Meredith J. Green

Reviewing whiteness : theory, research, and possibilities

This article is a review of the concept of whiteness and how the power and privilege of whiteness is reproduced within societies such as Australia and South Africa. As well as providing a broad overview of whiteness, our aim is to highlight and establish dialogue about how research on whiteness may contribute to decolonisation and work towards social justice. The review begins by outlining the meanings and complexity of whiteness. Having established some parameters for understanding whiteness, the second part of the article focuses on how whiteness reproduces itself. Three different, but related, practices or mechanisms through which whiteness is reproduced have been identified in the literature. These are knowledge and history construction, national identity and belonging, and anti-racism practice. In conclusion, we briefly discuss how we are investigating whiteness further in relation to pedagogy and applied research. While this article is not aimed at providing a complete review of whiteness, it does provide a background against which we can start thinking differently about racism, race relations, and anti-racism. These different ways of thinking include interrogating power and privilege in the analysis of racism, which in turn may lead to more effective and critical action addressing racism.

The Trappings of Home: Young Homeless People's Transitions Towards Independent Living

This paper describes the experiences of young homeless people in Western Australia during their transitions to more permanent accommodation and independent living. For these young homeless people, permanent accommodation provided an opportunity for ‘feeling at home’ and having a sense of control and stability associated with ‘home’. Within this space, these young people wanted to be considered ‘normal’ home occupiers. In this context, the paper discusses how young homeless people experience and negotiate the social and cultural understandings of home outside socially accepted pathways of leaving the parental home and becoming ‘normal’ home occupiers themselves. The paper shows how this experience of home, and the potential it offers previously homeless young people, is interrupted by discourses of youth workers, neighbours and society at large, which serve to (re)position them outside the community of ‘normal’ home occupiers. The findings have implications for both policy and the delivery of services to young homeless people.

Refining the Review of Whiteness: A Reply to Ratele, Stevens, and Steyn

We welcome the responses offered by Ratele (2007), Stevens (2007), and Steyn (2007) to our article reviewing whiteness. The commentaries provide a more nuanced and sensitive analysis of whiteness, particularly in relation to the history and context of South Africa. While whiteness studies is most certainly not the only, or even the most important, tool for understanding and opposing racism, the responses by Ratele (2007), Stevens (2007), and Steyn (2007) serve to bolster our conviction that a critical interrogation of whiteness is an important resource in continuing to develop effective approaches to anti-racism.