Abstract
To date, few attempts outside of social media have been made to understand privilege. This is especially true for the workplace and in further narrowing the focus, for South Africa. This study set out to explore and portray the different ways in which privilege is observed and experienced. To achieve this, a phenomenological research strategy was applied and semi structured interviews were conducted with 12 research participants in professional jobs who were mostly located in Gauteng. The most predominant themes that were extracted were denial of own privilege and language (exclusion from conversation, learning others’ language, sameness, forced assimilation, suppressing others’ languages), privilege and race (Black people are favoured, White people are favoured, credibility, blatant disregard, and birds of a feather); and privilege and sex (no disadvantage for men, working harder, objectification) were delineated, along with the denial of one’s own privilege. Findings revealed that in defining privilege, people could agree that it was the tangible or intangible unearned rewards that are afforded to some, based on some characteristic, but not others. This study has implications for the further exploration of issues such as Black privilege, privilege as experience in low-level jobs versus high-income roles, and policies that act to curb unfair treatment, discrimination, and oppression in the South African workforce.
M.Com. (Industrial Psychology)