complexities and ambivalences in her discourse and the ways in which the student negotiates the the difficult terrain of racial positioning in the post-apartheid South Africa. It draws on the narrative theory of Labov and others as an analytical framework, and points to the role of reported speech as a key evaluative and positioning device.

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Why is it important?

Exploring how racial identities and positions continue to be reproduced in discourse remains an essential part of dismantling the inherited racial discourses of apartheid.