2.2. WHITENESS AS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT
2.3.2. The ‘spatial turn’ that enhances the sociological understanding of
‘Conversation’ is central to the kind of learning that takes in realm of public pedagogy (Blyth, 2008; Jeffs & Smith, 2005; Zeldin, 1999). Blyth (2008, p. 4) defines conversation as it is intended here as “…the spontaneous business of making connections”, those between people and ideas as well as those between people and places. In the process of such conversation experience is explored and enlarged and people are influenced, often in unpredictable ways.
Democracy and social justice are desirable primary outcomes of public pedagogy (Giroux, 2005; Jeffs & Smith, 2005; Sennett, 2012). This is invariably not the case, however. Giroux (2005), for example, decries the fact that at the present time in western countries public pedagogy has become so strongly aligned with, and expressive of, neoliberal politics, that democracy and social justice have suffered in the process. Later, in Chapter 6, I make reference to the degree to which I was influenced by public pedagogy in the three southern African geopolitical spaces of my experience and of how the influence of the same, being so strongly supportive of on-going white supremacy, severely undermined democracy and social justice in those spaces.
All the more reason, for scholars such as Austin and Hickey (2008); Giroux (1994, 2005) ; Gutman (1999); Freire (1998) and hooks (1994), that formal spheres of learning need to intervene so as to provide students with the ability to engage critically with the society in which they live. This is precisely where critical pedagogy, which has been referred to above, has such an important role to play.
2.3.2. The spatial ‘turn’ that enhances the sociological understanding of my socialisation
Scholars including Allnutt (2011), Goodenough (2011), Kelly (2005, 2011) and Tanaka (2011), who work in the field of memory, pedagogy and place concur with this.
There is agreement among scholars in the field that the use and understanding of the spatial dimension that has the potential to be so helpful should not be theorised in the dry statistical, neutral terms with which geographers became so preoccupied during the
‘Quantitative Revolution’ of the 1970s and 1980s (Gulson & Symes, 2007; Usher, 2002).
Nor should the debilitating effects of ‘spatial determinism’ be allowed to take root (Green
& Letts, 2007). What should be favoured instead, is space which is conceived of as a
‘spatial problematic’, where space is conceived of as “…a product of cultural, social, political and economic interactions, imaginings, desires and relations” (Singh et al., 2007, p. 197). This conceptualisation of space, which is built around a recognition of the dialectical relationship between space and society (Green & Letts, 2007), is informed by the work of, for example, Lefebvre (1991) and Soja (1996).
Lefebvre (1991) distinguished between three complementary levels of space, namely
‘perceived’ space, ‘conceived’ space and ‘representational’ space. ‘Perceived’ space is readily visible and apparent. It is space as it is interpreted in common sense everyday ways. An example would be a home or a school. ‘Conceived’ space is a more abstract notion and refers to space as it is used by designers and planners. An example would be the design for the interior of a room. ‘Representational’ space refers to space as it is lived and experienced. It is this conceptualisation of space which accommodates notions of political and ideological content and human agency.
A ‘trialectic’ theorisation of space is added to this conceptualisation by Soja (1996). This consists of what Soja (1996) refers to as ‘Firstspace’, ’Secondspace’, and ‘Thirdspace’.
Firstspace’ is the spatial dimension in which something is observable and measurable.
‘Secondspace’ is ideational in that it accommodates how we think about space.
‘Thirdspace’ is where subjectivity and objectivity come together. It is in this ‘Thirdspace’, as with Lefebvre’s (1991) ‘Representational’ space, that space is perceived as being in a constant state of change and flux, informed by power struggles and competing interests. It is at this level that the relationship between space and identity formation and biography can be theorized, and the production of stereotypes understood. It is here that the infusion of space with socially constructed race, class and gendered meanings can be appreciated. It is at this level where space is located firmly in the field of power
and the social realm (Green & Letts, 2007). It is ‘Thirdspace’ which needs a stronger place within critical social theory. Soja (1996, p. 6) contends that:
We must be insistently aware of how space can be made to hide consequences from us, how relations of power and discipline are inscribed into the apparently innocent spatiality of social life, how human geographies become filled with power and ideology.
This conceptualisation of space speaks to my study in significant ways. My study is in the first instance, geographically placed in the southern African geopolitical spaces of my experience. I was positioned in space in each case and as I moved through the spaces I experienced social relations as having been constituted in relation to the particular spaces. In each of the spaces, space was manipulated by whites as they sought to use their control over space to protect their whiteness in the face of perceived or real threats from African majorities. My experience of space was one of spatial privilege in segregated white spatial enclaves which were created in such a way so as to, as far as possible, exclude Africans especially. My identity formation and biography were affected by this as I became emotionally attached and politically reliant on the spaces of my experience. This ‘territorial imperative’ played itself out at a ‘micro-scale’
(as in the homes and schools of my experience), a ‘meso-scale’ (as in the towns of my experience) and a ‘macro-scale’ (as in the geopolitical spaces of my experience) (Haggett, 1990).
The notion of ‘Thirdspace’ speaks to my study in another sense, for just as space has been present in shaping my whiteness, it has also been at work in determining the nature of my response to shaping forces. ‘Thirdspace’ accommodates agency on my part. Integral to my personal journey has been a need for me to learn to release many of the spaces which exerted an emotional hold over me in the past, and to renegotiate the terms of my control and occupation of other spaces as I learn to share space with those
‘kept out’ by whiteness in the past. There is a resonance with Delport’s (2005) journey of personal change where she argues that personal transformation is dependent on transforming the objects of our emotions, such as places and changing the way we think about them. I make more of this in due course.
According to Symbolic Interactionism, which is explained later, the way in which I have interacted with various spaces as objects of my experience, and drawn them into my being, has played a central role in determining the person I have become and am still
becoming. It is the nature of my interaction, both with the spaces themselves and with other individuals in those spaces, which is important. In this sense, Delport (2005) would be correct in arguing that my personal transformation would be dependent upon my changing the meaning I give to spaces as symbols and also how I relate to them.
Gulson and Symes (2007) aver that space is frequently used in everyday language in metaphorical terms as distinct from those which relate directly to the complex theorisations of material and symbolic life. While such usage is typically amorphous and porous it provides useful metaphors for the understanding of social experience. This kind of application has relevance for my study since I often use space to ‘name meaning’ in ways which are not necessarily purely geographical. In respect of ‘political space’ for example, space is used metaphorically to denote a political ‘sphere of influence’ or ‘sociological footprint’. Contestation, control and power are ever present as the ‘spheres’ or ‘footprints’ expand and shrink according to the play of the political forces involved. A geographical dimension is present in that the ‘spheres’ and
‘footprints’ are geographically contained but it is not intended as the primary frame of reference. My use of ‘education space’ to name meaning should be understood in the same way.
I believe that the ‘spatial turn’ that is evident in my study adds weight to the contention that space used beyond the confines of its traditional geographic home can do much to facilitate sociological/educational understanding. I maintain furthermore, that the autoethnographic genre I have employed adds to the contribution made by my study since I have come across no other autoethnographic study which interrogates whiteness with the same focus on ‘space’ and ‘education’ in the same southern African geopolitical spaces.
Before proceeding to an interrogation of the variations of whiteness in the three southern African geopolitical spaces of my experience, and in keeping with the ‘spatial turn’ of my study, it is necessary to explain that in each case whiteness was shaped by political, geographical and educational spaces. While the spaces may have acted alone, I argue that the essence of their shaping power was born out of the interaction between them and also with the whites ‘contained’ by them. I argue that Soja’s (1996)
‘Thirdspace’, and my metaphorical use of space, as described above, is sensitive to the dynamic nature of the interaction involved.
The nature of the interaction is best explained by ‘Symbolic Interactionism’ which provides a theoretical framework through which to view the nature of society (Blumer, 1953, 1962). The basic premise is that human beings need to be understood as social beings that are created through interaction with other human beings. ‘Symbolisation’ is key (Eames, 1977) in that human beings interact through symbols, such as words, gestures, roles and objects which they develop to give meaning to the world. Given the importance of interaction, human beings are seen to be active and wilful in relation to their environment. They are not merely products of their environment but thinking beings in that internal interaction takes place as they converse with and among themselves. As thinking, interactive beings humans are able to “…act back on society”
(Charon, 2010, p. 167), and define the situations in which they find themselves. Such action is focused primarily on the present. The past does not cause what individuals do in the present. Rather, past experiences are seen as ‘social objects’ which individuals are able to use to help them to define the present and guide their actions in the present (Charon, 2010).
To show how Symbolic Interaction operated in respect of the political, geographic and educational spaces which shaped my whiteness I refer to but one example here, namely my experience of school at St. Stephen’s College in Rhodesia, to which I make detailed reference in my personal narrative. As an elite private boarding school founded on British public school lines, its formal white bourgeois liberal culture was powerfully shaped by its wilful loyalty to the British Empire and the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. Symbols such as language, roles and rituals were used to define the environment which accommodated such alignment. The school’s formal culture was alienated when the political climate changed. Interaction which once tied the federal territories together and which tied Britain to them changed as new patterns of interaction, caused by different interests, caused the old bonds to disintegrate. The school’s formal culture was also alienated by the emergence of Prime Minister Ian Smith’s white Rhodesian nationalism. The masters of the school rejected it because it was seen to be in rebellion against Britain and the Empire and also because of its different set of attitudes and values which were class related.
I was caught up in these changing interactions. I was influenced by the school’s formal culture and I came to align myself with it in time. This alignment was, for example, largely responsible for my decision to become a school teacher. It was not an entirely
easy alignment however, for I was uncomfortable with the school’s rejection of the
‘Rhodie’ variation of whiteness and its identification with white Rhodesian nationalism. I had strongly identified with the same and had been greatly influenced by it and I did not reject it until I had started to work as a professional educator.
St. Stephen’s College meanwhile, was obliged to interact with a working-class Zambian whiteness. Owing to its inability to attract sufficient numbers of bourgeois whites from the broader Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and from Rhodesia once the Federation had ended, it was obliged to accept growing numbers of white miners’ sons from the Zambia. With the federal break-up and changing patterns of political interaction, both within and between the former federal states, the school eventually had to close.
During the period of my schooling at St. Stephen’s College (1965-1969) the political, geographic and educational spaces of my experience were controlled by whites, both bourgeois whites and ‘Rhodie’ whites. Interaction between the spaces, as well as between the spaces and individuals, was such that Africans were severed from interaction with whites except as a servant-class which meant that separate white and African societies emerged. Whites within their interactive society, had more power at their disposal, and were in a position to stigmatise and exploit Africans. Charon (2010) contends that Symbolic Interactionism is able to contribute to an understanding of racism in society. I argue that it helps to facilitate an understanding of the racism which prevailed in Rhodesia whilst I was at school there.
2.4. WHITENESSES IN THE THREE SOUTHERN AFRICAN GEOPOLITICAL SPACES OF MY EXPERIENCE
Having now examined whiteness as a social construct, and having considered education’s role in its reproduction, and explained the ‘spatial turn’ of my study, I now turn to an interrogation of whiteness in each of the three geopolitical spaces of my lived experience. Given the focus of my study, I concentrate on those aspects of the different spaces which have been important in the shaping of my whiteness. In each of the three geopolitical spaces I examine the role of political, geographical and educational spaces.
2.4.1. Whiteness in Northern Rhodesia 2.4.1.1. Whiteness: The political space
Northern Rhodesia (Fig. 1) was acquired by the British South Africa Company towards the end of the 19th century ‘Scramble for Africa’. There were treaties between Rhodes’5 agents and various chiefs, the collection of which gave the Company control over a vast territory north of the Zambezi River which was given the name of Northern Rhodesia (Lamb, 2004). Company rule ended in 1924 after which time the territory was ruled directly from London as a protectorate. It was not designated as a ‘settler colony’, as was the case in Southern Rhodesia, despite attempts by the British South Africa Company to attract large numbers of especially British settlers by the granting of large tracts of cheap land (Ghurs, 2004; Lamb, 2004). Few white people allowed themselves to be enticed because the territory was regarded as being too far away from palpable European influence (Gann, 1960) and “…the kind of law and order that makes a Westerner feel at home” (Ghurs, 2004, p. 3).
The result was that few whites ever went to live in the territory. Their numbers peaked at seventy-five thousand in 1960 (L'Ange, 2005) and most never saw themselves as being there on a permanent basis (Kay, 1967). The extent of their minority status is shown by the fact that in 1963 there were almost three and a half million Africans in Northern Rhodesia (Kay, 1967). Significantly, while it was bourgeois whites, bent upon the pursuit of monetary gain, who initiated the opening up and development of the colony, most whites who went there to live, were working-class people who saw Northern Rhodesia as their opportunity to secure financial gain of their own (Bate, 1953). While both bourgeois and working-class whites were physically present, whites went out of their way to present themselves as a united, homogenous people in their interactions with Africans.
As has already been explained earlier in this chapter, class differences among whites are such that while there are status and material differences between them it is their whiteness which binds them (Allison, 1998; Hage, 1998; Howard, 2004; Pitcher, 2009;
Wise, 2008). Working class whites are able to lay claim to white privilege to the extent
5 Mining magnate, politician and British Imperialist. His British South Africa Company played a key role in
the occupation of Northern Rhodesia and Southern Rhodesia from the end of the 19th century onwards.
that they are invariably far more privileged than all non-whites. They are very loyal to whiteness as a result. This was certainly the case among Northern Rhodesian whites.
Working class whites were indeed beneficiaries of whiteness, the more so because of the minority status of whites as a whole and the degree to which Africans were constructed as inferior and uncivilised. Those who worked on the copper mines in particular were decidedly better off than they would have been in non-colonial settings (Bate, 1953).
The majority of whites worked on the copper mines of the Copperbelt and their intention was to return home, typically to Britain or South Africa, after they had made their money (Gann, 1960; Kay, 1967). Bate (1953) describes the financial rewards available to whites working on the Copperbelt as being particularly lucrative. Their wages and salaries were high and they enjoyed generous housing, medical and leave benefits, along with ‘copper bonuses’ (related to the prevailing price of copper on world markets) which were often in excess of their monthly earnings. White jobs were also protected from African competition, this being important for the many who worked in less skilled positions (Bate, 1953).
Whites who did not live and work on the Copperbelt were resident in Lusaka, where the majority were civil servants. A small number of whites lived in a few other towns along the ‘line of rail’ between Livingstone and N’dola (Fig. 1) (Bate, 1953). Land was not racially apportioned in the same way that it was in Southern Rhodesia and few Africans were displaced spatially by the activities of the few whites who were mostly engaged in the mining industry (Kay, 1967).
A very limited number of whites were born in Northern Rhodesia and most came from either South Africa or Britain. They maintained frequent contact with their home countries, their whiteness being connected to, and drawing from, the construction of whiteness in both South Africa and Britain, as well as Southern Rhodesia (Gann, 1960;
Kay, 1967). Kay (1967, p. 24) notes that they were particularly vulnerable to “...the climate of settler opinion in settler dominated countries”. As expected in a colonial setting, racist thinking abounded and, as was the case with their compatriots in Southern Rhodesia, they feared that the British government would, as it had begun to do elsewhere in Africa with decolonisation, hand the country over to African majority rule in the near future. However, they lacked the numbers and organisational coherence
to be able to offer any resistance to British intentions in this regard (L'Ange, 2005). For a brief time there was an alignment with the Southern Rhodesians, especially during the Federation years, but it was short-lived and largely ineffectual (L'Ange, 2005; Welensky, 1964).
It is observed by Hall (1965) that a small number of whites was not in favour of forming an allegiance with whites in Southern Rhodesia. He quotes an editorial in the Central African Post’ (3 March, 1949) in which the editor wrote “…It is our money that Southern Rhodesia is after. Does anyone believe for a moment that she would have the slightest desire to federate with us if we had no very profitable copper mines?” (Hall, 1965, p.
145). Several of the whites in this camp favoured the development of a partnership with Northern Rhodesian Africans, although they clearly saw themselves as the senior partners (Hall, 1965).
It is clear therefore, that most Northern Rhodesian whites were aligned, at least in respect of their racial attitudes and the privileged lifestyles they claimed for themselves, with their compatriots in Southern Rhodesia, Empire and South Africa. However, their small numbers, and their lack of permanence and poor organisational coherence, prevented them from being able to protect their white political power and way of life in the same way as the Southern Rhodesians tried to do.
2.4.1.2. Whiteness: The geographical space
While there were some attempts by the small number of whites in Northern Rhodesia to organise themselves politically, a sustainable nationalism failed to emerge (L’Ange, 2005). Their small numbers and the transitory nature of their tenure were largely responsible for this (Bate, 1953). In the early 1950s there was a conviction among those who favoured the concept of a Federation with Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland that the same would strengthen the political position of Northern Rhodesian whites, especially if the Federation was to be granted dominion status, as many believed it should (Welensky, 1964). Federal protagonists were convinced that the three federating territories of Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland would together constitute a state large and strong enough to enable the British presence in Africa to resist moves towards African majority rule (Shillington, 1995). It is explained by Smith and Nothling (1985) that the federal arrangement was premised on the notion of a racial partnership coming into being, as distinct from what was regarded as the extremist