Call For Papers: "The Silencing of Racial Inequality in Post-1994 South Africa" 

A special issue of Politikon

Guest Editors: Victoria Collis-Buthelezi, Mandisi Majavu, and Marzia Milazzo

It might seem almost banal to point out that the racial disparities in post-1994 South Africa are galling. Yet much contemporary scholarship on inequality in South Africa points to class as the key determinant of socio-economic difference post-1994, arguing against the salience of race. This special issue is interested in submissions that seek to problematise and challenge the worldview that claims that class is the main source of social inequality in post-1994 South Africa. Specifically, through contributions to this special issue, we hope to highlight the various ways in which dominant ideological frames such as nonracialism, intra-racial inequality, the Black elite trope, or “class apartheid” limit the range of conversations about racial inequality in post-1994 South Africa. 

Far from improving, racial inequality in South Africa has increased since the democratic dispensation. For evidence of this we only need to look at the statistics, which reveal that life expectancy for Black people decreased from 60 years in 1985 to merely 49 years in 2004 (Rooks and Oerlemans 2005). Moreover, poverty for Black people has worsened since 1994, while white people collectively are even richer now than during apartheid (Legassick 2007). Yet, despite this blatant inequality, the South African government no longer collects life expectancy statistics disaggregated by race, a fact that speaks volumes about the institutionalisation of nonracialism in the country (Milazzo 2022). In the post-apartheid era, rather than being a useful ideology, the dominant deployment of nonracialism as equivalent to colourblindness impedes racial redress and redistribution (Collis-Buthelezi 2017). South African law more broadly is often beholden to a colourblind framework (Modiri 2013). What is more, many academics, and especially many white academics, produce scholarship that minimises, silences, and even outright denies white privilege, Black dispossession, and racial inequality in post-apartheid South Africa (Milazzo 2015, 2022). This ideological capture has hindered the Black intellectual ecosystem from developing a compelling analysis of the ongoing relationship between white wealth and Black poverty (Majavu 2022).

 In this special issue of Politikon, we invite articles that examine the ways that racial inequality in post-1994 South Africa is silenced, disavowed, or outright denied in academic scholarship, the media, the government, the law, literature, artistic productions, and beyond. We are interested in articles that make visible how discourses that de-racialise inequality (for example, by arguing that inequality in South Africa is now a matter of class rather than race) produce racist forms of knowledge and enact epistemological violence. 

We welcome scholarship across disciplinary boundaries, including empirical studies produced in the social sciences, studies that provide a socially-situated reading of texts and/or engage in discourse analysis, historical studies that make use of archival materials or oral history, studies of visual culture, studies that use multiple objects and methods of analysis, and more.

In line with Politikon’s transformation policy, we especially welcome contributions from Black South African academics and Black women in particular.

Abstracts of 350 words should be sent to politikonspecialissue@gmail.com by 20 February 2024 (please add a short bio note of 50-100 words)

Selected full articles of 8,000-10,000 words (including notes and references) will be due on 1 June 2024. Please refer to the journal’s guidelines for authors

The special issue is scheduled for December 2024

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the special issue editors at politikonspecialissue@gmail.com

References

Collis-Buthelezi, V. J. 2017. “The Case for Black Studies in South Africa.” The Black Scholar 47 (2): 7-21. 

Legassick, M. 2007. Toward Socialist Democracy. Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwa-Zulu Natal Press.

Majavu, M. 2022. “Racism in South Africa: Why the ANC has Failed to Dismantle Patterns of White Privilege.” The Conversation, August 4. https://theconversation.com/racism-in south-africa-why-the-anc-has-failed-to-dismantle-patterns-of-white-privilege-187660

Milazzo, M. 2015. “The Rhetorics of Racial Power: Enforcing Colorblindness in Post-Apartheid-Scholarship on Race.” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 8 (1): 7-26. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17513057.2015.991075

 Milazzo, M. 2022. Colorblind Tools: Global Technologies of Racial Power. Evanston, IL: NorthwesternUniversity Press.

 Modiri, J. M. 2013. “Race as/and the Trace of the Ghost: Jurisprudential Escapism, Horizontal Anxiety, and the Right to be Racist in Boe Trust Limited.” PER/ PELJ 16 (5): 582-614. http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1727-37812013000500015

 Rooks, G., and Oerlemans L. 2005. “South Africa: A Rising Star? Assessing the X-Effectiveness of South Africa’s National System of Innovation.” European Planning Studies 13 (8): 1205-26.