Short description
South Africa's democratic experiment is confronted with a central political dilemma: how to advance redress and address historical injustices while building a single national identity.
Long description
South Africa's democratic experiment is confronted with a central political dilemma: how to advance redress and address historical injustices while building a single national identity. This issue lies at the heart of many heated debates over issues such as economic policy, affirmative action, and skills shortages. Government has opted for racially defined redress while many of its critics recommend class as a more appropriate organising principle. The contributors to this volume challenge both perspectives. Both scholars and activists, and from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds, the authors explore the issues within four broad themes: the economy, education, sport and the civil service. Addressing the scholarly community, civil society and government, each of the authors brings their own unique perspectives to this question which is so crucial to the future of South Africa.
Review
The meanings of 'race' and its implications for political and social citizenship are of crucial importance to South Africa today. This volume opens up important avenues of enquiry and focuses attention of key aspects of the topic. --Jeremy Seekings, professor of political studies and sociology, University of Cape Town
Table of contents
- Section 1: Race and Redress in South Africa: Debating the Concepts and Analysing the Statistics
- Chapter 1: Racial Redress, National Identity & Citizenship in Post-Apartheid South Africa Kristina Bentley and Adam Habib
- Chapter 2: Counting on 'race': What the surveys say (and do not say) about 'race' and redress
- Steven Friedman and Zimitri Erasmus.