Reproduction and communication of apartheid relations of power through the discourses of Black Economic Empowerment in South Africa

This paper investigates the construction of the concepts of empowerment and transformation as they manifest through the discourse of Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) in South Africa. Using critical discourse analysis, the paper argues that key BEE documents such as the BEE Commission Report, the DTI BEE Strategy and the BBBEE Acts reduce the discourses of empowerment and transformation to the ahistorical and apolitical concepts of economic inclusion and participation. Previous studies have ignored the analysis of these fundamental discourses while framing BEE as a radically transformative policy that has only failed. Drawing upon Nancy Fraser and Marion Young’s concepts of justice, the paper finds that BEE policy documents appropriate and compound anti-colonial and anti-apartheid discourses to construct BEE as radically transformative without being transformative in conception and discourse. Thus, these policy documents are ideologically oriented towards the allocation of surplus resources among Black people rather than addressing the more central question of radically transforming social rules and unequal power relations of racial capitalism that determine economic relations. The outcome of these discursive practices directly contributes to the maintenance of these relations that continue to underpin the oppression of black people while giving the impression that something radically has been done about this oppression.