ISBN:
978-0-231-21340-0
,
978-0-231-21341-7
Language:
English
Pages:
206 Seiten :
,
Diagramme.
Parallel Title:
Online version Teeger, Chana Distancing the past
DDC:
305.8009680905
Keywords:
South Africa / Race relations / Study and teaching
;
South Africa / History / Study and teaching
;
South Africa / Race relations
;
South Africa / History / Historiography
;
Afrique du Sud / Relations raciales / Étude et enseignement
;
Afrique du Sud / Histoire / Étude et enseignement
;
Afrique du Sud / Relations raciales
;
Afrique du Sud / Histoire
;
Post-apartheid era / South Africa
;
Ère post-apartheid / Afrique du Sud
Abstract:
"South Africans and international commentators alike have held the country up as a global icon of racial reconciliation, using phrases like the "South African Option" and the "South African Miracle" to describe the transition from apartheid to democracy. For many, the lingering effects of histories of racial oppression are obvious. They are reflected in racial disparities in education and income, racially segregated neighborhoods, and everyday racial profiling and discrimination. But, for others, racism is a thing of the past, unrelated to individuals' opportunities in the present. Where and when do people learn about the relevance of the past for understanding and addressing contemporary racial inequality? In Distancing the Past , Chana Teeger identifies high school history classrooms as a crucial site where we learn such lessons. Focusing on the case of South Africa, she follows a group of students as they confront their country's apartheid past in desegregated schools.
Abstract:
She shows how young people are taught that racism is over, even as they encounter its ongoing effects in their everyday lives. These lessons help teachers avoid difficult feelings in their classrooms like like guilt and anger and reinforce nation-building myths. But these images and elisions belie the realities of enduring structures of racialized inequality and their deployment reinforces the idea that the past is done and dusted. This matters because if racism has indeed been dealt with then there is nothing left to do, no policies left to enact, but if the playing field is not equal then ignoring these legacies means that inequities can continue unchecked. These ideas are not unique to South Africa. They form the basis of "color-blindness" in a variety of contexts. But where do such ideas come from? And how do they take hold? Distancing the Past describes a variety of subtle yet powerful ways through which the past can be recalled but its legacies ignored.
Abstract:
Focusing on South Africa's first generation born into democracy, Teeger presents a potent view view of how racial ideologies are remade in the aftermath of de jure segregation, offering lessons for South Africa and beyond"--
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