Theories of Culture in Racist Discourse૾

Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109

Theories of culture in racist discourse૾

Kevin Durrheima,*, John Dixonb

aSchool of Psychology, University of Natal (Pietermaritzburg), Private Bag X01, Scottsville 3209, South Africa bDepartment of Psychology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YF, UK

Abstract This article considers the ways in which White South African holidaymakers justify racial segregation and criticize social transformation by explaining segregation as the natural and hence inevitable outcome of the ‘fact’ that humans are cultural beings. By investigating the ontological features of the racial discourse, we draw attention to the way in which ordinary people use universal theories about humans – as cultural beings – to naturalize racist practices. The rhetorical force of the arguments was derived from a scientiﬁc way of thinking. They were universalising and objectifying, and were arranged to disconﬁrm plausible rival hypotheses. The arguments functioned ideologically to defend segregation and criticize social transformation in South Africa, which they did by placing ontological limits on ‘what is’ and ‘what is possible’ regarding cultural contact. The paper concludes by suggesting that cultural and biological discourse of ‘race’ share common rhetorical and ideological strategies and functions. © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Discourse; Racism; Culture; Ontology; Ideology; Segregation

1. Introduction

Observers in different countries have indicated that new forms of racism have arisen since the Second World War, which draw on ideas about cultural rather than biological differences (e.g., Balibar, 1991a; Barker, 1981; Goldberg, 1993). For example, in contrast to biological beliefs of the early twentieth century (e.g., about Black intellectual inferiority), most White Americans today “prefer a more volitional and cultural, as

૾ This research was funded by the National Research Foundation of South Africa (formerly the CSD). * Corresponding author. Tel.: ϩ27-033-2605348; fax: ϩ27-033-2605809. E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Durrheim).

1090-9524/00/$ – see front matter © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S1090-9524(01)00024-9 94 K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109 opposed to inherent and biological, interpretation of Blacks’ disadvantaged status” (Bobo, Kluegel & Smith, 1997: 16). Similar cultural racism has been observed in Europe (cf. Barker, 1981; Pettigrew & Meertens, 1995), where the “dominant theme” in French racial discourse “is not biological heredity but the insurmountability of cultural differences” (Balibar, 1991a: 21). A number of explanations have been offered for the emergence of cultural racism. First, advances in anthropology and genetics have increasingly challenged the scientific status of biological theories of race. It has been shown that within group variation far outweighs genetic differences between ‘races’ (Lewontin, 1987); and Darwinian-type explanations of ‘racial’ progress have been rejected as “false evolutionism” (Levi Strauss, 1977). Second, the political excesses of biological racism have become starkly apparent since the Nazi genocide (Balibar, 1991b, Fanon, 1967). Finally, late twentieth century changes in capitalist production required less overt forms of bodily exploitation, making the “daily affirmation of superiority superfluous” (Fanon, 1967: 37; cf. Goldberg, 1997). Biological and cultural racism understand racial pathology differently and thus sup- port different kinds of racial segregation and discrimination. Early twentieth century biological discourse pathologized racial bodies in an all-embracing way, implying that Black people as a whole were innately, and hence necessarily, inferior to Whites. In contrast, the culture discourse of the new racism avoids essentialist understandings of primitiveness and permanent inferiority. By defining culture as a way of life, it can pathologize ‘racial’ groups in terms of their cultural tendencies (e.g., as lazy, dangerous, etc.), while at the same time encouraging mobile individuals to shed cultural impedi- ments and assimilate into the dominant culture. This is the leit motif of the new racism: “This racism that aspires to be rational, individual, genotypically and phenotypically determined, becomes transformed into cultural racism. The object of racism is no longer the individual man (sic) but a certain form of existing” (Fanon, 1967: 32). Thus, the preferred target of neo racism “is not the ‘Arab’ or the ‘Black’ but the ‘Arab (as) junky’ or ‘delinquent’ or ‘rapist’ andsoon” (Balibar 1991b: 49). In this paper we investigate the way in which White South Africans use culture discourse to justify racial segregation. As was the case in the U.S.A., racial segregation has been a central pillar of the ‘racial formation’ in South Africa (Omi & Winant, 1986). Since the legislative desegregation of society, have White South Africans followed their American counterparts in using cultural discourse to justify segregation in more subtle or covert ways? Although there are important differences in the form that segregation has taken in these two contexts, and the way it has been justified (Cell, 1982; Saff, 1995), we suggest that in principle defenses of segregation are no longer sanctioned and that culture discourse is used as alternative means to justify segregation in post apartheid South Africa. We use the context of holidaying to investigate how White South Africans account for their own segregatory practices both in selecting historically White areas as holiday destinations, and in sitting in racially defined areas of the beach. Our prime concern is to explore the way in which cultural discourse functions in rationalizing new forms of segregation. K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109 95

2. Rationalizing new segregation

David Goldberg (1997, 1998) has argued that a new form of racial segregation has emerged in the U.S.A. since the 1970s. Whereas the old segregation arose through a deliberate project to create and protect segregated spaces, the new segregation functions simply to conserve historical patterns of segregation. In place of legally enforced separation, the new segregation is achieved by exercising personal preferences – for this school, neighborhood, job, and so forth, not that. Like neo racism, the new segregation avoids all-encompassing biological constructions of racial inferiority and thus does not defend monolithic arrangements of blanket racial segregation. Instead it is assiminationalist and class-based, allowing its adherents to claim non racism. Nevertheless, this preference-driven practice of segregation reproduces historical patterns of specifically racial segregation. It does this because preferences are shaped by dominant stereotypes of a racial underclass –especially the racialized poor – who are pathologized on nonracial (cultural) grounds. Goldberg suggests that the new segregation is rationalized ideologically by an emergent worldview he terms new segregationism. In contrast to the brazen legitimation of old segregation by the slogan “separate but equal,” new segregation is rationalized by the “barely hidden insistence” that groups are “unequal and therefore (to be) separated” (Goldberg, 1998: 21). To avoid the charge of racism, the racial stereotypes that underpin these concep- tions of inequality are framed in terms of culture rather than genetic deficiency. For example, to construct racialized differences between groups (i.e., to ground specifically racial forms of segregation) (D’Souza, 1995) advances a notion of ‘cultural pathology’, manifest in self- defeating and antisocial attitudes, behaviors and habits of Black Americans (Goldberg, 1997). To avoid contact with ‘cultural pathology’, Whites then choose racially encoded preferences for association. This then gives segregation a veneer of naturalness. In contrast to the forced segregation of the Jim Crow era or the forced integration of the Civil Rights era, the new segregation is “historically produced as if it were the nature of things ” (Goldberg, 1998: 17, emphasis in original). It seems natural because it “is produced by doing nothing special, nothing beyond being guided by the presumptive laws of the market, the determi- nations of the majority’s personal preferences” (p. 17). There are thus two ideological strands to new segregationism: it naturalizes racial differences (pathology) in terms of culture; and it justifies segregation by naturalizing it. These two aspects of new segregationism are characteristic of racist thinking more generally, instantiating key elements of what Balibar (1991b) calls ‘theoretical racism’.He argues that racist theory engages in two ‘intellectual operations’. First, there is the ‘fundamental operation’ of classification, whereby the human species is differentiated into racial types and an implicit hierarchical ranking of groups is established. From the sixteenth century on, racial classification has been achieved by constructing race groups both as natural kinds (e.g., breeding populations, gene pools, outcomes of natural selection) and as social creations (e.g., social classes, cultures, ethnic groups, nations) (cf. Goldberg, 1993). The second intellectual operation of theoretical racism involves the use of ‘anthropological universals’ to explain why racism is necessary. These are theories that are used to justify racism by portraying it as the natural outcome of sociological, psychological or economic processes (e.g., preferential altruism, hypnotic contagion, social categorization). These pro- 96 K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109 cesses have their basis in universal features of human nature, such as humanity’s shared socio-cultural nature or ‘genetic inheritance.’ In the past, both of these intellectual operations of theoretical racism have been achieved in terms of biological theories. Groups of people have been differentiated, categorized and ranked on the basis of understandings of biological inferiority; and racist practices have been justified in accounts of universal biological processes, for example, that miscegenation will produce infertile or less fertile offspring, and lead to the ‘horror’ of racial intermixture (cf. Young, 1995). In contrast, in the language and thinking of new segregationism, these two operations are developed around notions of culture. Population groups are classified as cultural groups, and cultural processes are used to explain and naturalize racial segregation. For example, to naturalize group differences D’Souaza (1995) explains that cultural tendencies of Black Americans are an outcome of slavery, which encouraged a ‘culture of irresponsibility’, promoting laziness, theft, and so forth. In addition, he develops anthropological universals to defend segregation as a natural outcome of the “‘reasonable’ desire to mix with one’s own (ethnic) group, to ‘protect or promote one’s culture’” (Goldberg, 1997). Together, the two intellectual operations of theoretical racism ensure that racism is justifiable because it is grounded in knowledge of the way things are. Racist discourse is premised on a moral prescription, “founded on the nature of things” (Reeves, 1983: 17). It both offers descriptive representations of self and other, and it “includes a set of hypothetical premises about human kinds (e.g., the ‘great chain of being,’ classificatory hierarchies, etc.) and about the differences between them (both mental and physical)” (Goldberg, 1990: 300). The first intellectual operation functions to project the historical and political causes of racial difference onto “the realm of an imaginary nature”; while the second justifies discrimination and segregation by means of universal theories which explain their natural necessity. Theoretical racism is thus reasonable, for it casts racism “into a sort of invariant of human nature” (Balibar, 1991b: 37). The present research builds on Balibar’s notion of theoretical racism, and especially his understanding of anthropological universals. Drawing on this concept, we explore how ontological arguments about culture may be part of the rhetoric of resistance to desegregation. In emphasizing the theoretical elements of racist discourse we are conceiving them not as abstract explanations, offered only by intellectual elites, but as features of ordinary peoples’ arguing and thinking about race. We argue that anthropological universals form part of common sense reasoning, and as such, may be found in everyday talk. In order to develop this perspective, we discuss a tradition of social psychological research that has investigated culture discourse in ordinary peoples’ talk about race.

3. Culture as rationalization: the rhetoric of culture discourse

Our understanding of culture discourse is developed from the perspective of discourse as an everyday activity (Billig, 1991, 1996). Culture discourse is used and developed as a collective resource in the activities of speaking, thinking and arguing about race, racism and segregation. In this view, the ideological ends of culture discourse are realized in concrete contexts of everyday discursive interaction. These are dialogical and dilemmatical contexts K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109 97 in which rhetorical contents, styles and devices are used to defend one’s (ideological) beliefs and practices, and to maintain membership of the ‘moral community’ of the unprejudiced (Billig et al., 1988, Shotter, 1993). The rhetorical features of racist discourse have been explored in some studies of culture discourse. In their analysis of interviews with Pa¨heka¨ New Zealanders, for instance, Weth- erell & Potter (1992) distinguished between “two distinct constructions of culture”:a construction of ‘culture as heritage’, about “traditions, rituals and values passed down from earlier generations” (p. 91); and a construction of ‘culture as therapy’, about the estrange- ment of (especially, young) Maoris from their culture. These two ‘interpretative repertoires’ were used in different contexts to do different things. As heritage, Maori culture was depicted as pure, archaic and frozen; a static past to be preserved from the corrupting influence of the modern world. As therapy, culture was about ‘identity, values, roots and pride’, and was used to portray modern Maoris as deficient, having (carelessly) lost their culture and identity. Verkuyten (1997) identified three “different meanings of culture” in his focus group interviews with Dutch residents of Rotterdam: culture as heritage, culture as doctrine, and culture as mentality. ‘Heritage’ referred to both the rich, valuable tradition and the burdensome and outdated habits of immigrant groups (cf. Blommaert & Verschueren, 1994); ‘doctrine’ arose in contexts of talk about a fanatic or intolerant Islam; and ‘mentality’ was used to explain the ‘deviant’ behavior of ‘foreigners’. In the Australian context, Augoustinos, Tuffin & Rapley (1999) found that a construction of ‘culture as lifestyle’ served to set up a contrast between Aboriginal nomadic primitiveness and ‘White’ modernity and technological advance. These studies reveal a number of rhetorical and ideological features of culture discourse. First, culture discourse provides speakers with a flexible and strategic lexicon for constructing images of racial self and other. It can be used both to valorise and disparage the racial other as having cultural characteristics that are worth preserving (e.g., heritage, identity, lifestyle) or characteristics that ought to be discarded (e.g., doctrine, ‘mentality’, self- defeating behaviors). Second, depending on the discursive context, constructions of ‘culture’ are used to do different things. For example, in Wetherell & Potter’s (1992) study, ‘culture as heritage’ was used to portray the speaker as being culturally sensitive and tolerant; to degrade forms of (political) activity that are “in danger of contaminating pure culture”;to criticize Maori activists for being “out of tune with their culture”; and to encourage concerns about the ‘clash of cultures’ (p. 130). In other contexts, culture discourse is used to explain (away) the “social arrears and disadvantages as well as the [perceived] social advantages among immigrant groups” (Verkuyten, 1997: 124), and explain (away) aboriginal disadvan- tage as a failure to adapt to the modern lifestyle (Augoustinos, Tuffin & Rapley, 1999). Third, such research shows how group differences are reified in talk that portrays cultures as naturally occurring social categories. Finally, talk about different cultures often appeals to the commonplaces (i.e., the principles and maxims) of liberalism and humanism (Billig, 1996), appearing politically and ideologically neutral, while simultaneously servicing ex- plicitly racist ends. Under liberal guise, for example, ‘culture’ is used to defend the rights of dominating or racist groups to express their cultural identity (Verkuyten, 1997), or to criticize social welfare for giving minority (cultural) groups ‘special’ privileges, rights and advantages (Augoustinos, Tuffin & Rapley, 1999). These studies have made an important contribution to our understanding of the new racism 98 K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109 as it is reproduced in everyday conversation. They have provided an in-depth account of the rhetorical and ideological powers of culture discourse as a warrant for racist practice and as a means of attacking antiracism. In terms of Balibar’s account of theoretical racism, these studies have explored the first intellectual operation of racist thinking, showing how culture discourse is used to classify, naturalise and rank social groups. The second intellectual operation, the use of anthropological universals, however, has not been a central concern of this work. Investigations have not focused on everyday theories of culture: How people explain the existence of different cultures; what basic or natural processes operate to produce, preserve and destroy culture; and what processes produce conflict between cultures. There remains work to be done in studying the rhetoric of anthropological universals of culture. We propose the concept of ‘lay ontologies’ to focus analytic attention on the rhetorical means by which discourse naturalizes racism, rendering it universally necessary and inevitable. As theories about the way things are, anthropological universals have deep ontological elements that are worked up in accounts of the naturalness of racism and segregation. Lay ontology refers to a specific body of ontological ‘discursive content’ that is manifest as a ‘chain of reasoning’ about the nature of human nature, the world, or reality. What we have done here is to take two well-known analytic concepts in discursive social psychology, and combine them with a particular focus on ontology. Our understanding of ontological content is developed around the concept of ‘interpretive repertoires’, which are “recurrently used systems of terms used for characterizing and evaluating actions, events and other phenomena. . . Often. . . organized around specific metaphors and figures of speech (tropes)” (Potter & Wetherell, 1987: 149). Our understanding of ‘chains of reasoning’ is derived from Billig’s (1996) account of the rhetorical and dialogical nature of human thinking. In talking about racial ontology, speakers are not only expressing their beliefs, but also developing “coherent and philosophically justified point(s) of view” (Pereleman, cited in Billig, 1996: 124). Often, these theories are developed across different utterances, and our analytic task was to track these chains of reasoning as they were developed throughout the interviews. The concept of ‘lay ontology’ thus directs us empirically to a particular body of (ontological) discursive content, and to the reasoned elaboration of this content in theorizing about natural events, states, processes and outcomes. The reasoning of the new racism presupposes and mobilizes deep-seated ontological assumptions to make racism appear natural. Although he doesn’t employ concepts such as lay ontologies or anthropological universals, Barker (1981) suggests that they play an important role in the new racism, which articulates a “theory about human nature.” He illustrates such reasoning with the popular writings of Desmond Morris:

The whole human species has a wide range of basic behavior patterns in common. The fundamental similarities between any one man (sic) and any other man are enormous. One of these, paradoxically, is to form distinct groups and to feel that you are somehow different, really deep-down different, from members of other groups. (Morris, 1971, cited in Barker, 1981: 82). This argument captures features of lay ontologies that we wish to investigate. It is developed around universal theories of human nature – basic behavior patterns of ‘the whole human species’ and ‘fundamental similarities’ between people – which are founded on a K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109 99 shared human ontology. It functions to naturalize racial discrimination and segregation by converting racist practices into the natural tendency to feel ‘deep down’ differences from other groups. In addition to flagging the ontological aspects of racist discourse, the concept of lay ontology also directs us to the reasoning of ordinary people. Characteristically, the ontological elements of racist discourse have been explored in the writings of intellectual or political elites (e.g., Barker, 1981, Goldberg, 1997; Wade, 1993). In contrast to the theoretical sophistication of elite discourse, the racism of mass publics is often characterized as unthinking prejudice (cf. Billig, 1996). In his account of scientific racism in South Africa, for example, Dubow (1995: 7) suggests that “popular racism exists as a matter of unstated assumptions and unthinking responses.” This conception of popular racism risks underesti- mating the degree to which ordinary people are capable of elaborating theories of racial ontology. Our interest is in studying the theoretical features of culture discourse as it is developed in accounts of segregation, and we suggest that ordinary people will employ similar proto-scientific reasoning in their talking as can be found in the writings of Morris or D’Souza.

4. Method and data

Our data consists of transcriptions of 22 open-ended interviews with middle class White (English and Afrikaans speaking) South African families who were vacationing at the coastal holiday village of Scottburgh, during peak season, between 25 December 1998 and 3 January 1999. All interviews took place on the beach, and were conducted in an informal manner between an interviewer (the first author, dressed in beach wear) and sunbathing families. An attempt was made to ‘sample for diversity’ (Patton, 1990) in selecting families to interview. The interviews began with a discussion of family holidays and gradually moved to the topic of beach segregation. A nonthreatening and relaxed conversational rapport developed during the interviews, and there were many instances where the interviewer was referred to in colloquial terms indicating informality and fraternity (e.g., ‘boet ’ [brother], ‘my man’). All interviews were conducted in English and were transcribed using a simplified version of the Jefferson method (Potter & Wetherell, 1987). The aim of the interviews was to generate accounts of segregation. Although the beaches in South Africa were officially desegregated in 1989, they have remained informally segregated, and it is not uncommon to find beaches populated almost entirely by people who believe that they are White (Dixon and Durrheim, in press). Our interest was in both personal accounts of why individuals and families chose to holiday at a predominantly White beach, and accounts of why White South Africans perpetuate the racist traditions of the past by holidaying together in ‘White places’ (cf. Durrheim & Dixon, 2001). In addition to speaking for themselves and their families, the interviewees were thus also speaking as representatives of a community or culture, and they were accounting for collective practices of segregation. The interview schedule included no questions about culture, but all the interviewees spoke about race in terms of culture, and explicit and implicit references to anthropological universals were common throughout the interviews. The interpretation was conducted by 100 K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109 reading and rereading the interviews, guided by an inductive, anticognitivist and emic style of analysis (Potter & Wetherell, 1995). At length, we came to focus on those subset of arguments which used a discourse of culture to naturalise racism as well as provide theoretical accounts of the nature, causes, and consequences of natural segregation and its antithesis, forced integration. The aim of the analysis was to investigate people’s understandings of the nature of culture and to show how lay ontologies were used to account for segregation. Often, these theories were employed in different utterances made by the same speaker, and our analytic task was to track these ‘chains of reasoning’ as they were developed throughout the interviews. Thus, in the empirical analysis that follows, we have chosen to present longer extracts from a few speakers to illustrate the way in which our interviewees developed lay ontologies of culture to account for segregation. These extracts demonstrate rhetorical strategies that were employed by the majority of our interviewees.

5. Anthropological universals in action: the rhetoric of lay ontologies of culture

As in previous research, ‘culture’ was used in the interviews to categorise and rank social groups along racial lines in a variable and occasioned manner. Racial difference was expressed through category contrasts between the developed and undeveloped, civilised and uncivilised, traditional and modern, and African and non-African. Our analysis of culture discourse glosses category construction and advances by demonstrating first how segregation is naturalised through ontological arguments which oppose things natural and things forced, and second how a theory of ‘the natural’ is used in reasoned accounts of the cultural processes which bring about segregation. In covering this ground, we begin to explore the content, rhetoric and politics of lay ontologies of culture. Extract 1 Mike (1): Ja, you, you’re probably speaking to the wrong kind of guy because I’m very much uhm (1) a racists hey (1) uhm (1) I don’t believe cultures can mix hey. I don’t believe that they (.) cultures can mix successfully. Uhm I (.) I’ve (.) been in the Navy myself where we were forced obviously to stay with different cultures (.) and it doesn’t work. Uhm the first two or three months everybody tries to make it work. Everybody does. (Kevin-ja) But you just cannot. Uhm (0.5) becau::se (.) like I say, I just don’t believe cultures can mix for various reasons (.) s::o, look it has to happen (.) there (.) there’s no ways you can have segregation (.) I mean in this country (.) you know (1) but (.) I believe there’s gonna be tension I believe there’s gonna be problems uhm and (0.5) today is a good example ok, it it’s mainly White (Kevin-ja) and everybody will stay together uhm (.) if the beach does start going:: (.) Black th::en the Whites will (.) will go somewhere else where most of the Whites hang around. People naturally (.) stick to their own culture, that’s just they way it is (.) and (.) everybody will probably try and deny it and say ‘No, I’ve got no problem with that’, but I mean, that’s the truth hey (Kevin-ja) That’s the truth. . . Mike (2): . . . Boet, time changes everything, hey (Kevin-ja) but uhm I still maintain (.) like you said just now, there’s no ways in hell that you’ll ever get cultures to mix peacefully uhm (0.5) and that’s it (Kevin-ja) That, that is the bottom line, you know. And (.) er you asked the question, when (.) how we gonna change it and when (.) will it ever change. Uhm (.) I don’t believe we ever can change it and it never will change (Kevin-ja) That’s it. That’s K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109 101 it, you know. It’s not a bad thing (Kevin-ja) It might sound like a bad thing but it’s not. It, it’s a natural thing, you know and (.) and that’s it. Extract 2 Fred (1): Because, you know something, I think (.) if you look at it just from a general perspective (.) there’s a natural (0.5) if you want to call it segregation. (Sue-yes) And I’m talking about race. You look the world over, I mean I’ve lived in the UK (.) I’ve gone (.) to many places in the world, the US and all over, and you find there’s (.) a natural segregation. Whether it be by ra::ce, by religion, by culture by (.) it’s not (.) imposed upon you. I mean, why do you have Portuguese Clubs, Italian Clubs and er what have you, because they are familiar with their cultures (Sue-yes, culture, mm). . . Fred (2): . . . You know, truthfully I still think it is going even back to the point I made, it’s natural segregation. You know, you even look at schools, now the schooling’s open and everything like that (0.2) you still tend to find (0.5) the Indian kids (.) will stick together, the African kids will stick together (Sue-yes) the Portuguese kids. If you got three Portuguese people in the same class, in grade one (.) hell I can almost put my head on a block that those three kids will make friends with each other (Sue-yes) because they have a cultural bond (Sue-hm) uhm and they don’t have to know each other from Adam but there’s that cultural bond, and you, familiarity, the minute you’ve got familiarity with somebody that knows your customs and culture. . . Fred (3): . . . You know something, I te::nd to agre::e (.) as long as [integration is] done on a natural process and you know (.) ok, now we’ve got to try and balance what is natural, and how do we get into that sort of environment. You know uhm (.) the problem is it’s not an easy thing you know. You can go to (.) the UK (.) I stayed in the UK for a year, and I’ll tell you something there I ss (.) I certainly didn’t get (.) the UK must be one of the (.) free-est countries in the world (.) (Kevin-ja) freedom of sp::eech (0.1) anything that you can (.) you can go as long as we don’t break the law (Kevin-ja) per se. And I’ll tell you something you see (.) the actual (.) natural segregation that takes place there. . . Fred (4): . . . The minute it’s forced, you know, you can see (.) I’m bringing back the spo::rt effort now (Kevin- ja) the minute that you’re going to try quota the system or try and force people to do it, you’re actually going to retard the system (.) in 50 years because the problem is (.) it’s got to be a natural process. I’m not saying there isn’t an odd little situation that you can (.) let’s say (.) tr::y and er assist the process if, if that’s the right word. But you can’t just change things overnight you know and (.) and try and make people do things (.) that they actually don’t naturally do. . . Fred (5): . . . but naturally, you will just find certain sport actually predominated by the Blacks. Because why? They’re better. Box::ing, run::ning uhm (.) soc::cer, those er things will just be, and I’m just talking you know, now you’re going to get certain er situations that would be predominantly White. I still believe rugby will be predominantly White and will be predominantly Afrikaans. Why? Because (.) I tell you something, old Afrikaners from this side (.) I think he gets born with a rugby ball and they a::re (.) that is his sport, drummed into (.) (inaudible) drummed into his head (.) that is his sport. And I tell you something, I (.) I’m not an Afrikaner, but I tell you what, they are (.) I don’t believe there are people in our South Africa that can play rugby like the Afrikaners. They can (.) that that’s their sport. . . You gotta go wh::ere you’re comfortable with don’t you know. Don’t ask somebody to go and er all of a sudden be a er (.) er (0.5) deep sea fisherman and he hates fishing (Kevin-ja) I mean he he he, for God’s sake, I mean its got to be something that’s natural because then the natural ability comes out. You know (.) that’s when I think (0.2) you you’ll find when a sportsman 102 K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93–109

excels (.) when he is happy at what he’s doing he is good at what he’s doing and he is not being f::orced to do it (Kevin-ja) I m::ean the (.) then the natural ability will come to the fore and I (.) I sincerely hope that’s what really happens (.) with sport you know okay. I mean I’m digressing from this thing but I feel (.) I’m just hoping that that would er be a situation that would become to a more natural. . . Fred (6): . . . How (.) how you go about tr::ying to let’s say integrate people to have more contact with one another, you know I think it’s a very difficult scenario (.) obviously you’ve got to try and do it by leisure activities, by sport uhm (0.5) but you got to do it in such a way where people are going to be very comfortable to do it. Uhm you know (.) I think even if you look at the races, there are some people that are uhm (0.5) I sincerely believe very um (0.5) what’s the word? False. You know ‘Hell, this is my big Black brother’ (Sue-hmm. hmm) in the mean time he’s got absolutely n::o (.) he’s not worried what happens to that fellow (Kevin-ja) uhm but its (.) its, the problem is the political correctness. You’re getting this political correctness now that (.) I mean you’ve even seen the situation where there’s some White families adopting Black kids and that (indrawn breath) (.) and I s::ay this and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but believe me I don’t think its right or or or I think it’s very difficult for both families. . . The primary argument employed in Extracts 1 and 2 rests on an ontological premise about ‘human nature’, namely, that humans are cultural beings, and that this common endowment functions to produce difference, segregation, and racism. It proceeds by the following chain of reasoning: segregation is the natural outcome of the operation of the forces, processes and laws of human nature; and this being the case, any form of social change toward an integrated society is forced, against nature, and likely to have adverse outcomes. The argument is presented by Mike as a simple fact of life: “People naturally stick to their own culture, that’s just they way it is” (E1, par.1). Similarly, Fred defines segregation as a natural process that is “not imposed on you” (E2, par.1). An ontological distinction is thus drawn between the natural and unnatural, as segregation is contrasted with a set of social relations that are ‘forced’. The agents of social change who are ‘forcing nature’ are portrayed either as irrational (‘politically correct’ or ‘false’) individuals, or as powerful authorities (govern- ments, sports administrators, employers) who, in the interest of power or bureaucracy, act blindly or irrationally against the processes of nature to force integration. This argument involves more than a simple invocation of the category ‘nature’. It entails the elaboration of a theory about natural processes, forces, laws and events. Accordingly, the naturalness of segregation, as developed in these accounts, is not a dogmatic claim but a reasoned conclusion based on theory and observation. Fred provides a theory of cultural bonding to explain why segregation is natural. The reason why you have “Portuguese Clubs, Italian Clubs and what have you” is cultural familiarity (E2, par.1). And the reason why “kids” at school segregate is that they are initially attracted to each other by familiarity, go on to “make friends with each other because they have a cultural bond,” and then feel familiar “with somebody that knows [their] customs and culture” (E2, par. 2). This line of reasoning selects and combines anthropological universals drawn from social psychological theory, and it can thereby be distinguished from other lay ontologies of culture employed in the interviews. In Extract 3, for example, Jack develops an anthropological universal relating to ‘fear of the other’, a psychological reality which has a colonial history (“from our K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93Ð109 103 forefathers that stayed here”) and which has become genetically encoded. Here theories of culture, biology and crowding work together to explain why white fear is a natural reaction to desegregation. Extract 3 Jack: Their culture is a bit different to what (.) to what our culture is (Kevin-ja) I mean, how do you treat them? (0.5) It’s like thi::s inheritance w::ell gene we a::ll (.) we all got (.) and you have to be scared when they’re in masses hey (.) (Kevin-ja) But (.) here [on the Scottburgh beach] it’s fine I mean (0.5) n::o problem (Kevin-mm) . . . It’s like I said, it’s this inherent gene we a::ll got from our forefathers that stayed here (Kevin-ja) when they’re in masses hey (0.5) you gonna be scared obviously. Although the interviewees use everyday language, for example, speaking of socialization as having a cultural practice ‘drummed into your head’, we should not underestimate the power or sophistication of these theories. Although the respondents did not present fully elaborated theories (for example, about genetic transfer), the accounts of human nature articulated in the interviews are presented as a set of coherent and plausible premises and conclusions bound together in a tight logic.

6. Three rhetorical features of lay ontologies of culture

Three features of the above extracts lend them veridical qualities of coherence and plausibility. They express a form of reasoning that aspires to 1) universalism, 2) objectification, and 3) to the disconfirmation of ‘plausible rival hypotheses’. 1. Universalism: In explaining ‘natural segregation’, the speakers in Extracts 1 to 3 consistently marshal data demonstrating that the causes of segregation are universal, structuring all forms of intergroup relations. They offer an evidential case. Natural segregation stems from processes that apply not only to ‘race relations’ in South Africa, but equally (1) to relations between other social categories (religion, culture, nation), (2) in other contexts (different national and geographical contexts), and (3) across the generations (children and adults). If segregation occurs everywhere and always, the argument runs, it must be natural. This universalism lends rhetorical force to the arguments as accounts that theoretically precede (and then supersede) alternative explanations. If it is true that segregation is universal, then there must be some basic feature of human nature responsible rather than, say, personal racism or the racist organization of a particular society. All one needs to do is to “look the world over” (E2, par. 1) to know that this is true. 2. Objectification: These accounts express a modern form of reasoning in which the social world is objectified by materializing abstract moral social relations (cf. Billig, 1991, Ch. 3). An everyday pidgin of biological, psychological and sociological language is used when segregation is explained with reference to genes (E3), or socialization, cultural bonding, friendship formation and feelings of comfort and familiarity (E2). Such naming practices transform the complex historical, economic and political production of racism into neatly packaged natural properties of culture; and they project 104 K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93Ð109

a moral practice onto nature. This form of reasoning further adds to the rhetorical power of these lay ontologies, lending them a scientific quality. They deal with the immediate concrete reality of racism, not some abstract and biased political specula- tion. 3. Ruling out plausible rival hypotheses: Finally, the speakers used strategic lines of reasoning that were developed around a ‘logic’ of identifying and eliminating ‘plausible rival hypotheses’. They related stories of natural segregation in the army (E1) and in travels abroad (E2) not only as a kind of ‘empiricist accounting’ (Edwards & Potter, 1992, Potter, 1996), but also to counter potential opposing arguments. Consider the argument in Extract 1. By claiming that integration failed in a context where people were committed to its success (“Everybody tries to make it work. Everybody does”), Mike eliminates the ‘plausible rival hypothesis’ that the failure might have been due to a lack of commitment. Fred similarly seeks to rule out counterarguments by drawing on an implicit lay sociology. He uses the example of racism in the UK –“one of the free-est countries in the world”–to counter the implicit (historical and political) argument that it could be a lack of freedom (as in apartheid South Africa) that produces segregation. The examples of racism among young children are also constructed to counter unstated criticism. It is the unstated rejoinder that segregation is caused by social context or socialization that structures the rhetorical content of the narrative. We are told that even under conditions where the social context is nonracist (e.g., ‘open schooling’) young children (in grade one) will segregate (E2, par.2). Other interviewees noted that even toddlers segregate. What binds these three features of culture discourse together: their universalizing, objectifying, and hypothesis testing logic? What lends them coherence? They are textbook features of social scientific theorizing, and they demonstrate a remarkable grasp that the interviewees had, not only with scientific theories about culture and segregation, but also with the formal properties of scientific reasoning. The proto-scientific arguments of Morris or D’Souza are echoed here. The lay ontologies of culture articulated in these interviews are forms of ‘racial knowledge’ (Goldberg, 1993) that have a ‘disciplinary’ base (Foucault, 1977). Goldberg (1993) suggests that racial knowledge is developed in a dual movement: in the established scientific fields of the day, which often draw on understandings of race as a basic categorical object in society more generally. Thus we have a mirroring and mutual reinforcing of scientific and everyday understandings of race. Our investigation has focused on racial knowledge as it is used in everyday nondisciplinary contexts. The rhetorical content and form of lay ontologies of culture suggest that they are ‘social representations’, which are ‘specifically modern social phenomena’, having their origins in the ‘popular spread of scientific ideas’ and practices (Billig, 1991, Ch 3). The disciplinary form of the arguments is apparent also from the way in which the speakers were ‘positioned’ in the interviews (Harre´ & van Langenhove, 1999). In developing accounts of natural segregation, the speakers were positioned as knowledgeable and reasonable. In postapartheid South Africa, there is little to be gained from defending racist practice dogmatically. Thus, instead of using a defensive or evasive rhetoric, interviewees sought to establish a relation of instruction with the interviewer, expounding on the nature of the K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93Ð109 105 human and social world. Throughout Extract 2, for instance, Fred uses the hedge “you know” as a way of proclaiming a common knowledge about the ‘way things are’. This is a rhetorically powerful move because it pitches counter arguments not only against nature, but also against a shared and accepted knowledge of the natural. If people naturally segregate, what possibilities for practice exists that do not ‘go against nature’? In addition to being knowledgeable about the way thing are, the speakers adopted positions of being thoughtful and reasonable. Note how Fred deliberates about social change by considering that “we’ve got to try and balance what is natural” when asking the question “how do we get into that sort of [integrated] environment?” (E2, par. 3). His conclusions are based on an account of natural processes that limit change to a slow process and to minor situations –“you can’t just change things overnight” and “an odd little situation that you can. . . try and assist the process” (E2, par. 4).

7. The rhetorical effects of lay ontologies of culture

All these social scientific lexicons, forms of reasoning and subject positions make anthropological universals exceedingly powerful rhetorical resources for accounting for racist practice. First and foremost, arguments about cultural processes transform segregation from an accountable moral practice, into a natural inevitability: “there’s no ways in hell that you’ll ever get cultures to mix peacefully, and that’s it. That is the bottom line” (E1, par. 2). The political functions of naturalization are illustrated in Fred’s account of segregation in sport – which has nothing to do with apartheid, masculinity, and capitalism, but is simply due to the familiarity one develops with a particular sport though cultural socialization (E2, par. 5). Thus, rugby is the sport of the Afrikaner because he “gets born with a rugby ball” and later has rugby “drummed into his head.” Socialization then translates into a natural ability, which reinscribes difference and segregation in sport. Similarly, in Extract 3, beach segregation has nothing to do with racism but arises naturally as descendants of European colonists become scared in context of ‘racial’ contact. Arguments about culture allow speakers to downplay or ignore the recent and longer political history of South Africa, while they transform segregation into an a-moral and a-political natural inevitability. Accordingly, Mike can defend his self-description as a racist (E1, par. 1) as a reasonable and a-moral response to the constraints that nature places on social relations: “I don’t believe we ever can change it and it never will change. . . It’s not a bad thing. It might sound like a bad thing but it’s not. It’s a natural thing, you know and that’s it.” (E1, par. 2). On the basis of his account of natural segregation, Fred can ward off accusations of racism while claiming that he doesn’t “think its right” for White families to adopt Black kids. He explains that he is not morally opposed to integration (“I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that”), but that nature is against integration, making it “very difficult for both families” (E2, par. 6). If segregation is natural then it cannot be bad. In addition to defending racism, lay ontologies of culture were also employed in offensive rhetoric, to criticize social transformation in South Africa. Arguments about natural cultural segregation were used to attack antiracist social policies, practices and agents as unnaturally forcing social change. Whereas segregation is natural, responsible 106 K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93Ð109 agents (e.g., the government, companies, politically correct ‘false’ individuals) have a hand in forcing integration. Their work is doomed to failure because it strives to “try and make people do things that they actually don’t naturally do” (E2, par. 4), and can only endupin“retard[ing] the system”. Like the justifications of racism, the critique of transformation was presented in the form of reasonable and thoughtful arguments. Under the constraints imposed by the workings of nature, only certain kinds of social relations will be possible, and only within certain time scales. Thus, for example, a number of interviewees recognized that change must happen – for example, “there’s no ways you can have segregation in this country” (E1, par. 1) – but argued that desegregation should follow a natural course, over generations, if it was to avoid forcing people, making them uncomfortable and scared –“you can’t just change things overnight” (E2, par. 4). While Fred acknowledges that some form of social intervention is desirable in order to “assist the process,” this should be restricted to the “odd little situation.” Leisure contexts, which are peripheral politically and commercially, are deemed most appropriate since they are least likely to make people feel uncomfortable. Similarly, “having a few Blacks on the beach” was acceptable, but being “swamped” or “crowded” was not. If the bounds of possibility are exceeded, for example, by bureaucratic quota systems in sport that “force people to do it [integrate]”, negative consequences will follow: “you’re actually going to retard the system” (E2, par. 4). In placing limits on ‘what is’ and on ‘what is possible’ the culture discourse acts ideologically in a reactionary politics: to halt, slow down, or change the form of social change to ways which are acceptable to this historically privileged and racist class.

8. Conclusion

Theories of the new racism in sociology and subtle racism in social psychology tend to magnify the distinctions between biological and cultural racism. Thus, Wetherell & Potter (1992) argue that “culture discourse” and biological “race discourse” operate according to “very different knowledge/power ax[es]” (p. 134). To a certain extent this is true. Biological discourse classifies and pathologizes racial bodies and closes down the possibilities for assimilation. Culture discourse, by contrast, differentiates groups on the basis of behavior, custom and ‘ways of life’, and admits the possibility of racial assimilation (e.g., on grounds of class mobility), while sustaining notions of cultural pathology. Nevertheless, our investigation suggests that the distinction between biological and cultural discourses of race should not be drawn too sharply, for they share core rhetorical features and theoretical assumptions. Both discourses posit the existence of ontological categories (biology or culture) and processes (e.g., natural segregation) that are common to human kind. A fortiori, both may function to render racism natural and inevitable, part of the ‘way things are.’ We have used Balibar’s (1991b) notion of theoretical racism to introduce the ways in which ‘culture’ is applied in racist discourse. The focus of the paper has been on his second ‘intellectual operation’ of racist discourse, in which theories about the processes and dynamics of human nature are developed as ‘anthropological universals.’ Our analysis of K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93Ð109 107 interviews with White South African holidaymakers has shown how racial segregation may be justified by arguments that employ theories of cultural processes to depict segregation as a universal, natural phenomenon; a simple fact of life. In our interview accounts, culture discourse drew its authority from scientific forms of reasoning, which were universalising and objectifying, and which sought to disconfirm plausible rival hypotheses. In effect, culture discourse provided a compelling system of reasoning which first developed a theory of natural segregation, and then criticized antiracist policies for an irrational, false (e.g., ‘politically correct’) and inevitably disastrous forcing of nature. In an effort to elaborate and concretise Balibar’s notion of anthropological universals, and to develop it as an analytic concept, we have proposed the term ‘lay ontology’. Lay ontology refers to a body of discursive content that is manifest as a chain of reasoning about the nature of human nature, and is used to accomplish discursive and ideological effects. This construct confers two advantages to the study of anthropological universals in racist and other discourse. First, like the analytic notion of interpretive repertoire (Wetherell & Potter, 1988), it orients the researcher to the (ontological) content of discourse and to the rhetorical mobilization of this content in the form of theories of ‘what is’. Second, it draws attention to the arguments of ordinary people. Accounts of the theoretical nature of racist discourse have typically focused on the reasoning of intellectual elites, and it is often assumed that popular racism is expressed in the form of unthinking prejudice. Discursive social psychology proceeds from an understanding of the ‘thinking society’ in which beliefs, values and ideas are reproduced, not only by elites, but also in the everyday discursive activity of ordinary people. Reasoning about issues such as segregation takes place as people debate the issues of the day, as they argue among themselves, read or listen to the arguments of others, discuss their experiences with friends and acquaintances, and reflect silently to themselves about their actions, choices and decisions. In our view, lay ontologies are fundamental resources for these activities, enabling people to ground their reasoning in theories of nature. Our analysis of the use of lay ontologies by White South Africans has drawn attention to three features of the use of ‘culture’ in racist discourse. First, it has shown how racism may be constructed as rational. Previous research has suggested that people attempt to deny racism in order to preserve membership of the moral community of the nonprejudiced (Billig, 1988, van Dijk, 1992). In contrast, in our interviews, there were a number of occasions where respondents self-identified as racists (see Extract 1, Par. 1). They did this, despite the strong sanctions against racism, by constructing racism as a natural inevitability, hence rational. Second, the analysis of lay ontologies highlights the role that disciplinary knowledge plays in racist thinking about culture. In developing accounts of human nature, our interviewees drew on popular theories rooted in the social sciences. Although it is widely accepted that biological discourses of race draw on scientific knowledges, the disciplinary basis of culture discourse has not been an important focus (but see Wetherell & Potter, 1995) and requires further investigation. Finally, studying lay ontologies realerts us to the ideological nature of racist discourse. One way that such discourse bolsters a reactionary politics is by colonising ‘nature,’ thereby placing limits on ‘what is’ and ‘what is possible’ (cf. Therborn, 1980) in the field of social relations. 108 K. Durrheim, J. Dixon / Race & Society 3 (2000) 93Ð109

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