Description: White Belongings critically deconstructs everyday white discourses of the land in South Africa at a time of increasing stridency and defensiveness over restitution and reform, showing how articulating environmental stewardship and belonging are interwoven with asserting ownership and control.
Brief description: Scott Burnett is Associate Senior Lecturer in the Department of Applied Information Technology at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and Associate Researcher at the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.
Review Quotes:
"White Belongings is a timely, insightful, and sometimes enraging discussion of the enduring power of white supremacy in South Africa. Burnett analyzes the pervasive discourses that associate South African whiteness with naturalness and ownership of land, space, and property. Accessibly written and vigorously researched, White Belongings is a valuable addition to the growing literature on whiteness in the global south." --Nicky Falkof, author of Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa
"In this original and vitally important book, Scott Burnett applies a post-structuralist analytic toolkit to questions of property, land, ownership, and control in South Africa, weaving them together with narratives of home and feelings of belonging that are rooted in histories of colonial dispossession and ongoing capitalist exploitation. Burnett's analysis of South African whiteness and the politics of land represents a significant contribution to contemporary debates regarding land redistribution and justice." --John E. Richardson, Keele University/University of the Sunshine Coast "Scott Burnett's book makes an important contribution to the study of whiteness by emphasizing the construction of a new white identity in South Africa that sheds the older, problematic white identity." --Tom Nakayama, Northeastern University ""Scott Burnett's beautifully written discourse analysis uncovers how understandings of the 'land question' in post-apartheid South Africa are shaped within the interlocking dynamics of colonial legacies, liberalism, the valorization of private ownership, and whiteness. Taking on some of the most cherished tropes of whiteness in Africa, Burnett demonstrates how white belonging continues to be institutionalized and materialized, despite political and economic reforms. The work makes a significant contribution to critical whiteness studies and will resonate well beyond the borders of South Africa."" --Melissa Steyn, South African National Research Chair in Critical Diversity Studies