Confronting Coloniality: The Potential for a South African Decolonial Theology of Whiteness

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to offer a potential theoretical framework within the discipline of African theology for engaging, subverting and transforming the phenomenon of Whiteness in the post-colonial, post-Apartheid South African context. This framework is developed through bringing three theoretical frameworks into dialogue with one another. These theoretical frameworks are South African Black Theology, Decolonial theory, and South African Whiteness Studies. Through the use of dialectical analysis I produce a South African Decolonial frame for theological reflection on Whiteness. Throughout this dissertation a selfreflexive method of study is also used. As a white scholar I regularly situate myself and my own Whiteness in the context of the discourse, allowing myself both as a scholar and as a person to be informed by black-led theory and black scholarship.