Scott Burnett
Scott Burnett is an assistant professor of African Studies and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. His discourse analytical research takes an intersectional approach to race, gender, and sexuality in traditional and social media texts. He is the author of White belongings: Race, property and land in post-apartheid South Africa (Lexington Books, 2022) and has published his work in a number of leading journals including Men and Masculinities, Sexualities, Discourse, Context & Media, and Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.
Talk Information:
Why do white people still have so much power - both symbolic and material - in post-apartheid South Africa? In this book, I argue that the protection of white entitlement and the assertion of a cultural connection to the land are intimately interwoven. In the face of calls to “give back the land” white people have reasserted their belonging using discursive strategies which I analyze in environmental and social communication. Building on the critiques of whiteness developed by Cheryl Harris and Aileen Moreton-Robiinson, I show how “white belongings” remains a powerful discursive regime that motivates and rationalizes specific subject roles and institutions.