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Making whiteness work in South Africa: a translabour approach

Making whiteness work in South Africa: a translabour approach
Making whiteness work in South Africa: a translabour approach
This paper compares the working lives of different generations of British expatriate women living in Johannesburg, South Africa. The city has strong and established transnational connections with Europe and consequently has a substantial population of white, highly skilled professionals who have come to take advantage of the benefits that South Africa has consistently delivered to whiteness. However, now nearly twenty years since the post-apartheid Government came into office, an important question to ask is how aims for racial equality are playing out in everyday life. This paper explores this question by drawing on new research evidence which looks at the changing labour market fortunes of British women migrants in South Africa. I argue that whilst the resources of whiteness/Britishness are becoming increasingly less certain, contemporary migrants may still draw upon their transnational advantages to maintain their expectations of cultural and economic privilege.
75-83
Leonard, Pauline
a2839090-eccc-4d84-ab63-c6a484c6d7c1
Leonard, Pauline
a2839090-eccc-4d84-ab63-c6a484c6d7c1

Leonard, Pauline (2013) Making whiteness work in South Africa: a translabour approach. Women's Studies International Forum, 36 (Jan-Feb), 75-83. (doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2012.08.003).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper compares the working lives of different generations of British expatriate women living in Johannesburg, South Africa. The city has strong and established transnational connections with Europe and consequently has a substantial population of white, highly skilled professionals who have come to take advantage of the benefits that South Africa has consistently delivered to whiteness. However, now nearly twenty years since the post-apartheid Government came into office, an important question to ask is how aims for racial equality are playing out in everyday life. This paper explores this question by drawing on new research evidence which looks at the changing labour market fortunes of British women migrants in South Africa. I argue that whilst the resources of whiteness/Britishness are becoming increasingly less certain, contemporary migrants may still draw upon their transnational advantages to maintain their expectations of cultural and economic privilege.

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Published date: January 2013
Organisations: Sociology, Social Policy & Criminology

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 348466
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/348466
PURE UUID: aaf8df35-c761-4979-aec8-656cef1abcb5
ORCID for Pauline Leonard: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-8112-0631

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Date deposited: 14 Feb 2013 11:22
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:48

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