A Privileged Minority's Reflections on Societal Change

The negotiated transition to a constitutional democracy in South Africa based on universal franchise, disentangled citizenship from race, reconfiguring the moral enablements, constraints, privileges and entitlements, as well as obligations and sanctions within society. Allocative processes to foster equity in society, threatened privileges enjoyed historically. These institutional changes reshaped the social psychological reality. Hence, questions of transformation are often grappled with, in daily conversations. In discussing transition, participants provide accounts of their own positioning in society and that of others, in a framework of what is deemed permissible within the public domain. These conversations provide insight into how participants manage their positioning in society and their local communities as well as the social capital they draw on to stake their claims to inclusion. This considers both continuity and disjuncture between the past and present. In addition, it raises the question of how whites, as beneficiaries of the previous system, relate to the past and view the future.