Moral Communities in a Race Status Negotiation: A Dorm Room Urination Case

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Abstract
In 2022, at a South African university, a white student was filmed urinating on the belongings of a black student. Although race was invoked as an a priori account for this incident, we demonstrate how race is made visible and relevant by participants in the interaction through an attempted, yet resisted, status degradation ceremony. Utilizing an ethnomethodological conversation‐analytic approach, we explicate how contrasting moral communities characterized by a/symmetrical deontic, epistemic, and affective rights are un/done in situ . We further demonstrate how shared orientations to past and present sociopolitical structures were necessary for intelligible interaction across private and public domains.
Funding Information
  • South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (150385)

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