White South Africans Research Articles

Collective Psychological Ownership and Territorial Compensation in Australia and South Africa

Collective psychological ownership as a sense that a territory belongs to a group might explain attitudes of the White majority toward territorial compensation for Indigenous Peoples in settler societies. Ownership can be inferred from different general principles and we considered three key principles: autochthony (entitlements from first arrival), investment (entitlements from working the land), and formation (primacy of the territory in forming the collective identity). In two studies, among White Australians (Study 1, N = 475), and White South Africans (Study 2, N = 879), we investigated how support for these general principles was related to perceived ingroup (Anglo-Celtic/White South African) and outgroup (Indigenous Australian/Black South African) territorial ownership, and indirectly, to attitudes toward territorial compensation for the Indigenous outgroup. Endorsement of autochthony was related to stronger support for territorial compensation through higher perceived outgroup ownership, whereas investment was related to lower support through higher perceived ingroup ownership. Agreement with the formation principle was related to stronger support for compensation through higher outgroup ownership, and simultaneously to lower support through higher ingroup ownership.

The Kaiser's lost African empire and the Alternative für Deutschland: Colonial guilt-denial and authoritarian populism in Germany

This article examines the role which the "imaginary" of the empire that Germany lost in 1919 plays in the contemporary German extreme right, and especially its leading expression, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). It focuses on the symbolic importance of the former colonies in South West Africa / Namibia and East Africa / Tanzania and of the less emotionally charged, although also significant, German 'informal empire' connections to South Africa. The article highlights that the AfD draws on a considerable legacy of political activism concerning Africa stretching back through the colonial revanchist nationalism of the Weimar era, the global network of the Nazi Party's "Foreign Organisation", and the post-war populism of Franz Josef Strauß. AfD ideologues glorify the achievements of the Kaiserreich, and emphasise that Germany has nothing to be ashamed of, in relation to its record in the colonial era. With the recent demands from Namibia for the payment of German reparations for the 1904-7 genocide in that country, this past has become a very live issue in German politics, and the AfD has made much of its opposition to any admission of German culpability. The article also shows how the AfD portrays itself as the defender of the German minority in Namibia and of white South Africans, whose position is represented as a warning of what happens when white people allow racial "others" to attain political power. The analysis seeks to avoid simple "culturalist" /historicist explanations of the presence of these issues in contemporary politics, embedding its account in the continuities of significant social, economic and strategic relationships between southern Africa and Germany.

Web of Human Relationships in Select Novels of J. M. Coetzee: A Literature Review

Purpose: The depiction of the problems of conflicts and contradictions and graphical portrayal of the web of human relationship among people of varied races in South African society by Coetzee has been identified as the focus of the study. The British rule had an impact on South Africa that comprised the native South Africans or black race, Afrikaners or the white South Africans and the white people of colonial authority. The research has reviewed related research articles, books and research theses done on the novels of J.M. Coetzee to consolidate the data on the portrayal of the web of human relationship among people of varied races in South Africa. A close reading of select novels of Coetzee also reveals the effects of racism and colonial oppression. More importantly, his writings transcend political, geographical and social boundaries to achieve universal significance. The study of related literature in the works of Coetzee further discloses his ability not only to delineate local situations and characters but to infuse them with universal ideology and characteristics of his mission as well. However, the study to achieve research focus has been confined to the web of human relationships. His use of the country's apartheid system and its post-apartheid transition to represent the bareness and desolation of the human state has also been brought under the discussion. Thus, the present study intends to bring out social relationship existing amidst the native South Africans, the Afrikaners or the white South Africans and the people from white authority in apartheid society of South Africa, with specific reference to select novels. Design/Methodology/Approach: The researcher has reviewed almost fifty research articles, fifteen books and fifteen research theses for Master Degree, Master of Philosophy and Doctorate in Philosophy on the novels of Coetzee. Hard copies of some of the books were accessed in the St. Aloysius College library, Mangalore and EFLU library, Hyderabad. The online search was made to collect the database through Google scholar. The studies reviewed are peer reviewed journals, original research papers, National and International Publications. The researcher has referred and followed APA Manuel for the analyses of the research work. Findings/Result: After reviewing a greater number of articles, books and theses it has been found that the multiple interpretations which were given to Coetzee’s novels help to emerge his mission which is more quizzical, more explorative. On reading his novels, one may find out that Coetzee does not stop with describing and delineating local situations and characters, but infuses them with universal ideology and characteristics of his mission. Originality/Value: It’s proven that the web of social relationship and social reality are not a fixed presence; it varies from person to person, place to place, culture to culture, and country to country in any moment or situation. Genuine social and human relationship developed and sustained with the true nobleness of humanity is the means to thwart the ills and troubles of the societal conflicts and contradictions. Paper Type: Analytical research based on review of literature.

COVID-19 as Natural Intervention: Guilt and Perceived Historical Privilege Contributes to Structural Reform Under Conditions of Crisis.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been described as an unmasking of persistent racialized inequalities linked to South Africa’s oppressive past. However, such observations lack empirical support. Here we examined whether COVID-19 lockdown conditions encouraged greater perceptions of continuing structural racism together with motivational and behavioral support for social justice, and whether guilt or empathic concern undergirded such responses. A national sample of White South Africans’ data suggests that the pandemic served as a natural intervention, fostering greater acknowledgement of structural racism and support for redress through increased awareness of historical privilege and guilt in response to Black hardship. Guilt furthermore predicted a social justice motivation in relief efforts, whereas empathic concern predicted only charity motivation. These results suggest that “White guilt” is more consequential than empathic concern in contributing to structural reform but would require longer-term processes to support the translation of its motivational push into sustainable contributions to social justice.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s42761-021-00073-7.

Racial relations and life satisfaction among South Africans: Results from the 2017 South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS)

The current study examined differences in race relations as a predictor of life satisfaction among South African adults. We analysed data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey 2017 (n = 3 135; female = 61%; black = 61% , coloured/mixed-race = 16%, Indian South Africans = 11%, and white South Africans = 11%; mean age = 43 years, SD = 17.22 years). Linear regression models indicated that positive racial interaction predicted life satisfaction for black Africans, coloured/mixed-race, and the total sample in general. For the black Africans, education, household income, and living standard predicted life satisfaction, while age and household income predicted life satisfaction for the coloured/mixed-race group. Living standard predicted life satisfaction for South African Indians, and age and education predicted life satisfaction for white South Africans. These results support the importance of positive relations and diversity as salient sources of life satisfaction in a society transforming from a history of racial segregation.

Throwing off the dark legacy when going down: Experience of status loss undermines reparation intentions prompted by narratives of the ingroup's past wrongdoings.

Two experiments tested whether group members' reparation intentions towards victims of the ingroup's past wrongdoings depend on their experience of relative status change. We manipulated born-free White South Africans' experience of accessibility of memories of past ingroup wrongdoings and their current experiences of status loss. For participants believing in the ingroup's responsibility for past wrongdoing towards Black South Africans during Apartheid, status-loss experiences reduced reparation intentions prompted by the experience of memorizing examples of such wrongdoing as easy (Experiment 1, N = 193), and the ease to remember wrongdoing examples increased reparation intentions only if participants were reminded of status stability, but not if they were reminded of status loss (Experiment, N = 126). We conclude that the implications of narratives referring to past ingroup wrongdoings are contingent upon their relational function in ongoing social change processes.

Systemic racism in global health: a personal reflection

Systemic racism in global health: a personal reflection

FRAX-based fracture probabilities in South Africa

SummaryThe hip fracture rates in South Africa were used to create ethnic-specific FRAX® models to facilitate fracture risk assessment.IntroductionThe aim of this study was to develop FRAX models to compute the 10-year probability of hip fracture and major osteoporotic fracture and assess their potential clinical application.MethodsAge- and sex-specific incidence of hip fracture and national mortality rates were incorporated into a FRAX model for the White, Black African, Coloured and Indian population of South Africa. Age-specific 10-year probabilities of a major osteoporotic fracture were calculated in women to determine fracture probabilities at a femoral neck T score of -2.5 SD, or those equivalent to a woman with a prior fragility fracture. Fracture probabilities were compared with those from selected countries.ResultsProbabilities were consistently higher in Indian than in Coloured men and women, in turn, higher than in Black South Africans. For White South Africans, probabilities were lower than in Indians at young ages up to the age of about 80 years. When a BMD T score of −2.5 SD was used as an intervention threshold, FRAX probabilities in women age 50 years were approximately 2-fold higher than in women of the same age but with an average BMD and no risk factors. The increment in risk associated with the BMD threshold decreased progressively with age such that, at the age of 80 years or more, a T score of −2.5 SD was no longer a risk factor. Probabilities equivalent to women with a previous fracture rose with age and identified women at increased risk at all ages.ConclusionsThese FRAX models should enhance accuracy of determining fracture probability amongst the South African population and help guide decisions about treatment.

Politics of Making a New Space for School Libraries in South Africa

In this paper I consider the politics around the school library in South Africa and what is emerging during this postapartheid period of social transformation, to assess the politics of the 'new space' being produced through that transformation. This requires me to look back, through memories and images, at what was inherited from the apartheid era – an approach often criticised by embarrassed white South Africans who wish to be blinkered, and move on, ignoring our painful history, our roots. Then I revisit the process of formulating national regulatory policy for school libraries in South Africa, and try to understand the obstacles to its progress. My conclusions will point to what we might need to look for in the emerging policy for a ‘new practice’ and ‘new space' for school libraries.

Circulating neurotrophins and hemostatic risk factors of atherothrombotic cardiovascular disease at baseline and during sympathetic challenge: the SABPA study

Sympathetic activation may trigger acute coronary syndromes. We examined the relation between circulating neurotrophic factors and hemostatic risk factors of atherothrombotic cardiovascular disease at baseline and in response to acute mental stress to establish a brain–heart link. In 409 black and white South Africans, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and fibrinolytic measures were assessed at baseline. Glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), S100 calcium-binding protein (S100B), von Willebrand factor (VWF), fibrinogen and D-dimer were assessed at baseline and 10 min after the Stroop test. Neurotrophins were regressed on hemostatic measures adjusting for demographics, comorbidities, cardiometabolic factors and health behaviors. Higher baseline BDNF was associated with greater stress-induced increase in fibrinogen (p = 0.003) and lower D-dimer increase (p = 0.016). Higher baseline S100B was significantly associated with higher baseline VWF (p = 0.031) and lower fibrinogen increase (p = 0.048). Lower baseline GDNF was associated with higher baseline VWF (p = 0.035) but lower VWF increase (p = 0.001). Greater GDNF (p = 0.006) and S100B (p = 0.042) increases were associated with lower VWF increase. All associations showed small-to-moderate effect sizes. Neurotrophins and fibrinolytic factors showed no significant associations. The findings support the existence of a peripheral neurothrophin-hemostasis interaction of small-to-moderate clinical relevance. The implications for atherothrombotic cardiovascular disease need further exploration.

WHITE URBAN IMMERSION, INTERSUBJECTIVITY, AND AN ETHICS OF CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

AbstractThe past decades have seen a rise in religious and secular responses to inequality that seek to offer those who are relatively wealthy an opportunity to personally engage with impoverished people and places. This article examines three cases of elite white South Africans who intentionally immersed themselves in poor urban environments. In dialogue with the anthropology of ethics, I argue that immersion was seen as an experimental tool for transforming the self and cultivating virtues of empathy and responsibility towards others. In this way, immersion acted as a technology of the self, linking care of the self to care of others. Yet such experimentation was not without risk. Though imagined as a tool that could promote care of the self and care of others, immersion carries with it the potential to reinforce power divides and/or solicit negative moral judgment.

Prevalence and characteristics of incidental colorectal polyps in patients undergoing colonoscopy at a South African tertiary institution.

There is a lack of data on the frequency and pattern of colorectal adenomas in sub-Saharan Africa to guide diagnostic and preventive strategies for colorectal cancer (CRC) in the region. To describe polyp characteristics and adenoma frequency in patients at average risk of CRC, who are undergoing colonoscopy for bowel symptoms at a tertiary hospital in South Africa (SA). Colonoscopy records from the prospective endoscopy database at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, SA, from August 2014 to February 2017, were retrieved. The presence of polyps, and their morphology, size, site and number in relation to ethnicity, symptoms and colonoscopy quality indicators were analysed. The histological type and grade were obtained from laboratory records and analysed. The primary endpoint was the adenoma detection rate (ADR). Age, gender, ethnicity, symptoms, bowel preparation and caecal intubation rates were also compared between patients with adenomas and those without. Of 1 334 colonoscopies, 342 were performed in patients at increased risk of premalignant lesions; these were excluded from the analysis. Polyps were identified in 172 of the remaining 992 patients (17.3%), whose self-declared ethnicity was mixed race (76%), white (12%), black African (11%) or Asian (1%). The quality of bowel preparation and caecal intubation rate were similar between patients with polyps and those without. Patients with polyps were older than those without polyps (mean age 61.5 (standard deviation 12.9) v. 56.3 (17.4) years; p<0.002). On histological examination of these polyps, 119 were adenomas, 26 were hyperplastic and 27 were normal. The majority of the adenomas were tubular (80%), and there were only 6% with high-grade dysplasia. Half (51%) of the adenomas were in the proximal colon, and the overall ADR was 12%. The ADR (prevalence) was highest in white and Asian South Africans (18% each), followed by that in persons of mixed race (13%), but much lower in black Africans (5%). This study provides a benchmark ADR for our catchment population and potentially across Africa. There is evidence of a continuing differential colorectal neoplasia risk according to ethnicity, with fewer adenomas being detected in black South Africans.

Leserskring: The Story of South Africa’s Most Successful Commercial Book Club

Nasionale Pers established a mail-order book club based on the Bertelsmann model called Leserskring in 1980. The club became incredibly successful and by 1985 it had a membership of 250,000. However, technology and a changing South African landscape brought challenges to the club. In 2016, Naspers announced that the iconic book club’s doors would be shut for good. Some believe that the club experienced its success due to the culture of reading and publishing that had developed among mostly white South Africans during the apartheid period, and that with democratisation the niche it once held slowly started to disappear.

The Voice of the Black Female Other: A Post-Colonial Feminist Perspective in J. M. Coetzee’s Age of Iron

As a beacon in a storm, John Maxwell Coetzee has established himself through his intellectual contribution to the post-colonial feminism literature in general and South African slavery epoch in particular. Accordingly, this study has been devoted to critically reflect how Coetzee confined his pen to support the oppressed black South Africans against injustice, oppression and deprivation. Moreover, the paper reveals the South African inextricable components and haw the writer has deeply perceived both apartheid and post-apartheid history by his naked eyes. Coetzee’s Age of Iron reveals his unique ability to aptly penetrate his readers based on contradiction where pessimism is shifted to optimism and, therefore, the readers’ mindset is directly shifted from atrocity to love. The study then delves deeply to show how Coetzee provides a solution to bring two parted races, black and white South Africans, together through the role of women characters in his fiction based on both gender and racial schism. Specifically, this study critically scrutinizes Coetzee’s Age of Iron. The study applies the post-colonial feminism theory using discursive strategy based on sociological and anthropological analyses to reveal how colonization destroyed South Africans’ cultures resulting in a crisis of human segregation which is depicted through white women characters in the novel. By drawing the post-colonial black women’s treatment by the colonisers and the forms of resisting their hegemony, the findings of this study are expected to significantly contribute to the researchers whose concern is on black women in Coetzee’s fiction.

Nostalgic Dystopia: Johannesburg as Landscape after White Writing

Summary In 1988 J.M. Coetzee published White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa, formulating landscape as inherently entangled with problematic notions of white identity and belonging. Coetzee posits that white descendants of the Dutch and English colonists failed to find an appropriate “language” to represent the country’s landscape because they failed to establish an African identity. This crisis seems topical again with debates around land expropriation in the media, as well as #FeesMustFall considering questions of race and belonging. How is this reflected in contemporary landscape representation? By investigating the depiction of Johannesburg in the film District 9 (Blomkamp 2009), I aim to consider how landscape is seen as a contradictory nostalgic dystopia, reflecting the complexity of whiteness in relation to place in South Africa. The land itself bears the dystopian scars of the colonial mining industry, the geographic segregation of the apartheid regime, and the decay following the aftermath of so-called “white flight” in the inner city. At the same time, it is nostalgically depicted as the urban landscape of the 1980s, which for white people offered an illusory utopian lifestyle. Johannesburg in District 9 is thus a projection of white anxiety around land, hearkening back to Coetzee’s notion of disconnection between white South Africans and the landscapes of the country, and which seems to inspire an ironic nostalgia for a fictional past.

On photographing the legacies of violence: A conversation with Jo Ractliffe

In her work, the South African photographer Jo Ractliffe has been exploring the idea of landscape as “pathology,” how past violence manifests in the landscape of the present. In 2007, she made the first of a number of visits to Angola and over the following 4 years photographed the lingering end of Angola’s civil war, one that South Africa was deeply involved in and was known to White South Africans as the South Africa’s “Border War.” For Violence: An international journal, she has come back on her wide body of work and shared her thoughts on the difficulties to grasp violence visually, the ethics of representation and the ways in which photography exercises one’s critical awareness.

Estimation of sex from the metacarpal dimensions at the nutrient foramen in white South Africans

ABSTRACT Sex estimation is important in both forensic and archaeological cases and requires a variety of bones and measurements to obtain accurate estimates. Discriminant function analysis equations on postcranial elements are associated with population specificity, hence the need to generate equations for each population group. The current study examined the utility of the measurements around the nutrient foramen of the metacarpals for sex estimation from white South Africans. The study utilized 520 left metacarpals from 104 adult skeletons of white South Africans of known sex (53 males, 51 females) and age at death (range 21 to 65 years) obtained from the Raymond A. Dart Collection of Human Skeletons at the University of the Witwatersrand. Measurements that were subjected to stepwise and direct discriminant function analyses include total length, distance from proximal end to nutrient foramina, circumference, palmar-dorsal diameter, and mediolateral diameter at the level of the nutrient foramen. Combinations of breadth measurements of the first and second metacarpals produced high sex estimation scores ranging from 82% to 91% (stepwise discriminant function analysis) and 82–94% (direct discriminant function analysis) indicating that the dimensions around the nutrient foramen of the metacarpals are useful in sex estimation and can be used in fragmentary bones.

Forensic utility of cranial measurements in stature reconstruction in South Africans of European descent.

The height of an individual (stature) is one of the biological profiles that is estimated as part of human identification process from various components of the human skeleton. The anatomical method is often used for this purpose when a complete and intact skeleton is available for forensic analysis because it is accurate. Since complete skeletons are seldom present in most forensic cases, the mathematical method, which shows linear relationship between stature and bone measurements, becomes the method of choice. Population and sex-specific regression equations for stature estimation have been formulated using intact and fragmentary long bones amongst South African whites and blacks. Individual and combinations of measurements of other skeletal elements including bones of the feet have also been used in the formulation of regression equations. However, few studies have utilized measurements of the skull for stature reconstruction. Skeletal height, calculated from a suite of measurements, was regressed on six cranial measurements. Basibregmatic height and basion-nasion length presented with the highest correlation coefficient for an individual variable in males (0.50) and females (0.48), respectively. The range of correlation coefficient from multivariate analyses in males (0.58-0.63) is similar to that obtained in females (0.55-0.62). The standard error of estimates of the equations, a measure of the accuracy of the equations, for male sample (6.74-7.09) was slightly higher than that for females (5.47-5.89). Regression equations presented in this study should be used with caution in forensic cases when only the skull is available for human identification. Significance of main findings: 1. Skull measurements show low to moderate correlation with stature. 2. Use of skull dimensions is advised only in the absence of intact long bones and other skeletal elements in South Africa.

Nose approximation among South African groups from cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) using a new computer-assisted method based on automatic landmarking

Considering the high demand for the identification of unknown remains in South Africa, a need exists to establish reliable facial approximation techniques that will take into account sex and age and, most importantly, be useful within the South African context. This study aimed to provide accurate statistical models for predicting nasal soft-tissue shape from information about the underlying skull subtract among a South African sample.The database containing 200 cone-beam computer tomography (CBCT) scans (100 black South Africans and 100 white South Africans). The acquisition and extraction of the 3D relevant anatomical structures (hard- and soft-tissue) were performed by an automated three-dimensional (3D) method based on an automatic dense landmarking procedure using MeVisLab © v. 2.7.1 software. An evaluation of shape differences attributed to known factors (ancestry, sex, size, and age) was performed using geometric morphometric and statistical models of prediction were created using a Projection onto Latent Structures Regression (PLSR) algorithm. The accuracy of the estimated soft-tissue nose was evaluated in terms of metric deviations on training and un-trained datasets.Our findings demonstrated the influence of factors (sex, aging, and allometry) on the variability of the hard- and soft-tissue among two South African population groups. This research provides accurate statistical models optimized by including additional information such as ancestry, sex, and age. When using the landmark-to landmark distances, the prediction errors ranged between 1.769mm and 2.164mm for black South Africans at the tip of the nose and the alae, while they ranged from 2.068mm to 2.175mm for the white subsample. The prediction errors on un-trained data were slightly larger, ranging between 2.139mm and 2.833mm for the black South African sample at the tip of the nose and the alae and ranging from 2.575mm to 2.859mm for the white South African sample.This research demonstrates the utilization of an automated 3Dmethod based on an automatic landmarking method as a convenient prerequisite for providing a valid and reliable nose prediction model that meets population-specific standards for South Africans.

A Health Care System Divided

From 1948 to 1994 South Africa was under the repressive Apartheid regime. Among many other actions taken to ensure white South Africans maintained power, the regime put in place discriminatory health policies that deprived black South Africans of equitable health care. As the apartheid era came to an end in 1994, the newly elected African National Congress sought to prioritize equity by creating the National Health Act. Despite this, major disparities in health care persist. Te purpose of this case study is to shed light on such disparities in the South African health system by using maternal health as a proxy. Mothers living in rural areas continually contend with barriers to access, afordability and availability. Rural areas account for about 46% of South Africa’s population but service provision is only 12% and 19% of the nation’s doctors and nurses respectively. The lack of medical professionals in these areas make it difcult for mothers to receive vital procedures, such as emergency obstetric care, without traveling unmanageable distances. Moreover, high transport costs ofset progress made by the elimination of out-of-pocket expenses and continues to make the cost of accessing care prohibitively expensive, accounting at times for 51.4% of household income.