Remembering my whiteness/imagining my African-ness

Abstract

This article comprises of reflections on an artwork created during a research exercise using visual methodologies to explore various aspects of identity within the context of autobiographical studies. It interrogates aspects of meaning and identity as a white person in post-apartheid South Africa and post-colonial Africa and traces my journey of critical reflection through an interactive process where the visual text, research on predominant theorists in areas related to the white hegemonic gaze, and collaborative comment of colleagues revealed embedded commentary and cultural critique. My critical reflections about notions of representation, appropriation, colonialism, essentializing discourses, postmodernism and hybridity are included in this article. Throughout these reflections emerged the constant need to be mindful of not reinforcing whiteness as normative and to be aware of forms of moral distancing and moral superiority. Such critical self-reflection is vital to my roles as teacher educator and researcher within the discipline of social justice in education. Although often uncomfortable, I confront and remember my privileged racial identity, fashioned in a divided and exclusive past. I consider what it is I have become and what it is I no longer want to be, and have the audacity of spirit to imagine and reposition myself beyond my white socialization. I recognize and struggle for the possibility of new frames of understanding and new identities, new social spaces and new communities, beyond the historical differences which keep up separated and alienated.