Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
5
The Visa Whiteness Machine
Transnational Motility in Post-Apartheid South Africa
MAX J. ANDRUCKI
Introduction
In the autumn of 2006, the South African Institute of Race Relations (SAIRR) reported
that the white population of South Africa had shrunk by over 16 percent between 1995
and 2005; that is, in the post-apartheid era (SAIRR 2006). More recent data indicate
that roughly half of all South Africans living overseas are in the UK, and that those
living in the UK have the most interest in and are the most likely to return to South
Africa. Keeping this mass migration in mind (though by no means one-directional), in
this article I bring into conversations current debates within literatures on geographies
of race and geographies of transnational mobility using the case of white South African
migration. This article examines mobilities—the mobile practices of the white, English-
speaking South Africans from KwaZulu-Natal. Beginning with a critique of approaches
to the study of race that privilege discourse and a brief review of materialist approaches
to understanding whiteness, I move on to discuss the visa regimes that facilitate access
of white South Africans to the UK and Europe, and then I draw on interview data to ar-
guethatwhitenesscanbeunderstoodasamaterialracialformationthroughitscontingent
coconstitution, at a variety of scales, with mobilities both past and present, or what I call
the “visa whiteness machine.”
More than Representation: Race, Mobility, and the Visa Whiteness Machine
Withinsocialscienceandthehumanities,whitenesshasbeenportrayedasprimarilyaso-
cially constructed, discursively mediated identity (Bonnett 2000; Dwyer and Jones 2000;
Hoelscher2003;Jackson1998;KobayashiandPeake1994;Pred1997;Vanderbeck2006,
2008). It is argued that race in general, and whiteness in particular do not have an onto-
logy, but rather an epistemology, or a way of knowing and interacting with the world. It
