Extract

Abstract: The subject matter of this chapter is describing the research design of this ethnographic work. Firstly, I wish to distance myself from a body of social research that still deploys objectified racial categorisations as a point of departure, as an analytical category, and as an explanation of why people act the way they do. In contrast, race in this study is approached as a question of situated positioning of the speakers. Thus, assumptions of the racialised character of social memory can be overcome. Instead of an approach to the field that centres around the representation of different races as a point of departure, I argue for a comparative approach that is based on locality. Thus, the schools where interviews were conducted are located in six different areas in Cape Town that were primarily chosen because of their socio-economic background. My access to these schools and the particularities of their spatial environment as well as some trends in the South African school system after the end of apartheid are explained. The purpose of this chapter is to give an impression of how this research is ethnographically situated.

Keywords: ethnography, access to the field, race as analytical category, school system

Der regionale Kontext Südafrikas erfordert eine besondere Sensibilität im Umgang mit dem historischen Erbe von Race. Kategorien von Race, wenn auch in ständigem Wandel begriffen, waren politisch als Ausschlusskriterium eingesetzt worden und wirkten sich auf die materielle Existenzgrundlage aus. Ganz besonders zur Zeit der...