Talking class,talking race: language,class, and race in the call center industry in South Africa

Against a backdrop of declining manufacturing employment, this article uses a study of the call center industry to argue that English language proficiency is central to new service jobs in post-apartheid South Africa. Drawing on research in Durban, we in this study show that access to call center work—especially the highest paid niches—is heavily mediated by English language skills generally attainable only at the most elite high schools. In doing so, we argue that access to English-medium education can challenge racial disadvantage, but simultaneously that English can help to consolidate white privilege through the continued association of a ‘prestigious’ accent with whiteness. The study accordingly reveals the importance of language in the changing intersectionality of race and class and, in doing so, underlines the value of social and cultural perspectives in labor geography.     

“The Old Vexed Question:” Divergent Attitudes and Practices in the Sacred Music of Early Ballarat

When gold was discovered at Ballarat in 1851, the peaceful pastoral community was transformed into a rough mining camp. People from all parts of the world came in search of wealth, bringing with them a diversity of cultural and spiritual affiliations. As the musical life of the various denominational groups developed according to specific doctrinal principles and local influences, strong opinions were expressed in the community regarding the place of music in worship. This article looks at the developments in sacred music during the two decades that saw Ballarat transformed into a major city. The strong differences in discourse and practice that were evident between and within particular religious groups form a background for reflecting upon contemporary perceptions of the function of music in worship.     

Embodying violence: critical geographies of gender,race, and culture

The papers in this themed section collectively explore the intertwined geographies of corporeality and violence; to explore the ways in which narrow representations of race and culture are imbricated in the mis/understanding of gender based violence. This introductory essay draws out linkages across these papers, and to several themes in feminist geography. Combined, the four papers in the themed section offer new pathways for feminist geographers to consider. The authors connect the intimate and the global, the personal and the geopolitical, and offer critical insights into how feminist geographers might unpack entangled inequalities that give rise to distinct experiences of violence. Through their disparate studies, the authors also destabilize the assumptions mapped onto gendered bodies, particularly those that rely on racist, sexist, and classist representations of ‘culture’ and ‘community’ to describe gendered vulnerability. Subsequently, their analyses reveal how these assumptions simultaneously work to erase or ignore structural inequalities of capitalism or the state, which frame, contribute to and perpetuate violence against vulnerable bodies and geographies. They collectively underscore the epistemological, methodological and ontological possibilities of corporeal geographies particularly when tasked with intellectually analyzing both exceptional and everyday experiences of violence.     

James X: A reflection on rape,race, and redemption

In this narrative, the author reflects on the circumstances surrounding a rape attempt on her during the civil rights struggle in 1968.     

Nazi plans and Arab collaboration: New research about old questions

Dina Porat, The Blue and the Yellow Stars of David. The Zionist Leadership in Palestine and the Holocaust, 1939–1945, Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1990, 334 pp., $27.95.

Hagit Lavsky, Before Catastrophe, The Distinctive Path of German Zionism (Hebrew), Jerusalem, Magnes and Hassifriyah Hazionit, 1990, 292 pp.

Uri Bialer, Between East and West: Israel's Foreign Policy Orientation 1948–1956. (LSE Monographs in International Studies), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990, 292 pp., $35.00.

Amitzur Ilan, Bernadotte in Palestine, 1948, London, Macmillan Press, 1989, 308 pp.

Yoav Gelber, “Massada” — The Defense of Palestine during World War II (Hebrew), Ramat‐Gan: Bar‐Ilan University Press, 1990, 180 pp.

Vivian D. Lipman, Americans and the Holy Land through British Eyes, 1820–1917: A Documentary History, London, V.D. Lipman in association with The Self Publishing Association, 1989, 320 pp.

Michael J. Cohen, Truman and Israel, Berkeley, California, University of California Press, 1990, 342 pp., $24.95.

Un grand rabbin sépharade en politique 1892–1923, Textes présentés par Esther Benbassa, Paris, Presses du CNRS, 1990, 261 pp., 130 F.

David Schaary, From Plain Zionism to Unity and Split in the Early History of General Zionism, 1929–1939 (Hebrew), Jerusalem, R. Mass, 1990, 294 pp.

Mission to the Diaspora, 1945–1948 (Hebrew), [Efal], Yad Tabenkin, Ghetto Fighters House and Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1989, 635 pp.     

Establishing Ground: Representing gender and race in a mixed housing development

In this paper we explore the sociospatial transformation of the Columbia Point public housing project in Dorchester, Boston to Harbor Point, a mixed-income, multiethnic community. We examine gender, race, class and cultural representations of public housing generally, and of Columbia Point specifically, in order to understand the origin and significance of these representations for the physical and social designs of the new community. African-American women residents were and continue to be largely responsible for the transformation of the public housing project. We suggest how the combined representations of African-American women, the welfare system, single motherhood and public housing underlie media misperceptions of what the new Harbor Point is .     

Immigration,race and local media: Smethwick and the 1964 general election

In 1964, a small industrial town on the outskirts of Birmingham gained a reputation worldwide as Britain’s most racist town. The Conservative Party’s candidate, Peter Griffiths, bucked national trends in the General Election by winning a seat in Smethwick with a large majority, following a fiercely anti-immigrant campaign. Smethwick’s immigrant population was no larger than that of neighbouring towns, posing the question why such intense anti-immigrant feeling emerged at a local level? This article addresses the impact of local and regional media on public perceptions of immigrants in Smethwick during and immediately after the 1964 General Election, arguing that the local newspaper, the Smethwick Telephone, and ATV Today, ITV’s regional news programme for the Midlands, fuelled hostility and helped legitimise Griffiths’ campaign. By investigating the media’s influence at a local level, we can gain a greater understanding of the development of racial prejudice in British communities and the complex history of twentieth century media. This article further develops the work of Wendy Webster, Sarita Malik and Gavin Schaffer, who examine the framing of immigration by a range of national media forms but overlook the vital role of local and regional reporting in this process.     

Psychiatry and race during World War II

Although the American literature on "war neuroses" expanded during World War II, psychiatrists remained more interested in dramatic instances of "combat fatigue" than in the problems of soldiers who broke down far from the field of battle. This bias in the medical literature shaped both diagnosis and treatment. It had an especially powerful effect on African American soldiers who, in the "Jim Crow" army of World War II, were assigned in disproportionate numbers to service units. When military neuropsychiatrists did write about troubled young African Americans, many revealed a racial conservatism that was surprising given the liberal environmentalist paradigm of the day. (Here, a particularly useful source is the two-volume history of Neuropsychiatry in World War II, produced by the Medical Department of the U.S. Army.) The major challenge to such views came from the National Medical Association (NMA). Despite its many criticisms of military medicine, the NMA argued that African American soldiers and veterans needed more, not fewer, psychiatric services. NMA members also joined their white counterparts in the campaign to diminish the stigma of mental illness, especially among the families of soldiers returning home. We need more investigation of the subsequent history of race and psychiatry, especially within the Veterans Administration.