The anatomy of ‘race trouble’ in online interactions

Abstract

South Africa has a long history of race-related conflicts in a variety of settings, but the use of the concept ‘racism’ to analyse such conflicts is characterized by theoretical and
\nmethodological difficulties. In this article, we apply the alternative ‘race trouble’
\nframework developed by Durrheim, Mtose, and Brown (2011) to the examination of
\nracialized conflicts in online newspaper forums. We analyse the conflicts using an
\napproach informed by conversation analytic and discursive psychological techniques,
\nfocusing in particular on the emergence and use of race and racism as interactional
\nresources. Our findings reveal some mechanisms through which the continuing
\nsalience of race in South Africa comes to be reproduced in everyday interactions,
\nthereby suggesting reasons why race continues to garner social and cultural
\nimportance. Disagreements over the nature of racism were also recurrent in the
\nexchanges that we examined, demonstrating the contested and shifting meanings of
\nthis concept in everyday interactions.