This chapter argues for a shift away from how we commonly treat values. Away from the notion of values as predominantly ideas, superstructural, mental phenomena, and towards a notion of values as embodied and spatialized manifestations, evidenced in the material and discursive spaces between embodied beings. Since racism has long been an emblematic feature of the South African social order, I direct attention to this ongoing problem area, with some comment on gender relations for which this new approach would be equally pertinent. This new angle of recasting an old problem

"wishes to open up a new look at racism as "between us", as "out there" in still existing spatial arrangements, as assigning us to different "places" and "positions", as continually involving re-produced forms of surveillance and gaze between us." (Foster, 1997, p.9).

 

Despite South Africa’s new constitution and numerous legislative measures, racism, as well as gender inequality, remains persistent in South Africa and in many other parts of the "globalized" community. If we take a fresh look at these discordant values, treating racism and androcentrism as sets of spatialized ensembles, it may offer different and newly creative means of resistance and enable alternative route maps towards the espoused value of a genuine non-sexist non-racialism.

Given that civil society participation was an active ingredient in the struggle against apartheid, it is not altogether surprising that debate about the role of, and place of, civil society in the continuing transformation of values remains a persistent and nagging question. Years after the first democratic elections and with a second, largely successful, round of national and provincial elections behind us, it is cliched wisdom that much has been achieved. However, a great deal more remains to be done, not least in overcoming poverty, unemployment, massive economic inequalities as well as crime and violence. Despite the formal passing of apartheid, South Africa remains deeply divided between rich and poor, urban and rural, men and women and of course still between black and white. Across these fault lines, and on other issuesreligion, language, violence, abortion, capital punishment, gun control among others—South Africans do not share common values. Value pluralism may not in itself be problematic if it is of the horizontal variety, different but equal. However if it is of the vertical variety involving pain, suffering, imposition, oppression, exploitation and domination then there are grounds for raising questions about value pluralism—and that itself expresses a particular value orientation. If a legitimate value is the eradication of domination and oppression then it is feasible to ask whether civil society has a contribution to make in the creation of such values.

Are there any core values in liberated South Africa? Through the past years of protracted, even painful, negotiations, through constitution making and through cycles of violence, four sets of core values—a frequently chanted mantra—have emerged as key guiding principles for policies and qualities of life. They are: non-racialism, non-sexism, democracy, and nation-building. The last term is a surrogate for nationalism, if you like. This useful set of core values is regularly backed up by a further set of concepts such as "open", "transparent", "accountable" and "equitable" in reference to desired processes of democracy. The relative success of the negotiated settlement has rendered as a value the very notion of "negotiation" in contrast to brute force, the latter a not unknown strategy of the apartheid era. The constitution in terms of the bill of rights spells out numerous values suggesting that neither the state nor any person may "unfairly discriminate directly or indirectly" against anyone on grounds including:

"race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, ethnic or social origin, color, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth" (para 9(3))

 

If we add other values expressed in the constitution such as freedom of expression, assembly, demonstration, association, movement and residence, freedom of trade, occupation and profession, children’s rights, property rights along with expression of good intent in terms of environment, water, health care, housing, and social security, education and access to information, linked with a range of legal and justiciable rights, then it is a heady list. The constitution is of course not without its dilemmas and tensions (some expressed in this volume) but certainly in terms of official discourse, South Africa is not lacking in terms of a carefully negotiated set of core values and principles.

Why not leave the matter of values to the state then? There are a range of reasons not least the contradictory fears of state power and state weakness. Given the historical skew of racialized production of economic power and numerous other existing inequalities, it is neither reasonable nor hopeful that the state alone can correct the heavy skewdness of the past. On the other hand, given the diversity of a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and religious population, there are worries, at least from some sectors that the state might ride roughshod, despite the best intentions of constitutional values, over particular minority values and interests. Clearly the state has a considerable role to exert in producing positive values, but if the state is insufficient, incompetent or incapable of legitimate delivery then to which alternative sector could we turn in search of positive values? Recent optimism has suggested civil society as a potential site and agent of transformation.

The main burden of this chapter however is to re-examine the single value, concerned with racialized quality, and to view it against the grain of dominant conceptualizations, as a spatial construct, opening a way for treating values as configurations of embodied relations rather than only as relations of "minds", ideas or attitudes. A shift of this sort may present different ways of treating values as well as offer differing strategies. Along the way the notion of civil society will also be treated to a spatial turn.

Despite the manifest evidence that racism in South Africa, in both its segregationist and apartheid phases, predominantly took shape in the form of spatial engineering, it is surprising how little attention has been given to theorizing "race" and racism in terms of space (for some exceptions see Christopher, 1994; Goldberg, 1993; Robinson, 1996; Western, 1981). This is not altogether surprising since it is only during roughly the past decade that the notion of space, drawing on the work of cultural geographers, has received attention from social theorists (Harvey, 1989; Soja, 1989; Lefebvre, 1991; Thrift, 1996). If space has not been of primary consideration in theorizing racism, what have been the dominant forms of understanding racism?

Parallel with those other explanatory antinomies (individual-social; micro-macro; actor-structure) which have bedeviled social theories over much of the twentieth century, thinking about racism has been divided characteristically in terms of either psychological or sociological forms of understanding. Strategies to challenge racism also became bifurcated during the 1980s when two dominant but conflicting tactical lines emerged: multi-culturalism and anti-racism. The first theoretical cluster saw racism primarily in terms of psychological processes, racism as prejudice or negative attitudes, stereotyping, projection and similar constructs. The problem in this view was located predominantly in people’s heads, and strategies centered around education, the correction of faulty representations of others and unlearning dominant stereotypes.

The second theoretical cluster and associated strategy, anti-racism, increasingly from the 1960s saw the problem as a structural issue, as "institutional racism", linked in some instances to the structural arrangements of capitalism itself; for example dual labor markets, or in other versions attributed to cultural institutions. Although rather over-simplified here, by the mid 1980s this general pattern of two theoretical clusters and two broad strategies was solidly in place. Despite bitter battles between the contrasting poles, by the late 1980s both forms were subjected to sharp criticism. With shifts in social theory in general due to influences such as feminism, post-structuralism and the "linguistic turn," a cluster of writers developed more nuanced approaches sensitive to class and gender variations in racial formations as well as greater complexities and specifics of the significance of racism in everyday experience. Regarding strategies, theorists such as Goldberg (1993), Gilroy (1993), West (1993a, 1993b) and Wieviorka (1995) among others advocated a new pluralism of effort, expressly ruling out the notion of a single correct line or strategy. Tactics should be revised and refined in relation to particular and changing tasks at hand, according to the pragmatic approach of Goldberg (1993). While certainly not all of one piece, the newer theories of racism have in common a constructionist and discursive stance, critical of the essentialism of earlier theories, claiming that:

"identities are not fixed, nor static, but shifting and de-centered; that cultures are hybrid and in flux. It shifts attention to theoretical matters of representation, discursive constructions and rhetorical strategies in the daily reconstruction of racism" (Foster, 1999, p. 334)

 

In South Africa, thinking about "race" and racism has following similar contours. From the 60s to the 80s the field was dominated by the fiercely contested "race-class" debate between liberals and leftists which in many ways mirrored the individual-social bifurcation of theorizing elsewhere. Into the 1990s, although to some extent theoretical work gave way to the more pragmatic fervor of political transition including an intense debate about the future role of civil society, thinking about racism in South Africa also evidenced shifts to the discursive and constructionist perspectives (Bozzoli and Delius, 1990; Levett, Kottler, Burman and Parker, 1997). There is certainly merit in such theoretical shifts, not least in that the very notions of multiple, fluid and contested identities open up a way of thinking about change. Yet, while there is a good deal of talk of "disruption", "re-writing", "re-narration" about racialized identities, and while in agreement that these are necessary parts of change, the newer discursive theories are often rather thin and silent on postulating strategies and political agencies for transforming racism. Political strategy is not necessarily one of the virtues of some versions of constructionism, particularly for those who take the "relativist" rather than the "realist" route-maps through this new terrain (Parker, 1998).

Why should we turn to space in searching for another way to "see" the continuing practices of racism? Partly since the concept of space evokes a related set of other concepts which constellate to form an assemblage of constructs largely missing from previous theories. It is sufficiently commonplace to remark that the dualisms of enlightened thinking require repair and that the return of notions such as bodies, space and time may assist in that reconstruction. In justifying a spatial conceptualization of racism it is possible to list a number of "grounds."

First it is readily apparent that many linguistic terms characteristic of racism are also spatial terms; examples include segregation, zoning, locations, distancing, exclusion, marginalization and quintessentially the term "apartheid." Discursive codes catch the core element that racialization is less in the mind and more in the realm of spatial distantiation.

Second, it is since we are embodied beings that space becomes salient. As bodies we take up space, we exist in locales, we distribute collective bodies in particular zonings (nations, classes, genders), we desire our own bodied places, and we place certain bodies in particular places for purposes of social control (prisons, exile, madhouses, status displays). It almost goes without saying that material bodies are those objects onto which are inscribed ontological status ascriptions such as "race", sex, gender and disabilities. Bodies are not mere bodies with abilities, powers and constrictions; they are always spatialized.

Third, space is salient since it denotes a point of view: it has taken some time to grasp that there is no "god’s eye view". This raises epistemological questions of considerable note for the investigation of "we" and "they", identity and otherness.

Fourth, spaces, as we know from everyday experience do not remain static, which raises the question of change. Change is referenced by time, so time and space, analytically distinct, are always interrelated. It is again fairly commonplace to remark that "globalization" marks off new configurations of space-time linkages. Racialized identities are historical as much as they are geographical.

Fifth, space embraces both material discursive dimensions; zones, boundaries and exclusions may be both symbolic and physical. This provides links between the discursive turn in social theorizing without neglect of the materiality of embodied locations. Nation-states are "imagined communities" (Anderson, 1983), that is, discursive constructions, as much as they are geographical boundaried entities.

Sixth, a spatialized conceptualization of identities—racial, gendered, classed—in terms of "position" or "positioning" goes further than mere geographical location. For instance Harré and Gillett (1994) proposed that identities should be regarded as an integrated system of locations in four interrelated manifolds: in space (a point of view); in time trajectories; in a moral location (responsibility within spaces of mutual obligations and values); and in social spaces—positioning in a structured ordering of people in terms of status and power arrangements (Harrè and van Langenhove, 1999).

Arguing for a spatialized conception of racialization is to make claim that first, "races" are bodily inscriptions, and second that racialization entails above all else, notions of boundaries and separations: spatial assignments. Categorizations and classifications (Bowker and Star, 1999) erstwhile conceived of primarily in cognitive terms, as certainly they are, are not reducible to the realm of ideas; categorizations as boundaried structures are also heavily spatial: trees do not belong in houses. At the same time, racialization inescapably is a bodied process; it marks its imaginary myths upon particular bodies. Bodies and spaces, both of which are simultaneously material and symbolic, are inextricably intertwined in the process of racialization: these bodies "belong" in these locales, those bodies are consigned to the other spaces. Racialization is a process of evaluation, generating values; sorting and sifting wheat from chaff then inscribing those valuations upon these bodies and those spaces. Racism (as androcentrism, although it may follow different contours) as ideology is a social process of inventing values which are stamped upon, insinuated into embodied spaces.

It may be feasible to map different kinds of racialized space according to a grid of "levels" of analysis, ranging from international spheres to local, immediate places as well as psychological space. This is merely an analytical device allowing a description of the different spheres in which racism may be located. Boundaries between the various "levels" are not tightly stitched, yet principles of ordering space may differ across forms or levels; nevertheless racism, and androcentrism, is manifest in spatial terms at all levels.

At the international or world sphere, spatial orderings have existed for centuries between those governed by power relations of conquest, colonialism and imperialism. In these territories, often conceived of in gender terms as feminized, as "open", to be "plundered" (McClintock, 1995), were taken and their native inhabitants subordinated, "civilized," destroyed and moved. Under the spatialized spirit of imperialism, colonized people were depicted not only as far from the metropolitan center but also as distant or "backwards" in terms of a developmental scale marked off as civilization. Both spatial (core-periphery) and time (developed-developing) metaphors still dominate the discursive grid of the international sphere.

The national sphere naturalizes both space and the categorization of people into groups, linking these two—space and its people—on the one hand into a "natural" discourse of entitlements, rights, legitimation for citizens and, on the other hand, powers to exclude "others." The idea of nation often articulates closely with that of "race," for instance, the case of immigration in post-war Britain, and the notion of a two tier citizenship. In the case of both East and South Africa, Mamdani (1996,1998) has described a differentiated citizenship linked to spatial arrangements; why settlers can never become natives. While settlers have access to civic space which has technically become de-racialized, natives have ethnic or racialized spaces rooted in notions of customary or group rights, a legacy of colonial systems of differentiated or indirect governance and the demarcation of customary space and rule for native dwellers. Native identity under colonialism was defined by a purported ancestral area governed by customary law. Following independence, this distinction between civic and ethnic national identities remained, defined partially in spatialized differentiations. It is in these terms that right wing Afrikaners have made claims for group rights, beyond the individual-based rights of civil identities and for a particular Afrikaner location; for multiple reasons, a space not yet found. Clearly this two-tiered spatialized system of citizenry and identity remains an impediment to the completion of non-racialism, even in the post-colonial and post-apartheid era.

Grand apartheid formed one of the most definitive cases of the partition of racialized national space in effectively excluding through "Bantustan", "homeland" and "independent state" policies the racialized other from citizenship in the land of their birth. In the post-apartheid era, despite official de-racialization, the spatialized legacies remain largely intact while there are also bids for the return of ancestral spaces to particular ethnic groupings—a reproduction of racialized space which confirms Mamdani’s notion of a two-tiered national subjectivity. Beyond South Africa, while most nation states now are constituted as multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic, national territories still frequently carry deeply embedded assumptions of a "national", (a veiled veneer of racialized) people rightfully belonging to that space, while the distribution of places within national boundaries maintain erstwhile racial signifiers in relatively unaltered spatial relations.

Writing at a time, early in the year 2000, when so called "land invasions" in Zimbabwe summoned international media headlines, it is readily apparent that questions of land ownership and distribution, private property and informal settlements all remain as burning issues in post-colonial and post-independent Africa. In the new constitution of South Africa, property rights are entrenched:

"No one may be deprived of property except in terms of law of general application, and no law may permit arbitrary deprivation of property" (Clause 25, chapter 2)

 

While there are clear commitments from the state, marked off in the constitution, to land reforms and that such reforms are intended "to bring about equitable access to all South Africans natural resources, and property is not limited to land" (Clause 25, 4a and b), it is also clear that given the centuries of accumulation of land and property resources under colonialism and apartheid, it will take decades if not longer to transform. Ownership of land and property, as Marxist analysts have long since recognized, provides means for wealth, production and accumulation. Despite the political transformation in South Africa, the skewed ownership of land, mines, factories, buildings and housing remains heavily racialized and provides means for future wealth production. Rural and urban divisions, and their relation to poverty, provide additional indices of the racialized distribution in spatial terms.

The legacy of the Group Areas Acts and a host of further "squatter" Acts under apartheid remains potent. A series of studies on the informal settlements within Hout Bay during the post-apartheid era, has demonstrated the continued racialized depiction of spatial entitlements (Dixon, Foster, Durrheim and Wilbraham, 1994; Dixon, Reicher and Foster, 1997; Dixon and Reicher, 1997). As an example of "new racism" or "subtle racism", white residents of Hout Bay, instead of making direct reference to race, nevertheless discursively constructed the continued spatial entitlements in terms of cultural differences, territorial invasion and ecological issues. Ecologically grounded rhetoric referred to increased population overload, destruction of coastal habitats and damage to the "fragile" scenic beauty. Spatial talk, ostensibly not about "races" at all, or sharply defensive about racist allegations ("I’m not a racist, but . . ."), nevertheless post-apartheid speech manages to construct a spatialized racism of a new sort, which serves to justify spatial exclusivity and maintain broadly the status quo.

A third form or "level" worthy of consideration is that of urban and city space. For instance in both Britain and America, racialized space is most notably evident in urban areas. Crowded and decaying inner-city ghettos are home to most black persons in the West. Physical boundaries and divides such as highways, railways and parks constitute the frames and grids of spatial separations So, too in South Africa.

Despite political transformation in South Africa, the spatial divides in urban areas have shown relatively little alteration; there are few fully racially integrated districts in most South African cities. Most areas, whether housing, business or recreational places, remain recognizably black , white, colored or Indian in terms of the former "population registration" categories. Such ritualization of space in cities is not merely a question of continuing de facto segregation but also signifies matters of unequal resources in terms of amenities, transport, recreational and cultural facilities as well as differential subjectives in the sense of place and belonging, cities are also "mapped" in subjective, psychological terms. Inhabitants have detailed "mental maps" of city spaces, of places that belong to some people but not to others. Otherness of space is related to "othering" of people and ritualization looms large in the mental mapping of South African urban settings.

A fourth distinguishable "type" is that of local, immediate space. People live their lives, carry and present their bodies in local face-to-face interactional spaces: buildings, houses, offices, theaters, churches, pubs, beaches, playgrounds, restaurants and meeting places both public and private. Immediate spaces are ordered in more informal means than the laws which govern international, national, and urban demarcations. Interactional space tends to be governed rather by norms, historical customs, and cultural conventions as well as, importantly, but often neglected, the representational and organized rituals of bodies. In different places, bodies customarily do different things, immediate space is embodied space, and bodies are always "sexed", "gendered", "racialized" and "abled" or disabled, as well as carriers of other forms of identity such as status and class. Given that everyday life is so taken for granted, analysts tend to neglect the extent to which immediate lived spaces continue to be racialized. In South Africa, years after non-racial elections, there are relatively few interactional settings, not least those of civil society itself, which are easily and comfortably non-racial.

A final "level" may be referred to as psychological space. While this may have many meanings, one central component has to do with a sense of security, a notion of bodily integrity or vulnerability in the face of spatialized threats. There are spaces where people feel under psychological or bodily threat; unsafe areas. By contrast there are places where one feels "at home", safe, secure, comfortable or relatively invulnerable. The security sense epitomized by home territory is readily captured by descriptions of burglaries and break-ins as an experienced sense of "invasion", "threat" or feeling "sullied". This psychological sense of space has considerable import in the perpetuation of ritualization in discursively constructed notions of "swamping", being "over-run" or spatially threatened by the "other". Crime, both in experience and rhetorical constructions, readily plays on fears of spatial integrity thus lends a hand in the reconstruction of racialised distancing.

On the opposite pole, psychological space also refers to the attraction between particular bodies: loves, intimacy, friendship, closeness, companionship and, not least, sexual desire. Both forms, that is, security threats and attraction/desire, involve spaces between bodies—processes that drive us asunder in fear, loathing, revulsion or those that draw us together in warmth and desire. And both processes are far too readily susceptible to being racialised. On the attraction front while exceptions are to be found, there is scant evidence that non-racialism is the norm in post-apartheid South Africa.

If it is possible to map five sorts or "levels" of spaces within which ritualization occurs, what has this to do with civil society and transforming values? First and above all, civil society would be required to deal with the transformation of material space and, in its various manifestations, it may be ill-equipped to do so. Second, civil society is often conceived of as a structure only within particular, national, boundaries. If it is to deal with racism conceived spatially as a phenomenon at multiple, including international levels, then civil society itself will be required to organize and act at cross-national levels. Third, if racism as a negative value, operates at multiple levels ranging from international to the subjective, and in terms of differing sets of processes ranging from formal laws to customary rituals of bodies, then civil society, if it intends to be a player in value transformations will be required to be sufficiently flexible to accommodate a variety of strategies. We shall return to further questions about civil society following consideration of the dimensionality of space.

Levels or types are merely the preliminary descriptive mappings. They suggest little in the way of the processes of managing, controlling, seizing, representing or historically changing systems of spaces. If racism is analyzed in spatial terms we would need to consider a number of dimensions of space: public-private, material, discursive and representational; power and control; and the nature of boundaries.

Public-Private Dimensions: There is room to consider only two aspects here. The relationship between public and private dimensions of space has shifted over the historical course of modernity, sharpening the distinction between the inner, immediate, personal, domestic and the outer, public, political and mass phenomena. It is commonplace that this dimension is profoundly genderized, but how does "race" map on to the public and private? This has been given less attention, and here only two components of potentially complex mappings are considered.

First, racism produced the effect of displacing oppressed people from the public realm, the place of the powerful. To some extent the passing of apartheid has begun to turn the centuries long current. While the political sphere has been turned substantially, but not entirely, for instance questions over the influence of the negotiated compromise on civil servants. This is perhaps the only public area in which black persons and to some extent women have come to take rightful places. In many other public spheres—arts, culture, law, media, finance, agriculture, business—and not least in civil society (arguably more public than private) itself, influence and positioning has not yet become fully non-racialised.

Second, if we are to believe some of the recent theorizing regarding "new", "subtle", "aversive" or "covert" racism (Foster, 1999), then racism as an ideological process is shifting away from the public and towards the private sphere. If so, that renders imperative new theorizing about racism. Achievement of non-racialism at a public dimension without transformation of domestic spheres, private spaces or subjectivities would constitute a failure to transcend racism. New and differing strategies would have to be sought.

Material and Discursive Dimensions: Space is inescapably both concrete and discursively re-presented. Space, while there and here, is not simply here and there; it is at least partially constituted in and through theories, narratives, maps, metaphors, pictures, linguistic tropes and rhetorical commonplaces. However, in the fashionable, and important discursive shift, the materiality of space has perhaps become elusive. Space is material in at least two ways: it poses limits and restraints, and it is productive; it enables productivity of wealth and itself constitutes a value.

Despite technological inventions which have radically transformed space-time configurations, spaces as distance, as rough terrain, as humanly inhospitable or as (since they are bodied) barriers still impose restraints of various sorts. Despite the relatively limited distance between Robben Island and the mainland, few if any, prisoners achieved the crossing and escaped. Space in simply material terms has been widely and effectively utilized to separate, exclude and mark off racialized others. On the other hand, spaces as productive and as valuable have similarly been used to enable and reproduce wealth for one group rather than another. The South African situation is an unceasing case, with few exceptions, of the oppressed being driven off into desolate, dusty, unproductive spaces while invader-settlers seized mines and coasts and other sumptuous places, a situation little altered by the past few years. At the same time, space is named, represented, depicted, debated and argued: it is inescapably discursive and symbolic. The implications are clear: transforming racism calls for change in both material and discursive/symbolic dimensions.

Boundaries-space between space: Any question of difference, whether in terms of sexuality, gender, nationality or racialized identity, at its core has to pose the issue of boundaries. At a time theoretically when numerous epistemological challenges have posed threats to essentialism, questions of edges, borders, boundaries, of spaces between spaces appear more salient than earlier. If difference appears no longer to lie at the center or essence of persons or groups, then perhaps it has to do with the construction, maintenance, management, performance, policing, and reproduction of edges, surfaces and boundaries. A boundary in spatial terms is a marker, (a contour, a shape, a barrier) between two or more spaces. As bodily skin, a salient marker for purported "races", locates the difference between inside and outside, and the distinction between one body and another, so boundaries are the markers between "us" and "them". At one level the skin itself in terms of hue (for "race") is the boundary marker of difference.

Boundaries have a further quality; they are invariably policed or regulated in various modalities. Different types of boundaries may be managed in differing ways. A simple three-fold typology of boundaries is proposed here more as a heuristic device than exhaustive analysis. First, material boundaries, which are of two sorts—natural and humanoid—are policed in two ways. Natural boundaries such as oceans, mountains, deserts may be sufficient as natural objects to serve as barriers. The icy currents between Robben Island and Cape Town may be sufficient in themselves. Physical barriers are as varied as human inventiveness: consider the Berlin Wall, electrified fences and railway lines. Apart from their material qualities as impediments, they are also often policed through secondary means : guards, surveillance technologies and passbooks.

A second form of boundary may be described as social : economic class, limited education, poverty, status hierarchies, perhaps even poor health. The policing devices in this case are primarily economic, such as "market forces", political (state policies) and cultural, for instance prestige arrangements. Legal systems backed by repressive state apparatus constitute a potent means of constructing restrictive social boundaries, as evidenced by the history of apartheid.

A third type of boundary, also widely varied, may be described as discursive. Laws, signs, notices, proclamations, regulations, certificates, even passports are all examples. Language codes, speech markers and a range of non-verbal devices may constitute further markers of difference. Above these instances rise the scientific and cultural "grand narratives" which go to make up racist and patriarchal ideologies providing justification for domination and exclusion. The policing and management device in this instance is that of linguistic and cultural systems in themselves. Discourse "does things", as the linguistic turn is fond of telling us; it is not merely re-presentation. The proposition here is that exploring spatial metaphors such as boundaries may offer fruitful avenues to understand values that divide people. If racism is viewed as a construction of edges, markers, spaces and boundaries rather than as essences, then it may open alternative ways of collapsing barriers, challenging boundary maintenance and re-connecting spatial divides. If civil society is a potential arena for the promotion of positive values it would be well to attend to spatial dimensions which recreate division, exclusion and domination.

In South Africa, a sharp exchange of ideas emerged in the transition period among both activists and intellectuals (Fine, 1992; Fitzgerald, 1990; Glaser, 1991, 1997; Mayekiso, 1992; Nzimande and Sikhosana, 1992 to cite but a few references). The debate was open, sharp and welcome. In retrospect, however, it provided little clarity on the problematic topic which

"remains confused and ever mysterious despite the enormous debate that has mushroomed since the 1990s." (Alexander, 1998b, p. 224)

 

The South African debate, while useful in giving attention to a sphere both important and neglected, raised as many problems as solutions. In hindsight, the debate raised some pointers, of three main sorts. First, from most sides the notion of civil society, as an arena beyond the state and market, was generally positively valued, by activists and intellectuals alike, undoubtedly due to the role of this sector which included unions, civics and a plethora of organizations under the umbrella of the United Democratic Front, in resisting apartheid. Second, the debate brought to the fore the notion that there was no consensus regarding the very idea of civil society: on one side it championed the policies of the African National Congress, on another it stressed the unions, elsewhere the township civic organizations, on a further angle it emphasized the liberal conception of a watchdog function against the state, in yet other stances it promoted organs of peoples’ power and socialist ideals: there was no agreement on either the core, nor the principal agents of civil society; no bad thing. Third the debate brought out differences in the boundary relations (Alexander, 1998a) between civil society and other sectors. For some, the state had to be the central agent of racial and economic transformations and civil society ought to be in close alignment with the state. For others a key relationship was to be between civics and local government. For others the close boundary resonance was seen to be between civil society and grassroots organizations.

One of a number of possible responses to the problems of theorizing about civil society is to treat it in spatialized terms, that is, as a rather loose set of interrelated spaces beyond the larger scale coercive structures of state and market on one hand and the other hand, emotional spheres such as religion, personal relations and the family. An advantage of such a treatment, is to avoid the dilemmas of accounting for precisely which types of organizations (churches, trade unions, universities) constitute exactly the civil spheres. In some modes, such organizations may operate in the spaces of civil society, in other respects fall on the margins: neither entirely in nor outside. In a recent paper, Glaser (1997) begins to treat the notion in this way, arguing that civil society is

"not a thing, or instrument or collective action or deliberative form or even, strictly speaking a `watchdog’—but rather . . . a kind of empty space . . . open to multiple uses by free and equal citizens." pp. 5-6)

 

In similar vein, while not taken further to theoretical stances, activists in the anti-apartheid era commonly called for using "the spaces available for struggle", a pragmatic and flexible position which was little concerned with how theorists may have wished to classify such places. It often produced innovative strategies of resistance and new alignments. This in turn is concordant with recent strategizing against racism, (Foster , 1999; Goldberg, 1993) which is opposed to overarching single-track theorizing but proposes flexible, multiple, shifting and pragmatic strategies using different positions, altering alliances and transgressive spaces for opposing dominative orders. Civil society in this view suggests an informally regulated social sphere constructed through various forms of communication and reciprocity and differing forms of solidarity via consensual rules and relatively shared values (Alexander, 1998b)—a sphere which, in itself, would be an instance of non-racialism at work: an exemplar case. In this sense civil society could be held to be a public sphere of potential solidarity and inter-subjectivity, which processes its own codes and narratives in a democratic form, is patterned by a set of particular institutions, and is visible in "distinctive sets of interactional patterns and practices such as civility, equality, criticism and respect" (Alexander, 1998a, p.7).

Treating civil society in a spatialized manner has a further merit in raising questions about boundary relationships. As a spatial phenomenon, civil society has relative autonomy of action but that depends on the nature of boundary relations with other spheres (Alexander, 1998a), that may either facilitate, or impair and intrude upon developments of a more civil life. Seen in this way, many questions arise. Does civil society work with, that is promote porous boundary relations with the state or the market economy, or does it set sharp limits to protect its sphere of relative autonomy? Where and how does it resist intrusions, or conversely seek to intrude into and influence other spheres? In this respect Alexander (1998a) suggests, civil society does not exist as such, but only to one degree or another depending on the particulars of boundary relations. In the recent past of apartheid it is clear that both the state and the market as well as the private domestic space placed limitations upon and permitted intrusions into the civil spheres in order to advance the case of racism. It should be clear enough from this history that the civil sphere is not intrinsically progressive or inevitably politically predisposed. Civil society is not immune from exclusionary systems (patriarchal, racist, capitalist) that operate ideologically in wider society and may indeed merely reproduce such values. Such certainly was the case under apartheid, and even now some organs of civil society such as professional associations can hardly be claimed to have turned the corner away from exclusionary values.

On the other hand, as Alexander (1998a) suggests, members of disadvantaged groups, maintaining dual membership, that is for instance as exploited workers and as members of a civil sphere, may use the latter space to stake claims for status. They may create voluntary organizations which demand fairness, participate in internationally linked social movements claiming rights and humane treatment, and so initiate "repairs" as well as boundary intrusions into the other spheres that are prime movers in manufacturing inequalities. Civil society in this view is no guaranteed set of institutions which act as guardians or promoters of positive values but a space adjacent to other spaces to allow manoeuvres, to make demands, and to set about "repairs" of the hurts of heartless exclusions. Civil society is unable to be fully institutionalized as such, rather it "provides a reflexive, liberating mirror for the restrictions and abuses" of wider society (Alexander, 1998b, p. 226).

In evaluating the possibilities of civil society, there is no need to follow the pessimistic prognosis of Keith Tester (1992) who points to the logical incoherence of civil society, to nevertheless concur with Glaser (1997) and Alexander (1998a) in warning gently not to ask too much of civil society. In a careful evaluation, Glaser (1997) concludes that a number of areas of civil society in current South Africa, for example townships, white farming areas, in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal are not characterized by civility but rather by violence and intimidation. Because of the "massive legacy of inherited inequalities", the declining influence of some sectors such as the civics and NGOs and the "essential diversity and non-purposive character of civil society" (p. 25) this sphere should not be seen as a magic key or as "a privileged site of democracy building" (Glaser, 1997). In South Africa the state in its various forms ranging from national to local government will be a key agent in transforming continued racism not least since it is this sector which holds the levers regarding spatial distributions, e.g., issues ranging from land reform through informal settlements to city spaces. The state has also a key role regarding the discursive and symbolic dimensions of racialised space: naming and labelling, monuments and memories, reclaimings and dismantling discursive alienations. In these respects, the place of civil society may well be that of open, facilitative boundary relations with the state, pushing and pulling where the state falls short.

Similarly Alexander (1998a) warns not to privilege civil society in contrast to the social and moral contributions of other spheres, and opposes the "idealization of civil society that is rampant in contemporary discussions," not least since it is difficult to institutionalize structures of real civil societies in the face of considerable economic inequalities.

To spatialize the notion of civil society is to recognize that there is no core of universal values intrinsic to this sphere, that it will involve messy processes of movements to and for, pushing and pulling, boundary transgressions and retractions and inevitable conflicts that come with democratic struggles. However, it is also to claim that on the edges, and in between other spheres, it offers spaces to move, cajole, persuade, organize and to form alliances against injustice and exclusions. If to transform racism is to change real spatial distributions and arrangements of bodies, ranging from international to local spheres, and from material to discursive barriers, then the messy spaces of civil societies should come to recognize that transforming racism—as boundaries between us—will require going beyond changing hearts and minds, and also include changing spaces.

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