Anti-racism in the GCR (2017)
This project has taken forward work done on understanding non-racialism in post-apartheid South Africa by looking at practical planning towards antiracism strategies in the Gauteng City-Region. Given the apparent resurgence of racism, xenophobia, and discrimination on the basis of ethnicity in South Africa, practical work embedded in policy is critical to advance the constitutional values of non-racialism and equality. GCRO has a history of successful work in this field (for example a conference held in 2011 with the Kathrada Foundation, leading to two international publications). This project builds on that success and proposes a pragmatic framework for reversing racism in contemporary South Africa that will traverse the public, business and education sectors.
Preliminary research suggests that nation-building programmes and calls for patriotic practice alone will not fundamentally reverse growing racist and ethnicist sentiment and practice (in various sectors including the public sector). There needs to be a pragmatic approach. The National Development Plan does not propose pragmatic solutions to growing fractures within society, yet asserts that ‘systemic racism must be confronted by society as otherwise it will be reproduced and reinforce itself across generations’ (NDP, p 461). Attempts to institutionalise an anti-racism framework from the top-down inadvertently bureaucratises an essentially social behaviour, making any attempt toward creating a non-racial society unusable and indeed incongruous with practices of social change/anti-racism that emerge from the ground up. A focus on organic and campaign-led anti-racism, instead, is more likely to reverse the resurgence of racism, xenophobia and ethnic chauvinism in contemporary South Africa.
The project reviewed the extensive international experience, looking at successful national action plans/practice against tribalism and racism, and considered the successful experience of civil society organisations in confronting this issue. The basis of this project was to inform and discuss pathways toward social change.
Active (Academic) Citizenry
This particular area of work demanded that our research not only influence policy and societal change in abstracted ways – through publications about the field – but in direct ways through involvement with government, practitioners and public intellectuals within in the field. To this end, the project aimed to participate in the co-creation of knowledge and practice between these different groups. This involvement provided the platform through which the GCRO explored existing technologies of practice, and reflected on the pathways of meaningful societal change.
Initiatives:
- National Anti-Racism Network working group, Ahmed Kathrada Foundation and Nelson Mandela Foundation
- National Action Plan against Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerances, Department of Justice and Constitutional Development, Steering Committee Member
Outputs
The project produced a variety of outputs in line with the active citizenry approach. A video and vignette were produced as well as presentations. In 2017, a GCRO-authored report on anti-racism was published based on two research studies initiated in 2014-15.
Video
As part of ongoing research into race dynamics in the Gauteng City-Region, the GCRO interviewed a number of young people on the streets of Braamfontein. Each interviewee was photographed and their response to questions of race was recorded. These interviews were collated into this video, which powerfully represents the diversity and complexity of race perspectives among Gauteng's youth. The video can be accessed via the following link, or played directly below.
Abrahams, C. and Nemakhavhani, R (2016) 'Perspectives on Race & Racism: A view from the street'. Multimedia film. Johannesburg: GCRO.
Research Report
Abrahams, C. (2017) ‘Pathways to antiracism’, Research Report, Johannesburg: GCRO.
GCRO Vignette
Abrahams, C. (2014) ‘Social Attitudes in the GCR’, Vignette 21, Johannesburg: GCRO.
Presentations
Abrahams, C. (2015) ‘Non-racialism in the GCRO’s Quality of Life Survey’, Keynote address at Ahmed Kathrada Foundation Colloquium ‘Non-racialism at a dead end? What do the Surveys Say?’, Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, 7 March, 2015.
Last updated 18 October 2017.
